Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The German National Library is the central archive library and the national bibliographic centre of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has the unique function for Germany of comprehensively collecting, permanently archiving, completely documenting and bibliographically registering all German and German language publications since the year 1913. All works are available to the public.
It originated in 1990 with the reunification of Germany from the former institutions the German Library Leipzig (founded 1912) and the German Library Frankfurt am Main (founded 1947), to which the German Music Archives Berlin has belonged since 1970. Every commercial and non-commercial publisher in the Federal Republic of Germany is obliged to supply free of charge two deposit copies of its publications to the National Library.
The collection comprises since 1913:
• Publications issued in Germany
• German publications issued abroad
• Translations into other languages of German publications issued abroad
• Foreign language publications on Germany issued abroad, so-called Germanica
• Printed works written or published between 1933 and 1945 by German speaking emigrants.
The German National Library is a reference library, meaning that its collection may only be used directly in the reading room. Comprehensive reference books are freely accessible in the reading rooms and may be used without prior registration.