Collection

The Ukrainian Catholic University Libraries system is noted for the quality of its  rapidly growing collections and its service-oriented approach.  Thousands of readers from inside and outside the university use the libraries’ basic collection of more than 100,000 volumes.

Profile: The UCU Libraries reflect the institution’s mission as the leading humanities university in Ukraine.  The theology and Western European history collections are the largest and best in Ukraine.  The sections on art history and classical and medieval subjects are also significant.  Because the institution was violently closed by the Soviets in the 1940’s, the pre-war library was confiscated. Accordingly, the current collections began again in the 1990’s from a variety of donations and active acquisitions of new materials.

Languages: In addition to Slavic languages, the libraries hold over 50,000 recent volumes in English, German, Italian and French. Because of the numerous foreign-language books and periodicals, the UCU library has the only copy in Ukraine of many titles.

Access: The libraries offer open-shelf access to as much of the collections as possible, a unique policy among Ukrainian academic libraries. To make this open-shelf approach possible, the collection is classified by the Library of Congress system.

Special Collections: In addition to standard books and periodicals, there are also collections of samvydav (underground printed material), rare liturgical volumes, audio-visual materials, pamphlets, ephemera, and the university archives.  Various research institutes at UCU have distinguished oral-history audio and film archives.