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Founded in 1559 by Jean Calvin, the University of Geneva has continued to grow and develop while maintaining its longstanding tradition of excellence with an international flavour.
The University of Geneva is the second largest university in Switzerland and is a public institution of the Republic and Canton of Geneva. It pursues three missions: teaching (classes, in general, are taught in French), research, and service to the wider community.
The University of Geneva, comprising seven Faculties (Sciences, Medicine, Arts, Economics and Social Sciences, Law, Protestant Theology, Psychology and Educational Sciences), an Institute of Architecture and a School of Translation and Interpretation, is a multifaceted institution of higher learning.
With around 15,000 students, the University of Geneva is, after Zurich, the next-largest university in Switzerland, and its numbers are constantly on the rise. The Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences are those increasing most rapidly in size. There are 2,265 FTE academics and 150 FTE library staff.
The University's high quality of research is reflected in the significant amount of grants it receives from the Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research – more than any other Swiss university.
There are numerous libraries spread over the different University buildings, all situated in the heart of the city of Geneva. The library of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences is located in the largest library building of its kind in Switzerland, Uni Mail, offering 1,300 places seven days a week.
Collections
The numerous libraries of the University of Geneva work within different Swiss library networks. The Geneva Library Network comprises around five million volumes, almost 20,000 electronic journals and about 200 databases.
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It belongs to the wider RERO Network (Library Network of Western Switzerland) and is part of the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries, which coordinates and negotiates electronic information on a national level.
The Library of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences (BSES) has 75,000 monographs, 4,500 reference books, 1,200 serial titles (both paper and online) as well as some specialised databases.
Materials and services
- The BSES web site is a gateway to Annuaire PLUS, a directory in French of 1,300 selected internet links for economics and the social sciences
- Full-text electronic serials (for Geneva Campus use only) More than 1,000 full-text electronic journals of the main academic publishers (Elsevier, Blackwell, Wiley, Sage)
- Cybertheses: e-archiving of student theses
- Specific online catalogue for the publications of faculty members
- Databases for economics and business include:
JSTOR, Business Source Premier, ECONLIT, LexisNexis, PAIS International, SourceOCDE, Web of Science
- CALIS (Computer-Assisted Learning for Information Searching), which was developed within the Swiss Virtual Campus Project, is a 26 hour e-learning course in information literacy for students in economics. It is compulsory for all students.
- SwissInfoDesk, the virtual reference desk about Switzerland: BSES is an active participating library.
Digital Library Projects
- Ongoing Virtual Union Catalogue (VTLS) for academic institutions of French-speaking Western Switzerland; BSES joined the first online catalogue in 1982 (SIBIL)
- Federated research tool and link resolver for electronic resources.
- Institutional repository: scientific publications of researchers should be available online in the near future.
- E-archiving Project on a national level
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