Location Information

In addition to the traditional collections covering all subject areas, there is a number of new holdings at the Central Library of the Humboldt University named 'Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum'. These new items are of particular interest for the following university departments:

  • Philosophy, History (including Prehistory and Early History as well as the History of Science), European Ethnology, Library Science and Computer Science
  • Classical Philology
  • Social Sciences, Archaeology, Culture, Art and Imgaging History
  • Rehabilitation Science, Education, Higher Education
  • Economics

Above all, the 'Grimm Zentrum' is well reputed for its valuable historical as well as more recent holdings which include those special collections whose compilation was generously supported by the German Research Society. They specialize in literature on Folklore and Ethnology as well as Higher Education. Equally valuable are the Library of the Grimm Brothers, the Portrait Collection with the portraits of professors of Berlin University / Humboldt-University, and a fairly large number of scholarly libraries bequeathed to the University Library by their former owners. You can work with special collections in our Research Reading Room.

In addition to the textbook collection in the  subject areas mentioned above, the 'Grimm Zentrum' also keeps collections of textbooks of various branch libraries in subjects such as Foreign Language and Literature Studies, German Studies, Classical Archaeology, Musicology and Theology.

The 'Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum' is a lending library but it also owns extended reference holdings, including periodicals, manuals, bibliographies, biographies, source material and print doublets.

A great part of the holdings is open access with the entire textbook collection being systematically classified in the Regensburger  Verbundklassifikation (RVK).

New resources in the above-mentioned subjects are constantly purchased and indexed, which is why the Central Library is the first and foremost choice of both staff and students of the respective insitutes of Humboldt-University. Appointments can be made with the subject librarians for the subjects-1 represented in the Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum, and there is also a wide range of training courses.

In the 'Grimm Zentrum' there is a large number of workplaces, often equipped with computers as well as special facilities such as study carrels, group workrooms and a state of the art computer system of the University's computer and media service department. 

Please also take note of regulations for study desks (HU home zone)!

Hence staff and students find ideal working conditions on the campus in the centre of Berlin. Readers who would like to bring along their children to the library may go to the parent-child-room called Berliner Volksbank Kinderstube which is on the 7th floor and where they can work while their children are playing nearby. 

Also on the 7th floor, at the media centre there are the Photo and Transparency Archives of the Institute of Art and Imaging History as well as the video and microform collections of the University Library for reference use, although lending is possible in some cases.