Use and service

Home loan

Media collection/ media return | © BSB/ H.-R. Schulz
Media collection/ media return | © BSB/ H.-R. Schulz

Direct links: Loaning media

Search and orderBSB DISCOVER!
Information overviewLoaning media
Service opening hours and further informationMedia collection, media return
Do you need a library card?Registration

The majority of the holdings of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek on philosophy is kept in stacks that are not directly accessible. To obtain books and media for home loan, these items need to be ordered using BSB DISCOVER!.
For this purpose you need a library card which can be requested in person at the library's registration office.
Ordered media are available for collection after 2 to 3 working days on average. Those for home lending can be collected in the book collection area on the ground floor.

Please note that there are also parts of the collection which cannot be ordered for home loan. Particularly valuable works or books particularly worth protecting, predominantly for reasons of conservation, for example, can be consulted in the reading rooms only.

Further services:

You cannot collect the ordered items from the library?
Delivery to your home by mail   (service at a fee)

The desired literature is not available in Munich? You need a book (or other item) from the collection on historical studies of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, but you do not live in Munich?
Interlibrary loan   (service at a fee)

Reading in the library

General Reading Room | © BSB/K. Gölker
General Reading Room | © BSB/K. Gölker

Booking a working place

Prior reservation of a working place is required for every visit to the reading room.

Further information on booking a working place in a reading room
To the date selection for the General Reading Room

Opening hours General Reading Room

Monday – Sunday08:00 – 24:00 Uhr

Direct links: General Reading Room

Finding the reading room collection in the catalogueBSB DISCOVER!
Ordering/loaning to the reading roomsLoaning media

Reference library in the General Reading Room

The General Reading Room (on the 1st floor) is the largest reading room of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, offering 520 seats and 80,000 freely accessible volumes. The reference library encompasses reference works and the basic standard literature on all subject areas, also on philosophy, and is shelved systematically. The literature types available in the individual subject areas are primarily: Subject encyclopaedias and specialized dictionaries, source works, text editions, handbooks, text books, comments, subject bibliographies and partly specialized periodicals.

Loaning items to the General Reading Room

Almost all items from the collections of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek can be ordered for consultation in the General Reading Room in BSB DISCOVER!. For reasons of conservation, some works, e. g. large formats or books with a large number of illustrations, may be used exclusively in the reading rooms anyway.

Ordered items are made available in the corresponding provision shelves in the reading room after 2 to 3 working days. Please collect the volumes there yourself. These are already booked for you and you can work with them immediately. For subsequent use kindly return the media to the provision shelves. After expiry of the loan term they are automatically returned to the stacks. Please note in this context that the loan term can be extended. When you no longer require the media, kindly take them to the depot in the marble hall.

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