Eccles Centre for American Studies

About Eccles Centre for American Studies

The Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library was established in 1991 both to promote the Library's North American collections among academics, students and the general public and to support the study of North America, primarily among students at institutions of higher education, but also among students in schools and sixth form colleges. At present the Centre's activities fall within the following categories: the creation and distribution of bibliographical guides to the Library's collections, answering letter and telephone enquiries on all aspects of North American history, literature and culture, teaching bibliography courses to MA students in American Studies, compiling and distributing to secondary schools and sixth form colleges a comprehensive annual guide to undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the United Kingdom, operating jointly with the Fulbright Commission a programme that brings scholars from eastern and central Europe and Egypt to London to use the Library's collections for several weeks, editing both the journal of the European Association of American Studies American Studies in Europe and the American Studies Library Newsletter, the journal of the Library and Resources Sub-Committee of the British Association for American Studies, and curating or contributing to exhibitions in the British Library's galleries.