The largest public music library in Berlin offers a wide range of music: From medieval music and Mozart to Stockhausen, from blues to rap and from salsa to Russian folklore.

You will find periodicals on music as well as books, recordings (including around 43,000 CDs) and sheet music from every genre (approximately 95,000 units). Most of it can be borrowed and there are listening stations for recordings. Available reference books include encyclopedias such as "Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart" and the "New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians". In addition, we offer access to databases and portals such as "Grove Music Online", "RILM Music Abstracts" or "Naxos Music Library". Our expert staff will assist you in finding resources and will respond to written research inquiries.

A special offer is for example a stock of more than 73.000 vinyl records. This collection is housed in closed storage in the Berliner Stadtbibliothek and covers among others the production of sound recordings in the GDR. It also contains many titles from from Eastern Europe produced during the GDR period.

In two small rooms of the "Historischen Sammlungen" we provide several thousand items of historic sheet music as well as wax cylinders and shellac records.

Furthermore the Sondersammlung USA, a collection of works by American composers of the 20th century containing sheet music and vinyl records, is noteworthy.

Many volumes of collected editions are available for loan - an offer quite unique within music libraries.

As a State library we are legal deposit library for media published in Berlin. It covers among others all sound recordings produced by Berlin record companies. In the catalogue you will find an indicator "Magazin AGB / Präsenzbestand Musik - Ausgabe am Service Bereitstellungen" concerning these sound recordings. They are free to order into the reading room where they can be used.