Association of Ecclesiastical Scientific Libraries

The Research Library for Reformation Studies is a member of the Association of Ecclesiastical Scientific Libraries (VkwB). This association unites around 100 ecclesiastical and scientific libraries of the Protestant regional churches and other church institutions in Germany and Switzerland with a book stock of more than 4 million volumes. The association is part of the Association of Archives and Libraries in the Protestant Church (AABevK).

The VkwB includes the Altbestandskommission (Historical Holdings Commission), which advises member libraries on questions of historical holdings, promotes the recording and indexing of incunabula as well as medieval and modern manuscripts in the possession of church libraries and acts as a multiplier for methods of conservation, restoration, indexing and listing of historical holdings. The Research Library for Reformation Studies, represented by its director, has been working with the Historical Holdings Commission since 2019.

In 2021, the Historical Holdings Commission published the results of a survey on the preservation of holdings in church libraries, which can be accessed free of charge via the following link: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0295-opus4-23075.