News archive

The wealth of holdings, services and further benefits offered by a universal and research library of world renown is enormous, and frequently not obvious at first glance. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has been present on Facebook, Twitter, etc. for years in order to spread information about its activities, services and innovations and to foster exchange with interested members of the public. Simultaneously to the launch of the new website, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has now also opened an Instagram account.

Manuscripts, printed works, handwritten drafts and letters: In the cultural portal bavarikon, over 300 digital copies from the holdings of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek have been published. The new bavarikon collection "Literatur in Bayern" ("literature in Bavaria") contains literary treasures from twelve centuries, which are related to Bavaria with regard to their origin, tradition and impact, and which have gone down in history.

With the support of the Literature Portal Bavaria, the Munich writer and winner of the Ingeborg-Bachmann Award Thomas Lang is writing on an interactive novel – live on the Internet at netzroman.thomaslang.net.

The one thousandth article of the Historisches Lexikon Bayerns (HLB, Historical Encyclopaedia of Bavaria) has been published. It addresses the purity law related to the brewing and serving of beer.

Dr. Bettina Wagner, the Head of the Division Manuscript Cataloguing Center and Incunabula Collection at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, has been appointed Director of the State Library of Bamberg as of 1 October 2016. She is the successor of Prof. Dr. Werner Taegert, who had been in office since 2006.

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has documented research publications on the collections of the Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books for more than half a century, in order to provide experts and the interested public with references to relevant secondary literature. This research documentation, by now including over 200,000 entries, thus represents an essential and strongly sought-after aid.

Thanks to the generous financial support by the Association of Sponsors and Friends of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek expands its collections by a convolute of 30 rare palm-leaf manuscripts form Sri Lanka and Burma.

In 2016, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek acquired nine Ethiopian parchment manuscripts in Ge'ez, the ancient literary language, which is still used today by Ethiopian Christians as their liturgical language. With respect to content, the manuscripts are psalms and liturgical texts.