Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Library - About us

Today, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Library is one of the world's largest scientific specialized libraries, with the following areas of collection emphasis:

• Past and present of the German and international Labour Movements,
• German and international social and contemporary history,
• Current publications by political parties and trade unions from Germany and selected countries.

In Germany, the foundation library constitutes the largest trade union library, owning large stocks that are partly complete, e.g.

• the library of the Federal Executive Committee of the German Trade Union Federation (DGB)
• many of the DGB's individual member trade unions
• many international trade union organisations

With this collection profile, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Library makes a major contribution to the national literary supply. Since 1976, it has enjoyed wide-spread acclaim as a scientific specialized library and has been comprehensively supported in many ways by the German Research Community (DFG). The acquisition of grey literature from abroad, projects for the indexing of important specialized collections, retro-digitization and putting on film as well as the development of the "FES Net Source: History and Politics" have been made possible due to DFG support.
You can find a detailed report on this topic in (available only in german language):

• "Und erbitten wir einen ersten Bericht bis zum Ende des Jahres:
  Die Hilfe der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft beim Aufbau der Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung"
  von Rüdiger Zimmermann
  open the text
• in: "Das gedruckte Gedächtnis der Arbeiterbewegung:
  Festschrift zum 30-jährigen Bestehen der Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung"
  open the text

The library also offers publications by trade unions and political parties ("grey literature") from selected countries of Western Europe, North America and the Third World as well as by international trade union organisations (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, International Trade Secretariats) and the Socialist International (SI). The library is active in various library consortiums and participates in the (national and international) inter-library lending network (library abbreviation).

You can find further information on the library in: (only in german language)

• "Die Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung"
  von Rüdiger Zimmermann
  open the text
• "Das gedruckte Gedächtnis der Arbeiterbewegung:
  Festschrift zum 30-jährigen Bestehen der Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung"
  open the text
• Article in the
  german language Wikipedia