Germanic culture area
The latest acquisitions
Current events service
Germanic Studies Centre Library
National collections
Created in 1971 by the German government, the Strasbourg BNU is an institution that has traditionally always reserved a major place for German culture. The rich German collections are made up of numerous generous old donations, constantly enriched by new donations and regular and frequent acquisitions. In 1920, the BNU already held 550,000 works in the German language, 90,000 of which dealt with Germanic languages and literature.
Among the highlights of the ancient collections of Germanic language and literature is a collection of Baroque literature, a collection of 18th Century almanacs and many works by Goethe, including manuscripts and letters, a collection by poet Frederic Uhland, a collection of the publisher Cotta and an exceptional collection of works from the Schiller era
Current acquisitions
The BNU increases its collections in the area of Germanic culture by about 5,000 documents per year. It is recognized on a national level as being a reference library in the area of German culture and was designated CADIST (Centre d'acquisition et de diffusion de l'information scientifique et technique the Scientific and Technological Information Acquisition Centre) for its “German languages, literature and civilization” department. Then in 1994, the BNU became a strong-partner of the BnF because of this specialty. The BNU also holds the status of legal deposit for French translations of German literary works.
The actual acquisitions policy pivots around two axes:
The BNU is targeting comprehensiveness in the area of Germanic languages and literature for the entire French production: translations of German literary texts (novels, poetry, essays, correspondence, but also critical studies, special editions, dictionaries, and university level reference works). In the area of foreign languages, priority is given to literary texts in German, a department in which the BNU strives for excellence. The BNU endeavours to make the collection meant for reading and research highly representative of great German literature. Great emphasis is given to contemporary literature and new authors. These texts are supplemented by a large selection of university level critical studies. In this area, the BNU also provides 240 periodical titles but also online data bases and electronic periodicals (Die Zeit, Süddeutsche Zeitung, etc.)
Beside Germanic languages and literature, the BNU acquisitions also cover the areas of Germanic civilization in the arts, cultural history and the Medias, as well as historical, political and social questions.
The BNU also preserves remarkable collections like the Germanic Studies Centre Library at the Robert Schumann University, which it was given in 2002. This 11,000-volume collection, with 300 periodical titles, is of major interest for contemporary history, especially National Socialism, the RDA and Franco-German relations.
Lastly, the current events service offers free access to a choice of the latest German publications in the humanities, hot off the press. More than 1,800 book and audio books are made available through this service annually.
contacts: Germanic languages and literatures: Aude.Therstappen@bnu.fr
Germanic civilization: Julien.Collonges@bnu.fr