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Getting to know Eastern Europe
Finding knowledge!
Library
Finding knowledge on Eastern Europe
The Institute’s academic reference library is the largest specialist library on Eastern and Central Europe in eastern Germany. It provides the GWZO’s researchers with essential literature on their subjects. Both experts and members of the public locally are invited to visit the library and consult its materials.
The library comprises approximately 130,000 media items, divided between its shelf displays and stacks. All of them are listed in the GWZO’s online catalogue.
Site
Situated on the 6th floor, under the roof of the Specks Hof Messepalast, and spanning 470 square metres, the library offers four workstations for online research, as well as eight reading stations. The library has WiFi (eduroam), a scanner for books as well as A3 formats, a microfilm reader and copying facilities.
Inventory
The GWZO’s library presents a broad collection of relevant literature on Eastern Europe, particularly on its East-Central European heartland, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, as well as on the territories that lie between the Baltic Sea, the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea as a whole. The inventory is continually growing, supplemented by new acquisitions related to the Institute's current areas of research. It supports research in the fields of history, archaeology, onomatology, ecclesiastical history, art, urban studies, literature and culture, as well as politics and economic questions.
Digital resources
The GWZO’s library is collaborating with the house’s Digital Knowledge Unit, as well as external partners, to develop a digital infrastructure and database for humanities and social science research on Eastern and Southeastern Europe. The aim is to provide broad access to open-access publications and research data on relevant platforms as digital resources.
GWZO library catalogue
The catalogue lists our library’s inventory. The majority of the inventory has been tagged by subject and can be searched by keyword.
LerXe – discovery service for Leipzig’s science community
Leipzig’s regional discovery system crosslinks the inventories of Leipzig’s libraries and renders them searchable through a unified web interface.
Regionalkatalog Sachsen [Saxony’s regional catalogue]
This catalogue lists the inventories of the academic libraries of Saxony recorded in the integrated database of the Südwestdeutscher Bibliotheksverbund [Southwest-German Library Network] (SWB).
SWB – Südwestdeutscher Verbundkatalog [Southwest-German Network Catalogue]
The SWB network system records the inventories of around 800 libraries, including ours.
KVK – Karlsruhe Virtual Catalogue
The Karlsruhe virtual catalogue is a meta search engine that enables users to simultaneously search through German and international library catalogues as well as cross-library databases.
VOE – Verbundkatalog Östliches Europa [Network Catalogue of Eastern Europe]
This network catalogue of Eastern Europe records the inventories of over 30 libraries and cultural-academic establishments in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.
OSMIKON – Research Gateway to Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe
The research gateway to Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe consolidates services on offer for German research into Eastern and Southeastern Europe.
Slavistik-Portal [Slavic Studies Portal]
The portal serves as the central port of call for subject-specific information available online for Slavic studies.
Zeitschriftendatenbank [Journal database]
The Zeitschriftenbank is the central bibliographic database for periodicals and series in Germany and Austria. It also lists the GWZO’s inventory.
