Online publications

The German National Library's collection mandate also encompasses online publications. These include e-books, electronic periodical and newspaper articles, online university publications, printed music and websites. Online publications can easily be used from the catalogue. They are identified by this sign: @. Click the “Open archive object” link in the data record and the file will open.

Free access or access restricted?
The decision as to which rights of use or access apply to each publication is made by the rights holder depositing the publication; alternatively, they are determined according to the applicable copyright legislation.

You can filter unrestricted online publications world-wide in the catalogue by selecting “Online (open access)” as the location, and then access and view these using the “Open archive object” link.

Online publications to which access is restricted can be used from the catalogue at the research workstations in the reading rooms in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main. These special reading workstations have no internet access. It is not possible to download online publications. You can make black-and-white or coloured paper copies of excerpts from these publications at our printers against paymant of a fee.

Digitised media

For collection preservation reasons, we digitise works that can no longer be made available to users in the original because of their condition.
You can make paper copies of excerpts in black-and-white or colour at our printers against paymant of a fee.

Depending on the relevant copyright regulations, we decide whether these digitised works are freely accessible or can only be used on site in the reading room (“Open medium”/“Play sound recording”).

If copyright regulations permit, we make digitised collections visible worldwide, for example here:

• 100 volumes of classic literature
• Books and archival documents from the World War I collection
• Digital exile collection (monographs, flyers)
• Digital exile press
• Compact cassettes
• “Melodrama, snide humour and parody”: Phonograph cylinders and shellac recordings of cabaret performances
• Distributed digital legal sources
• More

Sections 51 and 52 of the German Collecting Societies Act (VGG), which address the subject of out-of-commerce works, have opened up new opportunities for digitising and granting free access to printed works published during the 20th century. For this reason, the German National Library has set up a licensing service for out-of-commerce works (VW-LiS) with the aim of making it easier for the German National Library and other institutions to research and apply for user licenses for out-of-commerce printed works through the appropriate collecting societies.

In addition, more than 10,000 address books (up to publication year 1967) from our collection are currently being digitised in cooperation with a genealogical research company and will then be made available in the catalogue.

Daily newspapers in e-paper format

Nowadays, newspaper publishers not only publish printed daily newspapers but also make digital editions with the same layout available to subscribers through the internet. We have been collecting these e-paper editions since 2010.
They become available in our catalogue one week after publication and can be used conveniently at the research workstations in the reading rooms.
Each edition has its own data record, which contains the title, the publication date, the number of pages and the URN (Uniform Resource Name) to facilitate citation of the electronic resource.
You can browse by newspaper title or search for specific e-paper editions. These can be retrieved directly from the catalogue by clicking on “Open archive object”.
On copyright grounds, you are not permitted to copy an e-paper edition or even parts of one in digital format to take home. You can make paper copies of excerpts in black-and-white or colour at our printers against paymant of a fee.

Websites

As part of our legal collection mandate, we also collect, catalogue, index and archive websites relating to specific institutions, topics and events. For legal reasons, direct access to the archival copies of most of the websites in our web archive is only possible in our reading rooms.

Use the “Advanced Search” function in our catalogue to narrow down your search to the material type “Archived websites”. Add one or more search terms. The websites found and the relevant archival copies can be opened directly from the catalogue.

Access is also possible from the web archive's start page. Here you can view all harvested websites hierarchically and carry out full-text searches.

In our reading rooms, you can also access a collection of all the .DE domain websites stored in the Internet Archive. You can search this .DE web archive by entering search terms or URLs.

To the German National Library's web archive

To the .DE web archive

More information about the web archiving

Access to the web archive of international thematic and event-based collections

The German National Library contributes to the cooperative collections of the International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC). The IIPC’s member organisations collate websites on globally relevant topics such as climate change, the refugee crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, and on events such as European elections and the Olympic Games. The result is an international perspective on the latest events and the way in which they are depicted on the internet. These thematic collections are freely accessible from anywhere in the world.

The IIPC’s international website collections

Digitised tables of contents

We have been digitising the tables of contents of all monographs from the publishers’ book trade since 2008, and are now expanding this service to cover the entire collection. The tables of contents are made available worldwide free of charge through the catalogue and our data services.
They facilitate efficient evaluation of the publication's content when searching the catalogue; full text searches of the tables of contents are also possible.

To narrow down your search, select the search key “Table of Contents” in the catalogue's “Advanced Search” function. Enter one or more keywords in the adjacent search field and click on “Find”.
You will then be provided with a list of titles in whose tables of contents the search terms appear.

Electronic Reference Library

The German National Library’s Electronic Reference Library (EHB) is a complement to the reference libraries in the reading rooms. It contains several hundred CD-ROM and DVD databases and online databases for a variety of subjects. These include reference works, dictionaries, bibliographies, newspapers, periodicals and standard works on each subject.
You can also use the Electronic Reference Library to carry out specific searches in historical and current electronic newspapers, sound recordings, sheet music and the German National Library's web archives. The selection available is constantly being updated and expanded.
All these media can also be searched through the catalogue.

You can use the Electronic Reference Library at the research workstations in the reading rooms. For copyright reasons, this service is only available in the reading rooms.

Further information