Library & Outreach
The Documentation Unit and CSR's wider efforts to put research in the hands of the people it serves.
CSR Library
The Documentation Unit (DU), also known as the CSR Library, is as old as the Centre for Social Research itself. It maintains a collection of more than 12,000 items focused on research documentation and Malawiana — making it one of the country's most specialised repositories of social science material.
The collection includes books, journals, reports and working papers, a dedicated Malawiana collection of Malawi-focused publications, and Master's and PhD theses. It also holds bound copies of daily and weekend newspapers dating from January 2013 onward, alongside materials generated by CSR's own research projects and by partner organisations, and items acquired through inter-library donation and cooperation agreements.
The DU's clientele includes researchers, academics, graduate and postgraduate students, and the general public — consultation is free. The library migrated from a card catalogue to the Koha library management system to provide a more efficient service to its users.
Outreach & Public Engagement
CSR's research is only as useful as the people it reaches. Alongside the Documentation Unit, the Centre shares its findings beyond academic audiences through public seminars, policy dialogues with government and development partners, and the CSR Research Review — a quarterly newsletter carrying research findings, policy briefs, and project updates to a wider readership.
Short-form Dispatches give partners and the public early, plain-language updates on ongoing fieldwork, well ahead of formal publication. Together with the Library, these channels form CSR's outreach effort: making sure research reaches not only fellow academics, but the policymakers, practitioners, and communities it is ultimately about.