The Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

The Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg (Augsburg State and City Library) emerged from the City Library founded in 1537. Today it is the regional library for Augsburg and Bavarian Swabia and the research library for the imperial city of Augsburg, Bavarian Swabia and the Early Modern period's history of knowledge.

Other focal points are the collections on Mozart, Brecht and suicide (begun in 1928/29 with the acquisition of the suicide library from the Augsburg newspaper editor Dr Hans Rost). It also has special collections of pamphlets, biographical documents, dissertations and graphic sheets with portrait collections.

Soon after its foundation, the Augsburg City Library became one of the Empire's most important collections due to the purchase of around 100 Greek manuscripts in Venice, continuous new acquisitions and books from Markus Welser's estate (1558-1614) later on. In 1563 it received its own building, one of the first free-standing library buildings in Germany. In 1575 the librarian Hieronymus Wolf published the very first printed library catalogue of manuscripts for the Greek codices; the first complete library catalogue in Germany was published by Georg Henisch in 1600.

The secularisation and mediatisation of the imperial city had the deepest impact on the library. The most important manuscripts and many rare prints had to be handed over to the Munich Court Library in 1806. In return, a district library was to be founded to hold the books from the dissolved Augsburg and Swabian monasteries. The remaining holdings were merged into the Vereinigte Königliche Kreis- und Stadtbibliothek (United Royal District and City Library) in 1811; books from the Augsburg Jesuit college (with parts of the humanist Konrad Peutinger's library), the Protestant college near St. Anna and the Eichstätter Hofbibliothek (Eichstätt Court Library – with holdings from the humanist Albrecht von Eyb's property) were added.

In 1893 the library moved into today's building on Schaezlerstraße, a book palace with two presentation rooms for the treasures not just from Germany and Europe but also from the Orient and Asia, which were exhibited there until the 1960s. The library's famous collection of bindings is still presented in the Oberer Cimeliensaal (Upper Cimelia Hall) today.

In 1941 the building was given the name Staats- und Stadtbibliothek, which refers to the ownership structure. The city of Augsburg was the funding body with a state subsidy from 1898 to 2012. The Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg was nationalised in 2012; renovation and expansion have been planned since then.

The Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg is subordinate to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library).

• All objects of the Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg available on bavarikon

The collections owned by the Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg available on bavarikon

• Books on Bavaria
  
• Treasures of the Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg