Welcome to the HSRC Digital Library Home Page
In line with the HSRCs core strategy, which is to deliver social science research that makes a difference, generating research output that can have real impact on the community, the Digital Library brings you the latest research publications and discussion documents from the HSRC, as well as an archive of important HSRC research documents.

This page will bring you regular updates on what is new in the Digital Library and on discussions and debates taking place around social science issues. We invite you to bookmark it and to log in regularly to see what is new.

The publications in the digital library are freely available for non-commercial use and you can choose whether to read them on screen, download all or part of a document, or print it out on your printer. If you want a professionally printed and bound copy of a research publication, there is an e-commerce facility for ordering and paying for a printed book. By combining the benefits of the Web with the advantages of the print medium in this way, the HSRC aims to make its research findings available to as broad an audience as possible.

While publications in the Digital Library are free of charge, and can, for example, be used in the compilation of student course packs, they cannot be included in a commercial publication without permission.
Read the Terms and Conditions page for the different ways in which you may use the Digital Library for your purposes.

The publications in the Digital Library are presented in PDF format, to make them easy to print, as research shows that readers overwhelmingly prefer to print out longer documents. The files are fully searchable and you will find a Search button that will enable you to find what you want in a specific document or in the Library as a whole.

If you want to know more about using Adobe Acrobat PDF files, and how to use the navigation tools related to documents in the library, click here for the Adobe Acrobat information page.

If you want to order a printed and bound publication, then click on the Order button to check the price and place your order.

In opting for an open publication model, the HSRC is committing itself to sharing its research findings in the interests of development, rather than using the more conventional publishing model, of selling printed books through a commercial market. We welcome your comments on this open publication approach and also welcome any observations on the site itself.