Bavarian State Library

The Bavarian State Library (, abbreviated BSB, called Bibliotheca Regia Monacensis before 1919) in Munich is the central "Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of Bavaria, the biggest universal and research library in Germany and one of Europe's most important universal libraries. With its collections currently comprising around 10.89 million books (as of 2019), it ranks among the leading research libraries worldwide. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek furthermore is Europe's second-largest journals library (after the British Library). Furthermore, its historical holdings encompass one of the most important manuscript collections of the world, the largest collection of incunabula worldwide, as well as numerous further important special collections. Its collection of historical prints before 1850 totals almost one million units. The legal deposit law, still applicable today, has been in force since 1663 and requires that two copies of every printed work published in Bavaria have to be submitted to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. The BSB publishes the specialist journal Bibliotheksforum Bayern and has been publishing the Bibliotheksmagazin together with the Berlin State Library since 2007. Its building is situated in the Ludwigstrasse. Tasks General and research library Central state and repository library of the Free State of Bavaria Collection of regional legal deposits and publications related to Bavaria Part of Germany's virtual national library in cooperation with the German National Library and the Berlin State Library Runs the Munich Digitization Center Responsibility for special subject collections of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) Collaboration on the Corporate Body Authority File (Gemeinsame Körperschaftsdatei, GKD) and the Name Authority File (Personennamendatei, PND) Use In 2019, the library counted 78,600 active users and 1,173,000 loans. Its reading rooms are used by around 4,000 readers every day. In the general reading room, open daily from 8 AM to 12 AM, approximately 111,000 volumes, primarily reference works, are freely accessible. Additionally, every day approximately 1,500 volumes are retrieved from the repositories and made available for use there. In the periodicals reading room around 18,000 topical issues of current periodicals are available.