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Court library in the Wilhelminum next to the church of St. Michael in 1789 | © BSB/ Image Archive

Elector Karl Theodor (reigned 1777 – 1799) decided on 18 December 1789 to have his Munich court library "opened for use by all and sundry ... without distinction of class or status ... for the promotion of scholarship". The princely book collection was on its way to a state institution; its opening constituted a milestone for the public.

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Augustinus manuscript in Anglo-Saxon minuscule script of the 8th century (detail) | © BSB/ Clm 14653, sheet 29v

The fifth catalogue volume on the Latin and medieval manuscripts of the Benedictine abbey St. Emmeram in Regensburg contains detailed codicological and contentual descriptions of 142 manuscripts of the 8th to the 16th century, a temporal focus of the preserved works being on the 15th century.

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Detail from the first roll-up of the documentary exhibition | © Consulate General of the Republic of Bulgaria in Munich

15 November 2019 – 15 January 2020
The Bulgarian Consulate General in Munich celebrates the 140th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between the two countries with a documentary exhibition, making phases from the development of German-Bulgarian diplomacy visible from 1879 to the present.

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Cosmography by Muḥammed Ibn-Zakarīyā al-Qazwīnīs (The Miracles of Creation). version of the 18th century | © BSB/ Cod.arab. 463

In the course of the coming three years, the German Research Foundation will fund the development of a union catalogue and of a portal "Orient-Digital" for oriental manuscripts. It is intended to establish common cataloguing standards, to convert printed catalogues into electronic ones and to pool all existing electronic catalogue entries. Under the direction of the Oriental Department of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the Gotha Research Library, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich and the University Computation Center (URZ) Leipzig will be cooperating closely.

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Belarus Anti-Fascist Resistance Collection | © East View Information Services

The Specialised Information Service for Russian, East and Southeast European Studies has acquired two new source collections with so far unpublished or not readily accessible materials on the resistance against the German occupation of Belarus during the Second World War.

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© Adam Matthew Digital

The diverse and comprehensive collection on ethnomusicology includes materials from all over the world. The database contains thousands of audio field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film materials, field books, slides, correspondence and ephemera from more than 60 fields of study, from West Africa, North America and South-East Asia among other regions.

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© BillionPhotos.com – fotolia.com

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has recently extended access to the digital newspaper archives of two of the biggest American dailies again: "The New York Times" from 1851 to 2015 and "The Washington Post" from 1877 to 2002.

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Bayerische Staatsbibliothek hands over 203 books to the German Masonic Museum in Bayreuth | © BSB/ U. Rehusch

Within the framework of an event on 4 December 2019, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has restituted 203 illegally acquired books from its holdings to the German Masonic Museum in Bayreuth in the presence of Minister of Sciences Bernd Sibler. The library thus continues its endeavours started in 2003 to return NS loot to its original owners or their heirs or legal successors.

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Maria Janitschek (1859 – 1927): Mimikry, ein Stück modernes Leben (Mimikry, a piece of modern life) | © BSB/ bavarikon

Following the Evas Töchter (Eve's daughters) exhibition at the Monacensia in the Hildebrandhaus (2018) and looking back on 100 years of women's suffrage, the bavarikon exhibition wants to take influential women writers in Bavaria into account. On display are digital copies from Munich's female writers, all of whose personal papers are kept in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek – their fictional works and essays, their correspondence with the city's cultural and literary personalities within and outside the women's movement, as well as portraits of their most important representatives.

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Bibliotheksforum Bayern, detail of the cover | © BSB/ Bibliotheksforum Bayern

"When you take a look at the table of contents of this issue of Bibliotheksforum Bayern, you will notice at once: the issue is penetrated in its entirety by all things digital. Not only are there five articles explicitly dedicated to the digital library, but there are also other sections which deal with this topic again and again: 'Continuity in the midst of change: Increasing use of digital media', 'Blended learning, gamification and co.' and 'Social media in professional training' – the article titles speak a clear language."

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