Centre International de Recherches sur l'Anarchisme


CIRA is an anarchist archive, infoshop and library of anarchist material in all languages based in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Location

CIRA was founded in 1957 in Geneva. It moved to Lausanne in 1964, where it was run by Marie-Christine Mikhaïlo and her daughter Marianne Enckell. It returned to Geneva between 1975 and 1989, whereupon it was again moved to Lausanne.
There are also branches of CIRA in Marseille and in Japan. CIRA Nippon was set up in 1970 in Fujinomiya, a city which is halfway between Tokyo and Osaka. As of 2011, the archive contained 2000 books.

Holdings

CIRA has as its aim the collection of all materials relevant to anarchist theory. Currently the library in Lausanne holds 18,000 books and pamphlets and 4,000 periodicals. The Archive's catalog is available online. The CIRA does not have any means of purchasing materials, so all its stock is donated.

Publications

Books and leaflets

CIRA has published a yearly bulletin since 1959, which is available to subscribers and also online. The bulletin contains a list of acquisitions and information about research, libraries and conferences.