The Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg is an academic library with the status of an Établissement public à caractère administratif. Located at Place de la République in the heart of Neustadt, it is housed in a building designed by August Hartel and Skjold Neckelmann. The building is registered and classified as a historic monument. Since 1918, the library has been the second largest library in France by number of preserved works.
Its collections exceed three million documents, including monographs, printed periodicals, precious manuscripts, and heritage objects. The library’s history is tied to earlier Strasbourg collections that were destroyed in 1870, including the Protestant seminary library and the municipal library. After the destruction, donations helped rebuild the library, which was later established under the name Kaiserliche Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek zu Strassburg. The institution also developed important research collections, including a notable orientalist collection.
Nearby Objects
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Palace of the Alsace-Lorraine Diet 110 m away -
Monument aux morts 140 m away -
Place de la République 140 m away -
Musée Tomi Ungerer 150 m away -
Palais du Rhin 250 m away
Building, Collection, and Location
The Bibliotheque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg is a library with the status of etablissement public a caractere administratif. Since 1918, it has been the second largest library in France by number of preserved works. Its holdings include more than three million documents, among them monographs, printed periodicals, precious manuscripts, and heritage objects. The library is located at place de la Republique in the heart of the Neustadt. It is housed in a building designed by the architects August Hartel and Skjold Neckelmann, and the building is registered and classified as a historic monument.
From Lost Collections to a Research Library
Before 1870, Strasbourg already possessed two distinguished libraries: the Protestant seminary library and the municipal library. The Protestant seminary library had originated from Gymnase Jean-Sturm and became the Protestant university in 1621, while the municipal library developed from the purchase of historian Jean-Daniel Schoepflin's private library. Together, these collections contained more than volumes and at least manuscripts in 1870, including the medieval encyclopedia Hortus deliciarum, directed by abbess Herrade de Landsberg, as well as works by Meister Eckhart, Jean Tauler, and Konrad von Wurzburg.
On the night of 24 to , the Temple-Neuf church was bombed and burned, and both collections were destroyed entirely. In response, Karl August Barack, the former librarian of the Furstenberg princes, launched a donation appeal. The appeal was successful and quickly led to volumes being installed at Palais Rohan. The library was officially named Kaiserliche Universitats- und Landesbibliothek zu Strassburg by a declaration on , and this name was confirmed by an imperial decree dated .
The institution then moved on to a neo-Renaissance Italian style building at Place de la Republique on . Its growth was supported by major donations, including precious duplicates and 27 incunabula from the university library of Konigsberg, as well as contributions from the universities or regional libraries of Gottingen, Munich, Dresden, Heilbronn, Schweinfurt, and multiple booksellers. Emperor Wilhelm II also donated volumes from his personal collection. By 1875 the number of donors had reached and by 1879 the total number of volumes had reached , making it Germany's fourth largest library. Early on, the library concentrated on research needs by delegating study functions to institute libraries, and under Julius Euting it built one of Europe's richest orientalist collections.
The Bibliotheque Nationale Universitaire in Strasbourg is also associated with records of its hall photographed in 1895 and 1919, and its reading room documented at its opening in 1895. Construction of the BNU took place from 1890 to 1893. After World War I and the return of territories to France, the future of the library was debated, and the French government decreed it a national public institution. During World War II, French libraries followed ministry directives to move collections away from battle zones. Starting in 1933, the BNU collections were moved with the University of Strasbourg to Clermont-Ferrand, and after the evacuation of Strasbourg in 1939, the library moved 1.5 million volumes and university institute libraries to the south. In 1939, the administrator delegated powers to librarian Kuhlmann to pack valuable collections in 264 crates.
Evacuation and wartime storage
The Bibliotheque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg was evacuated for transfer to Auvergne between September 1939 and March 1940. During this period, its collections were stored in several locations, including the chateaux of Quayres, Cordes, and Theix in Saint-Genes-Champanelle, as well as sites at Chateaugay and Pont-du-Chateau. Additional collections were later kept in other places, including Barr in Alsace. Chateau de Cordes, near Orcival, served as a transfer location, and BNU personnel from Strasbourg were photographed standing in front of it when the library was evacuated in 1939. Part of the works also passed through the Salle des fetes of Chateau de Theix during the transfer.
War Damage and Dispersed Collections
The northern part of the building at place de la Republique was slightly damaged by bombardment, and the attack also caused the loss of part of the collections. Further losses were recorded when a violent air attack on the city of Barr destroyed collections stored by the BNU, including medical collections that had survived the 1870 disaster. Before leaving Strasbourg, German occupying troops transferred important collections inside the Reich. After the Liberation, some of these collections were found at Chateau de Zwingenberg, at the State and University Library of Lower Saxony at Gottingen, and at the University of Hohenheim. Research was also carried out in Hesse, the Lake Constance area, and the Black Forest region. Overall, BNU losses were estimated at thousands of works because of destruction, theft, and censorship during this period. Between 1951 and 1956, the removal of the rich Wilhelmian interior decorations was linked to post-war restructuring, and recent surveys have found no remaining trace of this decoration.
Restructuring and Expansion
Starting in 2003, the Bibliotheque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg prepared an important restructuring project in close collaboration with local authorities. The total cost of the works was originally estimated at 50 million euros, and expenditure for the building on Place de la Republique is now reported at 61 million euros. Financing for the Place de la Republique project includes 40.5 million euros from the state, while local authorities contribute 6.8 million euros each. The Region Alsace, the Bas-Rhin general council, and the Strasbourg Urban Community are also partners in the BNU project. A separate restructuring of the Rue Joffre complex was evaluated at 14 million euros without budgeted means.
The interior restructuring was entrusted to the Nicolas Michelin agency after a competition. The project included partial demolition of internal building structures, including floors, with the aim of restoring the dome's centrality in the overall structure and creating continuity between the facade and interior decoration. It also sought to recover zenithal light, which was intended to spread to all floors through wall openings and reflective metal elements. The plan used space gained from inner courtyards to increase the number of seats from 500 to 660 and to create dedicated areas for cultural life, including an exhibition room and a 140-seat auditorium.
To support the restructuring, shelves from the Republic building were redistributed across three locations. Some were moved to the municipal library on rue Kuhn under an agreement with the city of Strasbourg, while the Cardosi building at 9 rue Fischart was acquired from the Bas-Rhin Departmental Archives for nearly specified shelves. More than specified shelves were installed at a third location in Entzheim. The purchase of the rue Fischart building was intended to allow the BNU to expand and increase the linear kilometers available, with shelf capacity planned to reach specified kilometers by 2014.
The Republic square building was officially closed on the specified date, and construction works were scheduled to last three years, with reopening planned for 2014. In 2011, most floors were demolished and the dome was temporarily raised for the installation of concrete columns. New spaces were built in 2012 and 2013, including a monumental staircase. Throughout the works, BNU services continued fully and all documents remained accessible to users. The library also maintained its cultural action policy with partners, organizing off-site exhibitions, conferences, and activities with communities and student associations. The BNU reopened to the public during an open house weekend on the specified date and resumed normal operations on the specified date.
Leadership and Administrative History
The historical leadership of the Bibliotheque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg changed across several administrative periods. From 1870 to 1926, the directors included Karl August Barack, who served from 1871 to 1900, and Julius Euting, who served from 1900 to 1909. During the transitional period around the end of the First World War, Samuel Landauer acted as interim director in 1918, followed by Ch. Klein as interim director from 1918 to 1919. Ernest Wickersheimer was then appointed mission officer and later became permanent director, serving from 1920 to 1926. From 1926 to 2020, the head of the library held the title administrator. Among the administrators were Albert Schmitt-Claden, from 1940 at Strasbourg, and Karl Julius Hartmann, from 1941 to 1945 at Strasbourg. Later administrators included Maurice Piquard from 1950 to 1953, Georges Collon from 1953 to 1959, Norbert Schuller from 1959 to 1974, Jean Sansen from 1975 to 1978, Lily Greiner from 1978 to 1988, Michel Boisset from 1988 to 1992, Gerard Littler from 1992 to 2002, and Bernard Falga from 2002 to 2005. Catherine Donnadieu also served as interim administrator from October of a specified year.
Governance and Institutional Mission
The Bibliotheque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg is organized by decree 92-45, which was modified by decrees 2010-1069 and 2020-1166. Its mission is international, national, and regional, reflecting a broad institutional role beyond a single local setting.
The establishment is governed by a board of directors, which is responsible for major decisions concerning library policies, the budget, contracts, and internal regulations. The board is assisted by a scientific council. Its composition brings together several categories of members: ex officio members, elected members, qualified personalities, and user representatives.
Among the ex officio members are the director of scientific and technical information and university libraries at the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, the secretary general of the Council of Europe, the presidents of the University of Strasbourg and the University of Haute-Alsace, the president of the European Confederation of Upper Rhine Universities, the mayor of Strasbourg, and the presidents of the Grand Est regional council and the European collectivity of Alsace. These members may also be represented by a delegate.
The elected members include two teachers-researchers or researchers from the University of Strasbourg, five staff representatives, and three user representatives. The staff representatives consist of two scientific staff members and three technical and administrative staff members. The user representatives include two chosen from among university students and one chosen by the scientific council.
The board also includes four qualified personalities from cultural, scientific, or economic fields, with two appointed by the director and two co-opted by the board. Consultative members include the head of the libraries, documentation, books and public reading college within the General Inspectorate of Education, Sport and Research, the administrator of the BNU, the secretary general, the accounting officer, the budget controller of the establishment, and the director of the university library of Strasbourg. The rector of the academie de Strasbourg assists or is represented at board meetings.
Organization and Institutional Role
The Bibliotheque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg is supervised by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research. Its director is appointed for a five-year term, renewable once, and is assisted by a secretary general. Since 2026, the director has been Nicolas Tocquer, who succeeded Alain Colas, a general conservator of libraries. The institution is internally organized around two main poles: Services and Collections, and Sharing, Dissemination, and Networks. Its structure also includes a Project Engineering, Digital and Innovation service, a secretariat general, and various missions.
The library is associated with the University of Strasbourg under article L. 718-16 of the education code, as provided by decree 92-45 and modified by decree 2020-1166. A convention defines the terms of this association. In 2013, the BNU signed a site contract with the universities of Strasbourg, Haute-Alsace, and INSA Strasbourg under the name University of Strasbourg.
An establishment project for 2004 to 2008 planned to strengthen multidisciplinary collections in the human and social sciences and to reinforce the institution's patrimonial mission. It also included cooperation plans with the Eurometropole de Strasbourg media libraries.
Collections and Documentary Profile
The physical collections of the Bibliotheque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg contain more than 3.3 million printed documents, making the library the second largest in France by numerical size and the largest library for higher education and research in the country. They also position BNU as the leading human and social sciences library in France and the top interlibrary lender in that field. These collections include remarkable heritage holdings and reflect a documentary development shaped by the reconstruction of the collections from 1871 to 1872, when they were oriented by contemporary costly acquisitions.
The character of the collections is closely linked to BNU's historical and institutional responsibilities. In 1918, the holdings consisted of more than 60 percent German language documents out of 1.1 million. They support BNU's focus on religious sciences and the Germanic cultural area, and they contribute to its status as an associate center of the Bibliotheque nationale de France and as a CADIST for those same fields. They also reflect the library's documentary responsibilities in religious sciences under the special regime of Alsace-Moselle and recall the late 19th century German university encouragement of theology and civilization studies.
The modern collections remain encyclopedic in scope. They include an exceptional documentary center for Alsace, European affairs, arts, and Antiquity, as well as a scientific popularization and history of science and technology fund created in 1992. In 2010, this fund included more than 11,000 scientific and medical popularization books, together with subscriptions to 44 printed periodicals and 62 electronic journals. The collections also express BNU's legal deposit responsibility for printed documents from the Alsace region and its role in assembling exhaustive documentation on Alsace. Over thirty years, purchases and donations significantly expanded a vast iconographic collection. Annual digital acquisitions reach 18,000 documents, or about 360 linear meters, and future growth is planned in the BNU Nouvelle project, which reserves space at 9 rue Fischart.
Digital Collections and Partnerships
Collections numeriques plays a central role in the digital heritage activity associated with the Bibliotheque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg. It serves as a long-term partner in digitization projects linked to portals such as Alsatica and Europeana, and it hosts the Numistral portal as the heritage digital library of the Alsace university site. Numistral was opened for the heritage digital library of the Bibliotheque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg and later developed under the 2013-2017 Alsace site contract for access to digitized documentary collections.
The platform brings together collections from higher education and research institutions in Alsace, including Bnu, Universite de Haute Alsace, and Universite de Strasbourg. Its online holdings include a large iconographic collection of posters, photographs, postcards, and engravings. Collections numeriques also participates in digitization projects for World War I trench newspapers with the Bibliotheque nationale de France and the Bibliotheque de documentation internationale contemporaine, digitizes Francophone Protestant press in partnership with the Bibliotheque nationale de France, and contributes World War I documents to the Europeana 1914-1918 project initiated by the State Library of Berlin.
Since 2020, it has also partnered with Wikimedia France on knowledge enrichment and free dissemination about Alsace heritage, including GLAM projects involving galleries, libraries, archives, and museums.