1.075
The national library is the memory of the nation: the German library in numbers
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By Antje Ullrich
Leipzig – The national memory of Germany has its seat in Leipzig. Founded in 1912 as the “Deutsche Bücherei”, the German National Library (DNB) collects all publications in German from 1913 onwards. This means that more than two million media are added every year, i.e. 6.6 per minute. And we have even more impressive numbers about our national memory.
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A look into the reading room of the German National Library (DNB) in Leipzig. It was founded in 1912 as the “Deutsche Bücherei” and now has a total of more than 43 million works. © imago images / epd
2 There are locations today. After the division of Germany, a German library was also founded in Frankfurt am Main in 1946. With the reunification, the collections in Frankfurt and Leipzig were then combined in the German National Library.
However, the two locations were retained. The Leipzig location houses the German Museum of Books and Writing, the German Music Archive and the Anne Frank Shoah Library.
43.1 million The entire holdings of the National Library comprise works in writing, images and sound. This includes 19.7 million monographs, 10.4 million online publications and 2.3 million university publications.
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3 million The DNB houses music (1 million) and sound carriers (2 million). This includes sheet music and pieces of music, but also historical playback devices and sound carriers such as piano rolls, shellac records and cassettes. CDs, DVDs and digital music are also collected.
12.4 million Book pages from around 170,000 works have now been digitized, as have more than 34,000 audio objects.
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In 1946 the second location was founded in Frankfurt am Main. © imago images / imagebroker
Digital library: 12 million clicks a year for various online publications
If you take all the shelves in the magazines together, the result is a length of more than 400 kilometers, but the number is increasing every year. © imago images / Robert Michael
12 million The national library’s online publications (e.g. monographs, e-papers, audio books, saved websites, …) are accessed every year, i.e. over 30,000 times a day.
The front runner are the university publications, which are accessed more than six million times a year.
740 years It would take a long time to leaf through all the magazines and newspapers (one issue per hour) in the DNB’s inventory. A total of 6.7 million magazines and daily newspapers are stored here, of which around 64,000 are current magazine titles.
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406 Kilometer result in the shelves of the magazine inventory lined up next to each other. That is roughly the distance between the two locations Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main. Incidentally, every year around six kilometers of magazine inventory are added.
57 million euros the federal government provides for the national memory of Germany in 2021. In the previous year it was two million euros less.
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Old books have to be digitized by the employees of the DNB. © picture alliance / dpa / dpa-Zentralbild / Jan Woitas
The DNB needs an extension every 20 to 30 years
The DNB in Leipzig now consists of the main building, two new buildings on the east and north-west sides, a book tower and a connecting fourth part. Another extension is currently planned. © picture alliance / dpa-Zentralbild / Hendrik Schmidt
18.000 The DNB counts active users, of whom around 630 use the library per day.
4 There are extensions at the Leipzig location. The historic foundation building was completed in 1916 with the knowledge that an expansion would be necessary approximately every 20 years.
In 1936 a new building was opened on the east side, in 1963 on the north-west side, in 1982 the book tower and in 2011 a fourth section that connects everything. A fifth extension, a magazine building, is currently being planned. Because the existing capacities are expected to be exhausted by 2024.
635 Employees are employed in Frankfurt and Leipzig.
220.000 The German National Library and its museums register visitors every year. Until December 30th you can visit the exhibition “Disturbing Peace. Art and Protest and the End of the GDR” in Leipzig.
Infos can be found under www.dnb.de.
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Cover photo: Bild Montage / imago images / epd / picture alliance / dpa-Zentralbild / Hendrik Schmidt
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