Current activities

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has successfully submitted three consecutive requests for the continuation of the funding line "Fachinformationsdienste für die Wissenschaft" ("Specialised Information Services for Research and Scholarship"; FID) by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The library receives funds in the amount of 8.6 million Euro for the years 2022 to 2024. They will serve for the further expansion of the Specialised Information Services for Classical Studies, Historical Studies and East, Central and Southeast European Studies.

The digital collection "Russian Social Sciences and Humanities Periodicals" contains the most important Russian journals on topics from the fields of humanities and social sciences related to Eastern Europe. It includes all 31 journals of the Russian Academy of Sciences and independent scholarly publications.

The "Universitetskaja Biblioteka Online" is an online repository offering access to around 70,000 Russian-language e-books and e-journals. Its focus is on humanities, with the majority of publications being about Russia.

The film collection "Socialism on Film" comprises documentary films and motion pictures, weekly newsreels and feature films created in the states of the Eastern Bloc, but also in Spain, China, Vietnam or Cuba. It is important for studies of East and South-East Europe, since it gives insights into all aspects of life behind the Iron Curtain, thus documenting audio-visually the period from the Russian Revolution up to the end of the Cold War.

The Daily Reports of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) constitute a history documentation of importance for the USA, covering more than half a century (1941 – 1996). They are considered as a first-class collection of sources on decades of eventful world history.