Graduate study requires robust research facilities, especially libraries, laboratories, and computers. The University of Chicago has superb library facilities that are well suited to student and faculty scholarship. The Joseph Regenstein Library contains more than 6 million volumes and microforms as well as another 7 million manuscripts and archival pieces. It holds a full range of social science periodicals and has excellent specialized collections, such as those on South Asia and East Asia, an extensive map collection, and missionary materials. "The Reg" is also a comfortable and pleasant place to work. Its reading rooms are well furnished with reference materials and numerous study carrels, and include permanent student lockers to store books and research materials. This major library is at the heart of the University and is well designed for graduate student needs. It is complemented by the John Crerar Library , which houses the University's science collections, which number more than 1 million volumes and 7000 current serial titles. Its reference collection numbers 25,000 volumes. Medline, Georef, and the Science Citation Index are available on CD-Rom in the Crerar Library.

In addition to the University facilities, you may take advantage of numerous other libraries, museums, and research centers in the Chicago area. The Newberry Library is one of the world's largest private research libraries; its extensive holding include the Ayer collection of Americana. The Northwestern University Library includes the Herskovits Library, which is arguably one of the finest collections of African anthropology, history, literature, and political science in the country. The Center for Research Libraries (CRL), only a few blocks south of Regenstein, constitutes an unusual scholarly resource for the entire country. The CRL specializes in foreign items, including newspapers, dissertations, microforms of entire collections and archives, and is also a center for U.S. government non-depository documents. The Field Museum of Natural History Library specializes in publications from other natural history and ethnographic museums all over the world. Its anthropology collection is outstanding.

Departmental laboratory and computer facilities which were renovated and modernized in 1995 include a computer system and software library centered on a Silicon Graphics server linked with IBM-compatible and Macintosh microcomputers and multiple peripherals, a new ceramics laboratory featuring computer-aided microscopy, an ethnoarchaeology and material culture laboratory, and a new Paleoecology laboratory with facilities for pollen, sediment, and macrobotanical analysis. Laboratory space and facilities are also available for student research in morphological paleoanthropology, African populations and paleontology, comparative functional and evolutionary morphology of the primates, and faunal analysis. Departmental sources include a sizable cast collection of fossil Hominoidea and other primates, osteometric equipment, dental cast collections, a large collection of preserved anthropoid specimens, and dissection facilities. Laboratory facilities for radiography, bone chemical analysis, DNA analysis, and histology are available through collaborative arrangements with staff in the medical school, and facilities for a variety of technical artifact analyses are available through a cooperative agreement with Argonne National Laboratory . The collections of the Field Museum are accessible to graduate students, including archaeological, human skeletal, and comparative mammalian material. In addition to the Academic and Public Computing Resources at the University of Chicago, several centers associated with the Department provide computing for specific research projects. State-of-the-art Language Laboratories and Archives are in the Social Sciences Research Building.