Create and convey knowledge: The copious holdings of the Austrian National Library occupy a place in a broad historical, geographical, cultural, and political context. Research that builds on that presents an important contribution to Austrian and European intellectual and cultural history.

By making its objects available on the highest academic level the Austrian National Library promotes and initiates a broad spectrum of research plans. The scholarly work done at the Library is linked into the national and international research landscape through cooperation with other academic institutions and close collaboration with scholars.

The research carried out at the Library is at present concentrated, beyond the processing of the sources usual for libraries and the archiving, above all on the challenges of the digital revolution. The focus is, on the one hand, on the digitisation of the Library’s holdings. Hence the Austrian National Library is actively participating in the framework of EU projects in the building-up of the European digital library Europeana and will digitise in the coming years in the project ABO – Austrian Books Online its entire holdings of books not under copyright, from the 16th to the 19th century. On the other hand, the Library is working on the further development of long-term archiving of information already available in digital form. The aim of various projects, being carried out in international cooperation, is to secure that elusive digital heritage for future generations.

All results of research work carried out at the Austrian National Library are generally accessible in the form of publications, databases, and exhibitions. The transfer of knowledge on a digital basis has a central role in that, so that the research is made available to a worldwide public.

An overview of the current research projects at the Austrian National Library and its Departments you can find here (in German).