Germanic Collections

Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog (KVK): The KVK is a Search Engine designed by the Universitätsbibliothek Karlruhe with the Fakultät für Informatik of the Universität Karlsruhe. It provides single-search access to catalogs of the major library consortia in Germany, plus the Verzeichnis lieferbarer Bücher, the Zeitschriftendatenbank, and other sources of bibliographic references.
Webis: The Webis site of the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg provides an overview of Sondersammelgebiete (subject collection responsibilities) in German libraries. The sponsor is the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. It is possible to locate libraries specializing in particular subject areas through a variety of searches.
Hochschulbibliothekszentrum des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (HBZ): The HBZ website provides information, bibliographic databases, and links with extensive information about Germany's largest regional library system and dozens of individual libraries. Access to the Norhrhein-Westfälische Bibliographie is also provided.
Zeitschriftendatenbank (ZDB): The world's largest specialized database for serial titles. The ZDB-network is managed by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; the database is held on a server of Die Deutsche Bibliothek. The ZDB contains more than 1 million bibliographic records of serials from the 16^th century onwards, from all countries, in all languages, held in 4000 German (and some foreign) libraries, with holdings information. It does not contain contents, i. e. journal articles.
A Search can be started directly by entering a search term, or indirectly by switching from Search (Suche) to Browse (Blþttern) in the upper left bar. A look into one of the indexes (Blþttern) is particularly recommended when the exact search term to be used is not initially clear. However, a Search with the search operator 'and' (Suche <und>) is the default option for the ZDB. For every Search or Browse operation, the relevant index can be selected by consulting the Index bar next to the Search/Browse bar at the top of the screen. A keyword index covering all relevant fields of a title record (Stichwort <allgemein>) is the default option.

Other Regional Library Networks

Südwestdeutscher Bibliotheksverbund (incl. Sachsen)
Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverbund (Bibliotheksrechenzentrum Niedersachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt,Thüringen, Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern)
Bibliotheksverbund Bayern
DBI-Berlin
DDB-Frankfurt
Berlin - Brandenburg
Hochschulbibliothek Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen "Konrad Wolf" Potsdam-Babelsberg. Excellent resource for DDR film and TV history, especially documenting DEFA.
Hessisches Bibliotheksinformationssystem (Hebis)
Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Verbundsysteme (DBI Berlin)
Pica (Centrum voor Bibliotheekautomatisering)
Berliner Gesamtkatalog (BGK). Card catalog of Berlin and Brandenburg libraries, listing 7 million monographs. A search in the Image Public Access Catalogue (IPAC) will produce scanned images of the actual catalog card.

Die Deutsche Bibliothek: Die Deutsche Bibliothek is an online catalog of the German National Library, including "nationale digitale Bibliothek", which offers the Online-Dissertation collection and other network-based resources.
The Swiss Book, The Swiss National Bibliography: The Swiss Book, The Swiss National Bibliography is the online version of The Swiss Book, the print version of which was discontinued on 1 Jan. 2007. This publication covers Swiss national production of books, serials, and musical scores. It is also available in a static PDF version that preserves the look of the printed version and is issued every two weeks.
Web-Z39.50 Gateway for the DBV-OSI-Verbund: Web-Z39.50 Gateway site offers access to the bibliographic databases of the major German and European consortia, including those of the Deutsches Bibliotheksinstitut (Zeitschriftendatenbank), PICA Centrum voor Bibliotheksautomatisiering (Union Library System of the Netherlands), and many regional library union catalogs.
Archive in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: "Archive in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland", by Andreas Hanacek, offers a comprehensive list of government, private, church, military, and special archival repositories in Germany, with some listings for other countries.
Kalliope: "Kalliope - Verbundinformationssystem Nachlässe und Autographen" offers bibliographic access from the "Zentralkartei der Autographen" (ZKA) to letters held by more than 150 institutions, as well as biographical information. Kalliope is part of the European network MALVINE (Manuscripts and Letters via Integrated Networks in Europe)
Kallías: "Kallías": Catalogue and index of literary archives at the Schiller-Nationalmuseum / Deutsches Literaturarchiv. (Under construction)
Zentrale Datenbank Nachlässe: "Zentrale Datenbank Nachlässe": The Bundesarchiv provides access to this database, a revised version of Wolfgang Mommsen's Die Nachlässe in deutschen Archiven (personal papers in German archives) containing over 20,000 entries.

Last modified: January 17, 2007