Herder Siegerland Library

The Johann-Gottfried-Herder-Bibliothek Siegerland e.V. was founded in Siegen in 1972. Its mission was to promote dialogue and engagement with Central and Eastern Europe. The association, established by former secondary school teacher Karl-Heinz Weber, adopted the guiding principle “turned towards the East.”

At the heart of the association stood its public library, which held approximately 35,000 books and pamphlets before closing in 2012. The University Library of the European University Viadrina was able to preserve the core of this collection — 4,089 volumes — focusing on literature about the former German eastern territories. These include works on Silesia (Schl), with differentiated holdings for Lower Silesia (NSL) and Upper Silesia (OSL), as well as East Prussia (OPR), West Prussia (WPR), Pomerania (POM), and Bohemia, Moravia and the Sudetenland (BMS).

Additionally, selected titles cover topics such as flight and expulsion, exile, Judaism, and literature on the former GDR, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Baltic States.

To facilitate targeted research, the classification system of the Herder Library Siegerland has been integrated into the catalogue as a supplementary option alongside the Regensburg Union Classification (RVK). In the OPAC, you may search by entering the regional abbreviation (e.g. Schl, NSL, OPR, etc.) in the simple search. You can then refine your search using the detailed classification structure below (e.g. Schl XXV for literature about people in Silesia):

I Bibliography
II General Regional Studies
III History
IV Settlement and Population History
V War History
VI Cities, Politics
VII Law
VIII Foreign Policy
IX Cultural History
X Language
XI Literary History
XII Literary Anthologies
XIII Art
XIV Music
XV Folk Humour
XVI Churches
XVII Social History
XVIII Economy
XIX Agriculture
XX Transport
XXI Natural Sciences
XXII Minorities
XXIII Landsmannschaften
XXIV Towns and Landscapes
XXV People

You may also find the Herder Library Siegerland holdings in the OPAC via the filter field "Publication (at) the EUV / Special Collection."