General Information: The United States Information Services (USIS) Library, now known as The American Library of the American Embassy in Kathmandu, was opened on May 30, 1952.  The then Prime Minister, Matrika Prasad Koirala, inaugurated the library.  Soon afterwards, it gained enormous popularity and became a focal point of social and cultural events in the capital.

The American Library Kathmandu is an integral part of the American Center, the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy, and carries out a variety of activities designed to promote a better understanding of the policies, values, institutions, and culture of the United States.

The American Library is open to all.  As in public libraries in the United States, users may take advantage of the books, multimedia facilities, and information services available in the library. 

Membership registration for a period of 6 months costs Rs. 200 for students and Rs. 300 for service holders and non-students.  Renewal charges are Rs. 100 and 150 respectively.   Members may check out two books at a time for a period of three weeks, after which a late fee of Rs. 1 per day is charged. 

Collection: Currently, The American Library contains approximately 6000 books and 43 DVDs in the fields of international relations, economics, arts and humanities, and U.S. society.  In addition, the Library now has 100 famous American movies and 5 online databases, which cover leading journals related to business, social sciences and other fields. 

Classification System: Books are classified according to the Dewey Decimal Classification System, and are arranged on the shelves in numerical order.  Magazines are shelved alphabetically.

Periodicals and Newspapers: The collection of 71 periodicals is the most complete selection of American magazines available in Nepal.  The library also subscribes to popular newspapers, including The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times.

Online services: The library offers the use of the Internet for research on America and related subjects.  The library charges a nominal cost of Rs. 2 for printouts and Rs. 1 for photocopy service per page.  The library is moving towards greater electronic access of information.  Presently, several commercial and government online services are available to assist your research needs.  The subscription-based online services include:

• Factiva®: A Dow Jones & Reuters Company, provides essential business news and information together with the content delivery tools and services that enable professionals to make better decisions faster. Factiva's unrivalled collection of more than 10,000 authoritative sources includes the exclusive combination of The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times™, Dow Jones and Reuters newswires and the Associated Press, as well as Reuters Fundamentals, and D&B company profiles.  
  
• EBSCO host: The American library has the following EBSCO Host databases:
  -Business Source Elite: Provides full text for nearly 1,040 journals covering business, management, economics, finance, banking, accounting, and much more.
  -MasterFILE Premier: MasterFILE Premier provides the full text for nearly 1,860 periodicals covering nearly all subjects including general reference, business, health, and much more.
  
• GaleNet: GaleNet is a one-stop shopping database for The Gale Group products available on the World Wide Web.  This covers The Encyclopedia of Associations; Contemporary Authors; Research Centers Family of Directories; Directories of Publications & Broadcast Media; Gale Directory of Databases, Gale Guide to Internet Databases; Biography Resource Center; Super LCCS; and Gale Business Resources. 
  
• Lexis-Nexis: (Access to Lexis/Nexis Universe, Lexis/Nexis Research & Political Universe):
  A full text database of current and historic federal legislation, bill tracking, bill texts, state legislation, case law, law reviews and over 6,000 full text news sources and periodicals, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and AP wires.  
  
• ProQuest Direct: Accessible on the Internet through the World Wide Web, ProQuest Direct provides immediate access to an extensive collection of newspapers, journals, periodicals, magazines, and other information sources.  It provides access to over 400 full text periodicals in the following formats: citations, abstracts, full text, image and image/text (image is not available for all 400 periodicals).  It also provides citations and/or abstracts of over 1600 periodicals and newspapers, including The New York Times.

Books in Print Plus: Quick access to any books; new titles, price updates, and other revisions, including publisher-supplied and bibliographic data.

Other Services: The American Library is open for all users.  The system is semi self-service; after a user finds the resources that they need, they can make copies or print information themselves.  Of course, library staff are happy to help if there are any problems.

Outreach  Services: To serve the mission’s key contacts, the American Center pursues a vigorous outreach program.  The Center’s outreach products include:

• Article Alert: A bi-monthly compilation of abstracts of current and significant articles from leading American periodicals available at the American Center.
  
• Bibliographic Service: The library compiles and distributes bibliographies on all Mission Program and Plans (MPP) themes and supports various speaker programs organized by the U.S. mission in Nepal.
  
• Electronic Journal: A monthly publication of the U.S. Government devoted to “Economic perspectives,”  “Global Issues,” “U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda,” and “U.S. Society and Values.”

The reference resources available at the library include dictionaries, directories, encyclopedias, almanacs, periodicals, periodical indexes, CD-ROM databases and on-line search services. In most cases, the reference collection is best used through a personal visit where professionally trained librarians provide thorough attention and assistance. However, if you cannot visit us, library staff also responds to research and reference queries submitted through telephone, fax, mail, or e-mail to kathmandupdlibrary@state.gov