Library

The Übersee-Museum has a reference library, which serves the scientific work in the house – but is also open to the public. The library’s collection is oriented towards the research and exhibition profile of the specialist departments in the building, and is processed and constantly expanded accordingly. Printed or electronic media, about 60,000 monographs and journal volumes from ethnology, natural sciences, trade studies and colonial history can be found here. The library currently maintains scientific document exchanges with 449 national and international partner institutions.

The roots of the library go back to the “Physical Society” founded in 1776 as well as the “Society Museum”, since 1876 called “Municipal Collections for Natural History and Ethnography”, two predecessors of today’s Übersee-Museum. Partly from these contexts, the library today contains some “treasures” of the 18th and 19th century from various scientific fields. Among them, for example, travel descriptions by James Cook, published in 1785 or the “Description of some lesser-known sea animals and their features”, written by Johann Babtist Bohadsch in 1776 – as well as others.

To the online catalog
Eine ältere Person liest ein Buch in der Bibliothek. Es ist ein Stapel alter Bücher zu sehen.

CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, Foto: Matthias Haase

Altere Bücher stehen in einem Bücherregal in der Bibliothek.

CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, Foto: Matthias Haase

Blick auf einen Tisch mit vielen Zeitschriften und Büchern. Es liest eine ältere Person in einem Buch. Im Hintergrund stehen viele Bücher in Regalen der Bibliothek.

CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, Foto: Matthias Haase

Bücher stehen in verschiebbaren Regalen der Bibliothek.

CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, Foto: Matthias Haase

Ältere Bücher in schwarz und blau stehen in einem Regal der Bibliothek nebeneinander.

CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, Foto: Matthias Haase