Using the Department

The member card of the Austrian National Library allows access to the Department according to the guidelines set out in the regulations for use.

Because of the importance placed on conservation, which applies to handling all objects, certain guidelines must be observed in the reading room. These can be consulted in the regulations for use. It is possible to make use of private laptops.

The secondary literature on the holdings of the Department (reference library) includes, as well as general reference works and dictionaries, literature which concentrates mainly on the following technical areas: bibliography, bibliology, libraries, and (Austrian) history and history of literature. In addition, the reserve shelf contains bibliographies and library catalogues on the field involved, and personal bibliographies on authors from the 15th to the 19th century.

Nota bene:
Incunabula (Alt-Ink) and holdings of the „Rara“ (Alt-Rara), CP- (Alt-CP), luxury editions (Alt-Lux) and the collection of bindings (Alt-Einb) are on grounds of conservation removed once a week. The day of removal is always Wednesday. Orders that reach us by Tuesday are taken into account.

Please note that orders that are received after Wednesday cannot be fulfilled until the following week.