Regional Services

The Bamberg State Library is the regional library for Upper Franconia, which means that it takes on the library-related services for this region, especially in the areas of collecting and cataloging.

The Bamberg State Library collects publications from and about Upper Franconia as completely as possible. In doing so, it does not only buy modern literature, but also complements its historical holdings with reference to the region through antiquarian acquisitions. One focus area, amongst others, are regionally important newspapers and journals.

In 1987, the Bamberg State Library has become the archive library according to the Bayerische Pflichtstückegesetz (Bavarian law for the deposit of obligatory copies) for the administrative district of Upper Franconia; it therefore receives the Upper Franconian deposit copy. In consequence, every publishing house in Upper Franconia has to make at least one copy of its printed publications available free of charge to the Bamberg State Library for the purpose of documentation and archiving. This arrangement does not only concern the products of publishers, but also private editions, writings of associations and companies, conference proceedings as well as other publications that appear outside of the bookselling trade.

The regional functions include not least the collecting of documentary material of and about important personalities of the scientific and cultural life who are connected to the region by their birth or work. By far the largest proportion of the modern papers stored in the State Library therefore stem from people with relations to Bamberg or Franconia.

The Bamberg State Library also stores the book collections of associations from the city and region and makes them available for use, amongst them the book collections of the Bamberg Historical Society Bamberg and the Bamberg Society of Naturalists.

Apart from collecting literature from and about Upper Franconia, cataloging is also a central task of the Bamberg State Library. The cataloging takes place mostly within the union catalog of the Bibliotheksverbund Bayern (Bavarian Library Network) and the Bayerische Bibliographie (Bavarian Bibliography).

The Bavarian Bibliography is freely available online and includes not only independently appearing titles such as monographs, brochures and miscellanies, but also essays in journals, yearbooks and other periodicals. It registers – if possible – all publications with content or geographical reference to Bavaria and to personalities who lived and worked here. The literature is collected cooperatively, and the Bamberg State Library is responsible for the Upper Franconian literature. Titles that were published from 1996 onwards are completely accounted for, earlier publications will be added successively and can until then be found via printed bibliographies and online-databases, respectively.

Apart from making those holdings that attract worldwide attention digitally available, the Bamberg State Library digitises mostly its special collections with a regional reference, for example photos, fine art prints and drawings of Bamberg and its surroundings, holdings from Bamberg abbeys or prince-bishopric funeral sermons. All of these virtual collections are viewable from around the world via our digital repositories, which are expanded continuously.