The SSA library was set up at the Association’s inception in 1977. At the beginning the use of the library was restricted to SSA members. Today, it is open to the general public as a reference library on humanities and social sciences. In 1992 its collection was categorized into three main components: Sri Lankan collection, gender collection and general collection. Recently, it also added another category – the Tamil collection.

The Sri Lankan collection consists of books and pamphlets covering a wide range of subjects – history, economics, politics, culture, language, religion, ethnic relations, sociology and anthropology. The gender collection includes rare and well-known works of feminist scholarship. The general collection consists of works categorized under subjects such as peace, conflict studies and ethnic studies.

The Library's journal collection includes back issues of American Sociological Review, Duke Law Journal, Economic and Political Weekly, Economic Review, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Feminist Economics, Journal of Social History, International Journal of Legal Information, Journal of Global Issues, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Lines Magazine, Mediterranean Quarterly, Monthly Review, Pravada, Polity, Social Scientist, Frontline, Tamil Times, Lanka Guardian, The American Historical Review, The Journal of Asian Studies, and The Journal of World History.

In 2005 the SSA library received a donation from Duke University. This collection is made up of works in the subject areas of cultural studies, history, and political theory and gender.

In 2008 the SSA library received another valuble collection from the Berghof Foundation's Colombo office. The entire collection is in the field of conflict and peace studies.

The library is open from Monday to Friday from 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. The membership fees are as follows:

Undergraduate students: free of charge
Local graduates and scholars: Rs. 50 per day
Foreign users: Rs. 100 per day

Membership fees exclude photocopy charges.

For further information contact Rohana Wasantha, Library Documentation Officer.

Recent Activities
As a part of the SSA's Community Library Development Project, we donated books to the Devasarana Development Centre Library in Ibbagamuwa, Kurunegala, and to the Jayasekara Memorial Library in Mahiyangana.