About Library

The Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) is an All India Institute for Interdisciplinary Research and Training in the Social Sciences, established in 1972 to create a blend of field-oriented empirical research and advances in social science theories leading to better public policy formulation.

Dr VKRV Rao Library is one of India’s premier research libraries in social sciences. Since its inception in 1972, the library has been an integral part of the institution, providing efficient and timely support to the institute’s faculties, researchers, PhD scholars as well as to policy makers, administrators, consultants, students from all over the country. It holds a large collection of current and historical statistical sources produced by central and state governments and multilateral institutions. These include statistical yearbooks, bulletins, population censuses, trade statistics, and a large range of economic, financial and social data. The library plays a vital role in collecting, organizing and disseminating information for the benefit of researchers. The library is a depository library for World Bank. A notable treasure of the library is the collection of valuable books as a bequest from Bharat Ratna Sir. M. Visveswaraya and Dr. VKRV Rao Collection

Dewey Decimal Classification scheme is adopted for the processing of documents. The housekeeping operations and catalogue is computerized using Libsys integrated library software. Web based Online Public Access Catalogue search is provided to readers. Searches can be made by author, title, subject, class number, publisher or by words in title and Boolean search. The newly accessioned books and working papers are displayed on a monthly basis.

Library subscribes to online databases viz., EconLit, JSTOR, Prowess-CMIE, ISID, etc. Additionally, the library provides full text of 80 journals as online information on intranet to the reader community. Library has good number of collection on different social and economic aspects from various renowned organizations/ publishers across the world in CD-ROM. The Library has built an Articles Database with the coverage of journal articles published in the journals subscribed by ISEC library and it has about 65,000 articles index. A notable treasure of the library is the collection of valuable books as a bequest from Sir M. Visveswaraya and Dr V K R V Rao Collections. The library is maintaining an exchange programme of publications with a number of national and international institutions. ISEC Library is considered to be one of the best reference libraries in social sciences in southern India.