Volunteering at the Stabi – Just do it!

Become part of the Stabi! Around 30 million people in Germany are currently volunteering for the sake of the community. You can do that at the State Library too!

Perhaps you have been thinking about volunteering for a while and are still looking for the right place? The State Library is a non-commercial space for education and information, open to all interested parties, regardless of religious or political affiliation. These are the best conditions for voluntary work that is filled with the joy of knowledge and culture.

The collections of the State Library are known throughout the world: from the musical autographs of Johann Sebastian Bach, to a parchment copy of the Gutenberg Bible, or the Jahangir album. At our two architecturally exciting locations, we also provide our visitors with the most recent scientific literature, offer a varied workshop and culture programme, operate a museum with the Stabi Kulturwerk, and conduct our own research in the field of artificial intelligence.

The fields of activity in which you can contribute your ideas and interests to our joint work are just as diverse as our collections. It doesn't matter whether you are experienced in libraries or are breaking new ground: we are sure that you will make a difference at the Stabi and look forward to welcoming you. With this in mind: don't look any further, write to us!


These are the areas where you can currently make a contribution:

  • Guided tours (in different languages)
  • Guided tours (in different languages, with different focuses, e.g. architecture, history, percent for art)
  • Providing library basics in various (less common) languages
  • Receiving and accompanying of tourists
  • Support for a sales offer
  • Improving the visibility of representative Stabi collections by
  • Improving the findability of representative Stabi collections by
    • enriching metadata, such as the georeferencing of maps
  • Ideating campaigns and social media support for anniversaries
  • Support for various event formats
    • Content input for special (introductory) sessions on genealogy
  • Providing website information in various (less common) languages
  • Support in forthcoming citizen science projects (e.g. mentoring/supervision of participants)
  • Revision, book maintenance and stock compression in a defined section of the open access area or stacks
  • Guided tours (in different languages, with different focuses, e.g. architecture, history, percent for art)
  • Providing library basics in various (less common) languages
  • Improving the visibility of representative Stabi collections by
  • Improving the findability of representative Stabi collections by
    • enriching metadata, such as the georeferencing of maps
    • revising and standardising the descriptive data of oriental manuscripts
    • creating an image archive in the E.T.A. Hoffmann Portal
  • Ideating campaigns and social media support for anniversaries
  • Support for various event formats
    •  Moderation, time guardian function, designing breaks during SchreibZeit
    •  Content input for special (introductory) sessions on genealogy
    •  Preparation, supervision, moderation in the Wissenswerkstatt’s Book Club
    • Setting topics, selecting titles, drafting short texts for the Wissenswerkstatt’s Reading Lounge
  • Providing website information in various (less common) languages
  • Revision, book maintenance and stock compression in a defined section of the open access area or stacks
  • Improving the findability of representative image collections by
    • creating links to photographs on the bpk archive website e.g. in Wikipedia
  • Translation of parts of the bpk archive website

Improving the visibility of representative Stabi collections by