Library and Documentation Collections
The IISH reference library contains all relevant publications on anarchism and the anarchist movement worldwide. The library has the complete works of the great anarchist thinkers in various languages and editions.
In addition, the publications of the anarchist movements themselves, such as periodicals and leaflets, are available for research on the subject. For instance, printed sources originating from the International Working Man's Association (IWMA) are fully covered. The same is true for anarchist periodicals such as Le Révolté, La Révolte, Les Temps Nouveaux, and the Argentinian La Protesta.The collection of periodicals relating to Spanish anarcho-syndicalism during the Civil War is particularly large.
Two special collections in the library, Staatsarchief and CSD contain many flyers as well as image and sound and printed materials from the anarchist squatters and action scene of the 1970s-1990s. Information about their predecessors, anarchist militants from the 1890s, has been scrupulously collected by Augustin Hamon and is preserved in his archive.
Anarchism's peculiar relationship to utopianism is well documented in a Catalogue of titles on Utopian Communities, Colonies, Communes and other Experiments in Living Together, an extract from the complete IISG catalogue.
The Image and Sound department of the IISH houses photos, posters, badges, and audiovisual materials. It contains an impressive collection of pictures of militants from the Paris Commune 1871, the photo collection of Emma Goldman, the original photoreport of Kropotkin's deathbed and funeral, and thousands of original photos from the Spanish Civil War made by photographers associated with the anarcho-syndicalist CNT. All these materials may be retrieved through different types of searches in the IISH library catalogue and/or search platform.