Our Reading Room is open to the public. You can also research using our library’s holdings and some of our collection’s holdings online. To view additional holdings, please contact the responsible curators.
The Reading Room at Our W. Michael Blumenthal Academy
Opening Hours, Equipment, and Other Information
The Reading Room for our Library and our Archive is located in the W. Michael Blumenthal Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin, opposite the museum.
Opening Hours
Monday and Wednesday: 12 am to 7 pm
Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday: 10 am to 5 pm
Closed on public holidays. Please note that the reading room will also be closed on 16 November (Prize for Understanding and Tolerance).
Online Catalogs
To find out which books, magazines, documents and other media you may view in the Reading Room, you can search or browse our Online Library Catalog.
You can also find some of the holdings of the Leo Baeck Institute (search “Our Catalog” on www.lbi.org) and the Wiener Library (www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/Collections) on our premises. Each item's entry indicates whether it is also available on microfilm in our Reading Room.
The Public Stacks and Ordering from the Depot
Our library's public stacks, with over 20,000 books, are accessible to the public. Holdings whose “Location” in their library catalog entry is listed as Rare Book Library, Rare Book Depot, or Depot must be ordered in advance. Please use the registration form on our website. Books ordered in the morning are available after 3 pm the same day; afternoon orders are filled from that time on the following day.
Our reading room in the W. Michael Blumenthal Academy; Jewish Museum Berlin, Photo: Jens Ziehe
How to reach us:
The Archive staff is happy to provide information on the holdings in its collection, which include bequests from nearly 1,700 individuals. Please contact the Archive staff to inquire about orders from the archival holdings. On our website, you will find more information about our Archive and the branches of the Leo Baeck Institute and the Wiener Library located there.
How to reach us:
Technical Equipment and Databases
The Reading Room has a media station for DVDs and videos, two reader printers for microfilm and microfiche, and a book scanner. At the computer workstations, you can conduct research in digital reference sources, magazines, databases such as the Encyclopedia Judaica.
Both institutions and private individuals can sign up for databases covered by the national license of the German Research Foundation (DFG). This license gives you access in the Reading Room to:
Additional full-text databases have open online access. We have compiled various recommended links for you on our website, including lists of digitized magazines and other online resources for researching Jewish topics.
