The International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences offers a source of social and behavioral sciences reference material. It comprises over 3,900 articles, commissioned by 71 Section Editors, and includes 90,000 bibliographic references as well as comprehensive name and subject indexes.

Including Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO), the University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO) publishes new books every month from an ever-growing roster of contributing presses, each adding to the variety of subjects covered on the platform. The MPG purchased the volumes 2003-2013/2014 of 16 OSO subject collections. This selection is continuously extended by single e-book acquisitions by MPG libraries.

The International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, edited by Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes, is the first attempt in a generation to map the social and behavioral sciences on a grand scale. Not since the publication in 1968 of the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edited by David L. Sills, has there been such an ambitious project to describe the state of the art in all the fields encompassed within the social and behavioral sciences.