Poetry Library

The Lyrik Kabinett library is a non-lending library supervised by professional staff. You can access our books, read or browse, and obtain the advice of our librarians during opening hours.

Our library contains German-language and international poetry of all periods in parallel-text editions and original monolingual editions. We systematically collect poetry, selected poetological works and works of literary criticism, but no secondary literature in the academic sense. We subscribe to more than 50 journals and book series. As well as print media we also collect CD’s and other audio materials, DVD’s, and live recordings. The audio archive of our own events may also be used in the library. The library currently holds approximately 65,000 items and is growing at the rate of some 2,000 items per year.

Our collection of valuable and rare artists’ books comprises around 3,000 volumes and objects, both classical (art in a book) and more modern types: art object books or types that break with the classical book form. Please let us know in advance if you would like to view objects in the artists’ books collection so that we can arrange a timeslot. We also offer library tours that focus on artists’ books.