Umbra’s Stacks
The Umbra Institute is equipped with its own library–a great resource for students while abroad.
It’s rare that a study abroad institution has a library of its own for its students. Most institutions rely on public libraries or the local university’s library as sources for their students’ research. Local resources alone would be great…as long as the local language weren’t a barrier.
While students at the Umbra Institute have access to three local libraries–Universita’ degli Studi di Perugia’s library, Biblioteca Augusta—the public library (which houses books up to four-hundred years old!) as well as the library at the Universita’ per Stranieri, students are fortunate to have a library of their own right here at Umbra.
The Institute claims an in-house library with nearly 3,500 books that’s constantly being enriched and expanded by its professors, some of whom have authored the books themselves. Complete with books in both English and Italian, Umbra’s bibliotheca has a rich selection on books ranging in many topics from Italian history, culture and food to politics, art history literature and the arts; photography, music, opera and cinema.
Umbra has furthermore just recently updated its cataloging system, enabling students to access the library’s catalog directly from Umbra’s networked computer lab which now has over 30 PCs and high-speed WiFi coverage throught the Institute.
Even more unique is Umbra’s access to online journals and databases including JSTOR, Wilsons and more. With independent research and honors programs becoming more and more popular at Umbra, it is imperative that students have access to as many research sources as possible. It allows the professors to ask more from our students when extensive research resources at their disposal.
The Umbra Institute will soon be initiating a library development campaign; We hope that alumni and friends of the Institute will help us reach our goal of 5,000 well-selected books by the fall semester 2012.