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The Bavarian State Library (german: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, abbreviated BSB, called ''Bibliotheca Regia Monacensis'' before 1919) in Munich is the central " Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of
Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
, the biggest universal and research library in Germany and one of Europe's most important universal libraries. With its collections currently comprising around 10.89 million books (as of 2019), it ranks among the best research libraries worldwide. Moreover, its historical stock encompasses one of the most important manuscript collections of the world, the largest collection of incunabula worldwide, as well as numerous further important special collections. Its collection of historical prints before 1850 number almost one million units. The legal deposit law has been in force since 1663, regulating that two copies of every printed work published in Bavaria have to be submitted to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. This law is still applicable today. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek furthermore is Europe's second-largest journals library (after the
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
). The BSB publishes the specialist journal Bibliotheksforum Bayern and has been publishing the Bibliotheksmagazin together with the Berlin State Library since 2007. Its building is situated in the Ludwigstrasse.


Tasks

* General and research library * Central state and repository library of the Free State of Bavaria * Collection of regional legal deposits and publications related to Bavaria * Part of Germany's virtual national library in cooperation with the German National Library and the Berlin State Library * Runs the
Munich Digitization Center Munich Digitization Center (German ''Das Münchener Digitalisierungszentrum'' (MDZ)) is an institution dedicated to digitization, Online publication and the long-term archival preservation of the holdings of the Bavarian State Library The Ba ...
* Responsibility for special subject collections of the German Research Foundation ( Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) * Collaboration on the Corporate Body Authority File (Gemeinsame Körperschaftsdatei, GKD) and the
Name Authority File The or PND (translated as ''Name Authority File'') is an authority file of people, which served primarily to access literature in libraries. The PND has been built up between 1995 and 1998 and was published by the German National Library (DNB) unt ...
(Personennamendatei, PND)


Use

In 2019, the library counted 78,600 active users and 1,173,000 loans. The reading rooms of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek are used by around 4,000 readers every day. In the general reading room, open daily from 8 AM to 12 PM, approximately 111,000 volumes, primarily reference works, are freely accessible. In the periodicals reading room around 18,000 topical issues of current periodicals are available. The departments of manuscripts and early printed books, maps and images, music, as well as Eastern Europe, Orient and East Asia have their own reading rooms with open-access collections. Every day approximately 1,500 volumes are collected from the repositories and provided for use in the general reading room. In 2010, a new research reading room was opened, focusing on Historical Sciences and Bavarian History and Culture (Aventinus Reading Room).


Inventory

* c. 33,921,166 media holding (including e-media) * c. 10.89 million books * c. 140,000 manuscripts; the catalogue is the work of librarian Johann Andreas Schmeller (1785–1852). * Latin (Codices latini monacenses – Clm), c. 17,000 items. ** Mulomedicina Chironis (Clm 243), 4th century **
Breviarium Alarici The ''Breviary of Alaric'' (''Breviarium Alaricianum'' or ''Lex Romana Visigothorum'') is a collection of Roman law, compiled by unknown writers and approved by referendary Anianus on the order of Alaric II, King of the Visigoths, with the a ...
(Clm 22501), 6th century ** Purple Evangeliary (Clm 23631), 9th century ** Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram (Clm 14000), c. 870 **Computistic ms. of St. Emmeram (Clm 14456), early 9th century **
Prayerbook of Otto III The Prayerbook of Otto III or Pommersfelden Prayerbook is an Ottonian illuminated manuscript, made up of 44 bound parchment folios. It was produced around 984 in Mainz for the private use of Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor, commissioned by his mother ...
, c. 1000 (Clm 30111) **
Evangeliary of Otto III The Evangeliary or Book of the Gospels is a liturgical book containing only those portions of the four gospels which are read during Mass or in other public offices of the Church. The corresponding terms in Latin are and . The Evangeliary develo ...
(Clm 4453), c. 1000 **
Pericopes of Henry II The Pericopes of Henry II (german: Perikopenbuch Heinrichs II.; Munich, Bavarian State Library, Clm 4452) is a luxurious medieval illuminated manuscript made for Henry II, the last Ottonian Holy Roman Emperor, made 1002–1012 AD. The manuscript ...
(Clm 4452) **
Sacramentary of Henry II The Sacramentary of Henry II ( German: ''Sakramentar Heinrichs II.''), also called the Regensburg Sacramentary (''Regensburger Sakramentar''), is a manuscript of liturgical texts, which was created in Regensburg at the order of Emperor Henry II ...
(Clm 4456) **
Uta Codex The Uta Codex Quattuor Evangelia (Clm. 13601, Bavarian State Library, Munich) is a "gospel lectionary" or evangeliary. It contains those portions of the gospels which are read during church services. "Unlike most Gospel lectionaries, the individu ...
(Clm 13601), c. 1025 ** Ruodlieb romance fragments (Clm 19486), c. 1050 ** Scheyerer Matutinalbuch (Clm 17401) **
Carmina Burana ''Carmina Burana'' (, Latin for "Songs from Benediktbeuern" 'Buria'' in Latin is a manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic texts mostly from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces are mostly bawdy, irreveren ...
(Clm 4660) **prayer book of Maximilian I of Bavaria (Clm 23640) **the "
Munich Manual of Demonic Magic The ''Munich Manual of Demonic Magic'' or ''Liber incantationum, exorcismorum et fascinationum variarum'' (CLM 849 of the Bavarian State Library, Munich) is a fifteenth-century grimoire manuscript. The text, composed in Latin, is largely concerned ...
" (Clm 849) *German (Codices germanici monacenses – Cgm), c. 10,500 items ** Manuscript A of the Nibelungenlied (Cgm 34); which was inscribed on UNESCO's
Memory of the World Register Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
in 2009 ** Freising manuscripts **
Wessobrunn Prayer The Wessobrunn Prayer (german: Wessobrunner Gebet, also ''Wessobrunner Schöpfungsgedicht'', "Wessobrunn Creation Poem") is among the earliest known poetic works in Old High German, believed to date from the end of the 8th century. Provenance and ...
(Clm 22053) **
Muspilli ''Muspilli'' is an Old High German poem known in incomplete form (103 lines) from a ninth-century Bavarian manuscript. Its subject is the fate of the soul immediately after death and at the Last Judgment. Many aspects of the interpretation of the ...
(Clm 14098) ** Parzival by
Wolfram von Eschenbach Wolfram von Eschenbach (; – ) was a German knight, poet and composer, regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of medieval German literature. As a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry. Life Little is known of Wolfram's life. There a ...
(Cgm 19) **
Tristan Tristan ( Latin/Brythonic: ''Drustanus''; cy, Trystan), also known as Tristram or Tristain and similar names, is the hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, he is tasked with escorting the Irish princess Iseult to wed ...
by
Gottfried von Strassburg Gottfried von Strassburg (died c. 1210) is the author of the Middle High German courtly romance ', an adaptation of the 12th-century ''Tristan and Iseult'' legend. Gottfried's work is regarded, alongside the ''Nibelungenlied'' and Wolfram von Esc ...
(Cgm 51) *Greek (Codices graeci – Cod.graec.), 645 items *Slavic (Codices slavici, Cod.slav.), c. 100 items **the " Munich Serbian Psalter", after 1370 *Music manuscripts, c. 37,500 items * Illustrated manuscripts (Codices iconographici), c. 550 items ** Fechtbuch of
Paulus Hector Mair Paulus Hector Mair (1517–1579) was a German civil servant fencing master from Augsburg. He collected Fechtbücher and undertook to compile all knowledge of the art of fencing in a compendium surpassing all earlier books. For this, he engaged t ...
(Cod. icon. 393) **choir books by
Orlando di Lasso Orlande de Lassus ( various other names; probably – 14 June 1594) was a composer of the late Renaissance. The chief representative of the mature polyphonic style in the Franco-Flemish school, Lassus stands with Giovanni Pierluigi da Pale ...
(Mus. ms. A I+II) **Illuminated manuscripts from the Ottonian period produced in the monastery of Reichenau (Lake Constance), which were inscribed on UNESCO's
Memory of the World Register Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
in 2003 * 54,400 current periodicals (print and electronic; Europe's second largest holding) * 21,000 incunabula (the world's largest holding) of around 9,660 different incunabula, among them ** a Gutenberg Bible * c. 2,509,000 digitized volumes


Areas of emphasis

*History, general *Pre-history and early history *Byzantium *Classical studies, incl. ancient history Medieval—and new Latin philology *History of Germany, Austria and Switzerland *History of France and Italy *Romania *Romanian language and literature *Albanian language and literature *Eastern-, eastern central and south-eastern Europe (in detail: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo *Modern-age Greece (including language and literature) *Musicology *Information science, book studies and library science


Organisation


Directorate

Since April, 1st 2015 Klaus Ceynowa is director general of the Bavarian State Library. The head office, the assistant to the directors, the office of corporate counsel, the information technology department and the public relations department are also part of the directorate. Directors general: * 1882-1909 Georg von Laubmann * 1909-1929 * 1929-1935 Georg Reismüller * 1935-1945
Rudolf Buttmann Rudolf Buttmann (4 July 1885 – 25 January 1947) was a German lawyer, Bavarian State Library director and Nazi politician. Early life Rudolf Hermann Buttmann was born in Marktbreit, the son of a school teacher. After attending gymnasium in Zw ...
* 1948-1966 * 1967-1972 * 1972-1992 * 1992-2004 * 2004-2014 Rolf Griebel * 2015- Klaus Ceynowa


Main departments


Central Administration

The central administration is in charge of general administrative management; moreover, it acts as a service provider for all areas of the library. The department is responsible for the areas "budget", "human resources" and "internal services, construction".


Collection Development and Cataloguing

This department acquires all types of media (in the form or by way of presents, purchase, licensing, deposit copies and swapping items), and catalogues and indexes them both formally and according to subject. The Munich Digitisation Centre is a section of the department. It handles the digitisation and online publication of the cultural heritage preserved by the Bavarian State Library and by other institutions. It provides one of the largest and fastest growing digital collections in Germany. The department is also responsible for conservation and collection care. This division protects the media published from the year 1850 onward against damage and decay. It secures their long-term availability.


User Services

The user services department acts as an agent of the collections and services of the library. The department consists of the divisions of document provision, document administration, document delivery and information- and reading-room services.


Manuscripts and Early Printed Books

The department of manuscripts and early printed books is responsible for the most valuable historical collections of the library. The worldwide renown of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek is founded on this precious heritage. The department has a separate reading room that is specially equipped for working with old books.


Special Departments


Map Collection and Image Archive

This department administrates printed maps from the year 1500 up to the present, atlases, cartographic material and the image archive of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. The image archive also includes parts of the archives of
Heinrich Hoffmann Heinrich Hoffmann or Hoffman may refer to: Hoffmann *Heinrich Hoffmann (photographer) (1885–1957), German photographer *Heinrich Hoffmann (author) (1809–1894), German psychiatrist and author * Heinrich Hoffmann (sport shooter) (1869–?), Germa ...
, Bernhard Johannes and Felicitas Timpe. The Map Collection and Image Archive also have - together with the department of music - their own reading room.


Department of Music

The Department of Music ranks among the world's leading music libraries, due to both the quantity and quality of its historical collections and its broad acquisition profile. Its beginnings date back to the 16th century. The area of collection emphasis "musicology" of the German Research Foundation is overseen by this department. A special reading room for music, maps and images is provided for the library users.


Oriental and East Asia Department

The oriental collections of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek comprise 260,000 volumes in Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew, Yiddish, Mongolian, Persian, Tibetan and Indian languages. The East-Asian collections comprise more than 310,000 volumes in the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese languages. Users can avail themselves of the open-access collections in the east reading room occupied together with the department of Eastern Europe.


Department of Eastern Europe (Osteuropaabteilung)

The department of Eastern Europe is the largest special department of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, holding around one million books about and from Eastern Europe, from early modern times up to the 21st century. In addition to the eastern European area, it also addresses eastern central and south-eastern Europe as well as the Asian part of Russia. The open-access collection of the department is accommodated in the library's east reading room.


Departments in Charge of Predominantly Regional-Level Tasks

The departments in charge of tasks predominantly allocated to a regional level are the Bayerische Bibliotheksschule (Bavarian School of Library and Information Science), the Landesfachstelle für das öffentliche Bibliothekswesen (Consulting Centre for Public Libraries) as well as the head office of the Bavarian Library Network (''Bibliotheksverbund Bayern'').


State-Funded Bavarian Regional Libraries

The Bavarian regional state-funded libraries form part of Bavaria's academic library system. They are subordinated to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in the organisation structure. Among these libraries are the state libraries of
Amberg Amberg () is a town in Bavaria, Germany. It is located in the Upper Palatinate, roughly halfway between Regensburg and Bayreuth. In 2020, over 42,000 people lived in the town. History The town was first mentioned in 1034, at that time under ...
,
Ansbach Ansbach (; ; East Franconian: ''Anschba'') is a city in the German state of Bavaria. It is the capital of the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Ansbach is southwest of Nuremberg and north of Munich, on the river Fränkische Rezat, ...
, Neuburg an der Donau, Passau and Regensburg, the Studienbibliothek Dillingen, the
Landesbibliothek Coburg The Landesbibliothek Coburg is a regional state (scientific) library under the administration of the Free State of Bavaria. It has its seat in the Ehrenburg Palace in Coburg and brings together the historical book collections of the dukes reigni ...
, the
Bamberg State Library The Bamberg State Library (german: Staatsbibliothek Bamberg) is a combined universal, regional and research library with priority given to the humanities. Today it is housed in the New Residence, the former prince-bishop's new palace. The Fre ...
(german: Staatsbibliothek Bamberg) as well as the Hofbibliothek
Aschaffenburg Aschaffenburg (; South Franconian: ''Aschebersch'') is a town in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg is not part of the district of Aschaffenburg, but is its administrative seat. Aschaffenburg belonged to the Archbishopric ...
.


History

The library was founded in 1558 as the court library of Duke Albrecht V, and was originally located in the vaulted chamber of the Alter Hof (old court) of the Munich residence. Initially, two book collections were acquired: on the one hand the personal papers of the Austrian jurist, orientalist and imperial chancellor Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter, consisting of oriental manuscripts and prints, editions of classic authors and works from the areas of theology, philosophy und jurisprudence, and on the other hand the collection of the Augsburg patrician Johann Jakob Fugger, which was acquired in 1571. Fugger had commissioned agents to collect volumes of manuscripts and printed works in Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. In the end the works collected in this way amounted to more than 10,000 volumes. At the same time, he had had manuscripts copied in Venice. Apart from this, in 1552 Fugger had purchased the collection of manuscripts and incunabula of the physician and humanist Hartmann Schedel, representing one of the richest humanistic private libraries north of the
Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...
. The Fugger collection was first administrated and organised by the physician Samuel Quichelberg from Antwerp. He had adopted the shelving system of the Augsburg court library. Later the collection was administered by the librarian Wolfgang Prommer, who had catalogued the collection both alphabetically and according to keywords. Aegidius Oertel from Nuremberg became the first librarian in 1561. The main users of the library were the Jesuits, who had been invited to Munich in 1559. William V continued the collection, making further purchases: *Spanish prints from the personal papers of the Tyrolean knight Anselm Stöckel (1583) *The collection of the Augsburg councillor Johann Heinrich Herwarth von Hohenberg comprising numerous music prints (1585) *Humanistic library of the canon of Augsburg and Eichstätt Johann Georg von Werdenstein (1592) In 1600 the collection comprised 17,000 volumes. The secularization of Bavaria and the transfer of the court library of the Electorate of the Palatinate around the year 1803 added approximately 550,000 volumes and 18,600 manuscripts to the library's holdings. In 1827 Friedrich von Gärtner was commissioned to plan a representative building for the court- and state library. The original plan was to erect the building at Ludwigstrasse 1. In 1828 the plot opposite the
Glyptothek The Glyptothek () is a museum in Munich, Germany, which was commissioned by the Bavarian King Ludwig I to house his collection of Greek and Roman sculptures (hence γλυπτο- ''glypto-'' "sculpture", from the Greek verb γλύφειν ''glyphe ...
on Königsplatz was chosen as location, but later in the same year the planners switched back again to Ludwigstrasse. The blueprints were completed in 1831. For lack of funds the laying of the foundation stone had to be postponed to 8 July 1832. The construction work on the building planned by Gärtner was concluded in 1843. In 1919 the library received the name that it still bears today: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. During the Second World War more than 500,000 volumes were lost, although the collections were partly evacuated from the building. Some of the books were for example stored in the palace chapel of Schloss Haimhausen. Of the building itself 85% was destroyed. The reconstruction of the library building and the reintegration of evacuated holdings started in 1946. The books were destroyed on two occasions; the first time 400,000 items were lost including 140,000 theses, and the second time 100,000 unspecified items. Of the books that have been lost (about 380,000), a third or 118,800 have been recovered or repurchased to the present (2020). 1953-1966 the professors Hans Döllgast und Sep Ruf had to plan and realize the reconstruction of the eastern wing, a new area behind historic walls, and the extension building of the Bavarian State Library, a glass-steel frame construction for the bibliotheca. They made an available surface of 17.000 m² and a cubature of 84.000 m³. 1967 a jury with
Hans Scharoun Bernhard Hans Henry Scharoun (20 September 1893 – 25 November 1972) was a German architect best known for designing the Berliner Philharmonie (home to the Berlin Philharmonic) and the Schminke House in Löbau, Saxony. He was an important ...
gave the price of the BDA Bayern to the extension building. The inauguration of the restored south wing of the building in 1970 marked the conclusion of the reconstruction work on the building. The Speicherbibliothek Garching (book repository) was inaugurated in 1988. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has also initiated large-scale internet projects. In 1997 the Munich Digitization Center took up work and the BSB started developing its web portals, including its own web site. The card catalogue 1841-1952 and the catalogue of incunabula 1450-1500 were converted, thus making the complete holdings of printed materials of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek available online. The service "Digitisation on Demand", offered by a network of several European libraries, makes millions of books published between 1500 and 1900 available in digital form. On 7 March 2007 Director General Rolf Griebel announced that Google Book Search will take over the digitisation of the copyright-free holdings of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. In 2008, the year of its 450th anniversary, the Deutscher Bibliotheksverband (German Library Association) awarded the title of Bibliothek des Jahres (Library of the year) to the BSB. In 2012 an Italian scholar discovered among Johann Jakob Fugger's manuscripts in the library an 11th-century Greek
codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
containing 29 ancient homilies, previously unpublished, by the theologian
Origen Origen of Alexandria, ''Ōrigénēs''; Origen's Greek name ''Ōrigénēs'' () probably means "child of Horus" (from , "Horus", and , "born"). ( 185 – 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theolo ...
of Alexandria.


Restitution

Since 2003 the Bavarian State Library has gone to great efforts to restitute illegally-acquired library material. The most recent example is the restitution of the so-called Plock Pontifical to Poland in April 2015. It had been stolen by the Nazis from the Plock Bishopric in 1940 and was taken to Königsberg University. The Bavarian State Library bought the manuscript in 1973 for 6,200 DM at an auction in Munich. In the past years, the library has searched through those segments of its collections that are in question for illegitimate purchases. All in all, over 60,000 books have been meticulously checked so far. The library has identified around 500 books whose acquisition is to be regarded as unlawful. Subsequently, to these findings, several restitutions have taken place, amongst others the Bavarian State Library returned 78 volumes originating from
Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...
's research library to the Thomas Mann Archive in Zürich in 2007. Further restitutions are in preparation, for example 252 books from the former publishing house Geca Kon.


See also

* State libraries of Germany * German National Library * Google Books Library Project *
Virtual Library of Musicology The Virtual Library of Musicology or ViFaMusik (german: Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Musikwissenschaft) was funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) to provide sources and materials for music and musicology. The proje ...
* Books in Germany


References

* Riding, Alan
"France Detects a Cultural Threat in Google,"
''New York Times.'' April 11, 2005.


External links


Website of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (in English)Website of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (in German)Website of the digital collections of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
- Lecture of Prof. Dr. Peter Zahn on the history of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (in German)
europeanaWebsite of bavarikon, the internet portal of the Free State of Bavaria for the presentation of art, culture and stocks of knowledge from Bavarian institutions.
{{coord, 48, 08, 50, N, 11, 34, 50, E, region:DE-BY_type:landmark, display=title Libraries in Munich Buildings and structures in Munich Historicist architecture in Munich Deposit libraries World Digital Library partners Libraries established in 1558 1558 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire 16th-century establishments in Bavaria