Historic collections in figures
The Referat Altes Buch (Rare Books Division) is responsible for the historic collections at the University Library. The rare book collections consist of:
- 3,411 manuscripts, comprising:
- 100 mediaeval German-language manuscripts
- 532 mediaeval manuscripts in Latin
- 33 manuscripts from the Orient
- 2,746 manuscripts from the modern era
- 11 block books
- about 475,000 works printed before 1900, comprising:
- 3,600 incunabula
- 150 German-language post-incunabula
- about 40,000 16th century printed works
- about 50,000 17th century printed works
- about 130,000 18th century printed works
- about 250,000 19th century printed works
- 187 literary estates including about 55,000 autograph works
- about 130,000 theses and disputations published before 1909, comprising:
- about 12,000 volumes published in the 17th century
- about 53,000 volumes published between 1700 and 1840
- about 15,600 volumes in the Rare Books Collection
- the library of the book-lover and collector Maassen
- ex-libris collection (including the Wiese collection)
- other special collections
(as of April 22, 2024)
