100 Days on a Fulbright: Day 32: University of Hamburg Library

University of Hamburg Library is grandiose but not the main entrance. This website gives a clear overview about what is in each building: https://www2.uni-hamburg.de/onTEAM/campus/index_e.html

If you stay at the Gästehaus der Universität Hamburg, they give you a library card to be returned at the end of your stay. Otherwise you fill out an application here (http://tinyurl.com/welcomesubhamburg), pay €20 for one year and pick up the card at service center (bring your residence authorization and passport, and if a student, your student ID).

Although the original, main building (pictured above) sits opposite Hamburg Dammtor station, the main entrance for most research is actually at Von-Melle-Park 3 (pictured below)

You search the library collection here: https://kataloge.uni-hamburg.de/DB=1/LNG=EN/

Most books are offsite so you order them and find them later on bookshelves organized by your card number. You check out the books yourself so you don’t set off the alarms at the door.

If you need to print or scan, you first by a card on the first floor for €5, which gives you €2 and has a €3 pfand (given back when you return the card). Then on the 2nd floor, there are the scanners and printers. You can scan for free on the book scanners, unless there are students scan page by page by page by page. If this is the case, use the printer’s to scan for 20 cents a page scanned. 50 cents a page to print.

This site gives a nice overview of the library’s history and collection: http://www.europeana-newspapers.eu/featured-partner-hamburg-state-and-university-library-carl-von-ossietzky/  and this website about the history of the university which is surprisingly young.

And here from Notre Dame is a list of links to all of Germany’s libraries: https://library.nd.edu/help/study-abroad/Germany.shtml

University of Hamburg, main entrance for most research