In an exceptional funding opportunity between the AHRC and ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council), AHRC and ESRC-funded PhD students are offered the opportunity to benefit from unique access to the American Library of Congress (LoC) in Washington DC.
The Library of Congress is the USA’s oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in its vast collections.
Thanks to a relationship that the AHRC forged with the LoC two years ago, each year the AHRC are able to fund a number of UK PhD students to head off to Washington DC hoping to enhance their research careers with access to the internationally renowned research collections held at the Library. In 2008 the AHRC funded 17 such studentships.
Kate Harper was studying for her PHD at the University of
York when she won a Library of Congress studentship from the AHRC in 2007. Kate says, “When I applied for the scheme, it was simply to broaden my horizons within the research arena. However, when I started researching the Library, I realised I would have access to titles and collections that simply aren’t available anywhere else in the world.”
Kate spent four-and-a-half months at the Library researching her PhD in 19th century Catholic women’s writing. One particular collection, a complete archive of the Catholic magazine ‘Ave Maria’, which was held at the Library became the focus of her research during her time at the LoC. She says, “The Ave Maria magazine archive isn’t digitized and there are only two complete archives in existence, one at the LoC, and the other at Notre Dame in Indiana. Access to this archive has been pivotal to my PhD.”
As well being able to access the specialist collections held at the LoC, Kate also found the day-to-day research culture of the Library to be highly motivating and inspiring. She says, “Working on a PhD can be very isolating so the opportunity to interact with other researchers was a boost. By sharing ideas with colleagues and staff at the LoC, I was able to better organise my way of thinking, I was also gaining confidence in presenting and disseminating my work orally which has been invaluable to me.” Kate concludes, “I would thoroughly recommend the Library of Congress scholarship to anyone working on a PhD. It was an amazing opportunity and one for which I’m very grateful.”
Over the past few decades it’s been well documented that the UK loses some of it’s most elite young academic researchers to the United States - where they are attracted by the offer of superior research facilities and funding. Chief Executive of the AHRC, Professor Phillip Esler says, “Rather than UK researchers going to the USA for good, this programme gives PhD researchers the opportunity to spend up to six months working at what is the largest library in the world and to then bring back their new-found knowledge and expertise to their British Universities. This access will enable them to develop the depth, range and quality of their research activities as well as offering opportunities for networking with other international scholars working at the LoC.”
The AHRC will be announcing the competition for the next round (2009) of LoC funding in November 2008 - at which time full details will be available on this website.