Skip to main content Skip to footer

City history library

The archive library contains around 660 meters of books, magazines and newspapers, a total of over 24,000 volumes. Around a quarter of these are valuable historical books (published before 1900). The most important departments are

  • Homburgensien: monographs, journals and some newspapers (Taunusbote) on the town of Bad Homburg and its history, including the spa and bathing lists, which are almost complete since 1834
  • Hesse-Nassau holdings: literature on the history of the Duchy of Nassau and the province of Hesse-Nassau, which became Prussian in 1868
  • General collection: supplementary and further literature, often on topics that have been researched in the city archive
  • Hölderlin library: primary and secondary literature on Friedrich Hölderlin
  • Periodical collection: consolidation of periodicals from the Homburgensia, Hesse-Nassau and general holdings.

  • The archive library's stock grows by around 6-8 meters of shelving every year. The selection of publications acquired by purchase is usually based on advertisements, literature references and reviews in daily newspapers, specialist journals and monographs as well as publishers' and antiquarian catalogs. User requests are also taken into account. Purchases are made via local bookshops, out-of-print books are obtained from antiquarian bookshops.

    "Gray literature" (not published in bookstores) usually has to be ordered directly from the author or the publishing institution.

    Not insignificant are the additions through donations and bequests from private individuals and institutions.

    Between 1950 and 1975, the StadtBibliothek handed over to the archive all literature that was to be withdrawn from circulation due to its historical value or for conservation reasons. This meant that the rare old holdings of the Homburgensien and the Hesse-Nassau department in particular were transferred to the archive library.

    In the course of cooperation with archives, museums, historical societies, etc., the city archive receives numerous media through the exchange of documents. Research in the city archive often leads to the publication of archive material. In this case, there is an obligation to provide a specimen copy.

  • The archive library is a reference library, so it can only be used in the reading room. Part of the collection (around 35 meters of shelving) is available as an open access area. In addition to an extensive collection of dictionaries, universal and specialist lexicons, there are also reference works on auxiliary sciences for historians.

    Frequently required Homburgensien and literature on Hesse are also available, as are the most important journals for archive use. The majority of the library's holdings are kept in the stacks and are only accessible via catalogs. Until 2007, they were recorded in card indexes which can be searched alphabetically by author, publisher or title.

    Homburgensien can also be searched by subject group. The Hesse-Nassau holdings have a subject index, so that thematic searches are also possible here. Since 2007, the library of the municipal archives has recorded its holdings in the "Hessian Library Information System" (HeBIS). This is a union catalog in which 519 mostly academic libraries from Hesse and parts of Rhineland-Palatinate currently record their media. The principle of this database is that only one record is created for each title, to which each participating library links its holdings data. The city archive already has over 8,000 items listed.

    The online catalog has many advantages for users:

    • It can be accessed at any time and from any location.
    • As the library holdings of all participating libraries can be called up, the probability of obtaining the desired book has increased considerably.
    • Almost all elements of the title record are searchable, i.e. not only author or title keywords, but also publisher, keywords, place, publisher, year of publication, ISBN and much more. Placeholders can also be used.
    • Different search items can be combined as required. It is possible to specify the search using the operators "and", "or" and "and not".
    • As a rule, essays are not cataloged. However, many with a reference to Hessen can be searched because they are included in the Hessian Bibliography, which is integrated in the HeBIS union catalog.