Institute of Conservation (IBR)

The Institute of Conservation (Institut für Bestandserhaltung und Restaurierung, IBR) of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek is an internationally renowned competence center for the preservation of our written cultural heritage. For the past 60 years, the IBR has promoted the combination of conservation and application-oriented research in the field of techniques and materials. Within the framework of an institutional cooperation between the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and the Technische Universität München, the IBR is responsible for instruction in the field of "Book and Paper," both in the bachelor’s program and the consecutive master’s program in "Restoration, Art Technology and Conservation Science". Moreover, the IBR is an active member of numerous national and international associations related to book and manuscript conservation.

The central mission of the IBR is the preservation of the valuable written cultural heritage of the Bavarian state owned scholarly libraries by preventive conservation and remedial conservation. The emphasis lies on the safeguarding and preservation of the unique holdings of manuscripts, incunabula, early printed books, historical maps and sheet music, as well as documents and autographs held by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. These holdings rank among the world's most important and largest collections and therefore require a particularly high quality of conservation.

Further, the IBR acts as a consultant and service provider for the state owned libraries of Bavaria that hold valuable historical collections, in particular the regional state libraries and the university libraries with valuable historical collections. The IBR plans and assigns conservation projects and offers advice to the libraries in the fields of collection care, preventive conservation and emergency planning.

The department is divided into two divisions:

Conservation and Restoration
Dr. Diego Estupiñán Méndez

Materials Science and Art Technology
Dr. Thorsten Allscher