Research Library for the History of Education, Educational history research library in Berlin, Germany

The Research Library for the History of Education (BBF) is the largest pedagogical special library in Germany, holding around 730,000 volumes at Warschauer Straße in Berlin. It is a research library of the DIPF | Leibniz Institute, with an old stock of some 12,000 volumes printed up to 1830 and special collections of Prussian secondary-school programmes and annual reports. An archive holds files and personal papers on educational history.

Founded in 1876, this library became part of a major research institute dedicated to education. Over the decades it has collected important documents and materials to document how schools and teaching have evolved.

The collection shows how teaching methods and school practices developed differently across regions over time. Through the materials on display, you can see how families and communities once educated their children and what role learning held in their lives.

The library is publicly accessible on Warschauer Straße in Berlin, and most of its holdings are searchable through the online catalogue. Selected materials, including pedagogical journals and reference works from the 18th to the 20th century, are freely available in digitised form via Scripta Paedagogica Online. The collection is supported by the German Research Foundation.

The library holds around 12,000 volumes printed up to 1830, plus special collections of school programmes and annual reports from Prussian secondary schools. It also keeps an archive of files and personal papers on the history of education. Much of the material is searchable online, and selected items are digitised.