The Research Library for Reformation Studies has holdings of approx. 230,000 volumes; approx. 100,000 titles belong to the historical book collection, i.e. were published before 1850. The Research Library for Reformation Studies was created in 2018 through the merger of the libraries of the Protestant Seminary for Preachers and the Luther House in Wittenberg. Smaller holdings were adopted from the Leucorea Foundation.
The more recent literature is virtually all listed in the online catalogue, as is the historical stock from the Luther House. Great progress has been made in the cataloguing of the historical book holdings from the library of the Protestant Seminary for Preachers and is ongoing. The following volume catalogues are also available for this historical collection, which can be used in the reading room of the Research Library:
- Subject catalogue (3 volumes)
- Alphabetical catalogue of the library of the Protestant Seminary for Preachers (3 volumes)
- Alphabetical catalogue of funeral sermons (1 volume)
- Location catalogue of the Libri Compacti LC (1 volume)
- Alphabetical catalogue of the Dr Heubner Library (1 volume)
Publications that are not available in the Research Library for Reformation Studies can usually be obtained as interlibrary loan or article copies from one of the partner libraries of the Common Library Network of the States of Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (GBV). Within the GBV, the Reformation History Research Library is part of the Halle-Merseburg Local Library System.
If you have any questions about the catalogue, library or interlibrary loans, or digitisation requests, please contact the information desk. You can reach them by email to info@rfb-wittenberg.de or by telephone on +49 3491 5069-250.
The Research Library for Reformation Studies participates in the bindings database funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in which digitised rubbings of book bindings from the 15th and 16th centuries are recorded.
With the library of the Protestant Seminary for Preachers in Wittenberg, the Seminary’s painting and graphic collections were also taken over by the Research Library for Reformation Studies. A large part of these collections is recorded in the image database of the GBV's Head Office (VZG).