As the library with the largest old collection in North Rhine-Westphalia, we can offer you many portals with historical collections.

• Sammlung Alff - Pamphlets on the Brabant and Liège Revolutions - Prints from the years 1781 to ca. 1825
   
• Sammlung Franz Xaver Bachem - Publisher and book collector
   
• Sammlung Georg Andreas und Gerlinde Bachem - The principle: a printed European book on the shelf from every year of the 15th to the 20th century.
   
• Sammlung Fred Bänfer - more than 1,200 books and texts, published from 1684 to 1850, from French and English fiction, poetry, children's and youth literature, bibliophilia and curiosities.
   
• Sammlung Wilhelm Bäumker - Books with the sayings and psalms of David, hymnals for various regions of Germany, devotional books of brotherhoods and congregations, prayer books, pilgrimage books, pilgrimage literature and theoretical works on Gregorian chant.
   
• Bibliothek Hermann Heinrich Becker - 15,000 volumes of legal, political and economic literature, works on German history, Westfalica and political pamphlets of the 19th century.
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• Inkunabelsammlung und Blockbücher - We owe our rich collection of incunabula mainly to the Sammlung Wallraf, the grammar school library, the Syndikatsbibliothek and some other collections.
   
• Sammlung Botanik / Zoologie - Historical books from the 18th to the 20th century in the fields of botany and zoology.
   
• Breslauer Dissertationen - Scientific papers from the Silesian Friedrich Wilhelm University from ca. 1850 to 1945.
   
• Dante-Sammlung (Wilhelm Reiners) - 900 volumes from the private collection of the mechanical engineering entrepreneur and Dante admirer Wilhelm Reiners.
   
• Einbandsammlung - view over 350 testimonies of solid craftsmanship, artistic inspiration and publishing care.
   
• Sammlung Hans Engländer - valuable books from the field of zoology, especially ornithology.
   
• Evangelische Bibliothek Köln - 70,000 theological volumes bought, collected and cared for by Protestants over 147 years.
   
• Bibliothek Johannes Fastenrath - around 10,000 books on Spanish literature, history and regional studies as well as literature from Romance countries.
   
• Fotografie als angewandte Wissenschaft - digitised photographic manuals from 1839 - 1882.
   
• Portal Historische Frauenliteratur - Special collection of the ALEKI library of 600 novels and guidebooks from the mid-18th century to the beginning of the 21st century.
   
• Friedrich von Gentz - Sammlung Günter Herterich -  Contents are the works of Gentz, his diaries and correspondence, secondary literature and the correspondence of Günter Herterich.
   
• Gentz Digital - Correspondences of Friedrich von Gentz from our "Herterich Collection".
   
• Grantha- und Telugu-Drucke - Indian Sanskrit prints of the 19th and early 20th century in Grantha and Telugu (two South Indian scripts) from the holdings of the Institute for Indology and Tamil Studies at the University of Cologne.
   
• Gymnasialbibliothek - Holdings from various secularised monasteries and from the three old Cologne grammar schools Tricoronatum, Laurentinum and Montanum.
   
• Hallische Jahrbücher - Journalistic organ of the so-called Young Hegelians from the years 1838 -1843.
   
• Sammlung Jakob Ignaz Hittorff - Albums with around 2,500 original drawings by the architect Hittorff and his collected books on art and archaeology.
   
• Sammelschwerpunkt Islandica-Sammlung - a collection of 10,000 titles around and about Iceland that is unique in the German-speaking world.
   
• Jesuitensammlung Köln - lists provenances and information on the former location of the books of the Cologne Jesuit College from 1521-1597.
   
• Thomas a Kempis-Sammlung - Editions of the Imitatio Christi (412 titles) together with the associated secondary literature.
   
• Kölner Dissertationen vor 1800 - approx. 400 dissertations from the old Cologne University.
   
• Kölner Provenienzportal - shows where we got our old stock from. 9,000 origins have already been clarified.
   
• Kölner Studentenbücherei  - Founded in 1920 under the patronage of Cologne's Lord Mayor Dr. Konrad Adenauer
   
• Kölner Sammlung von Zeitungsausschnitten 1840 - 1969 - Newspaper clippings with reference to Cologne and the Rhineland, but also to neighbouring regions such as Westphalia, the Moselle region, the Eifel, the Hunsrück (...)
   
• Königsberger Dissertationen - over 1,100 digital copies of the philosophical, natural science and law faculties of the Albertus University Königsberg.
   
• Europäische Städte- und Landschaftsdarstellungen - 1,400 illustrations from the 16th and 17th centuries - taken from our book collections.
   
• Bibliothek der Familie von Mevissen - 15,000 volumes on economic, social and technical history by Gustav, Mathilde and Melanie von Mevissen.
   
• Sammlung Ernst von Oidtman - 1,333 folders with genealogical documents, sheets and materials.
   
• Rheinisches Museum für Philologie - the volumes 1827 - 2015 of the world's oldest specialist journal in the field of classical studies.
   
• Poetica-Sammlung - person-related, rare writing from the 17th and 18th centuries, created on the occasion of weddings, deaths, anniversaries.
   
• Portraitsammlung der USB Köln - over 1,000 portraits with extensive information on the life dates of those portrayed from the year 1507 onwards.
   
• Bibliothek Josef Quint - Tracts and sermons by Meister Eckhart into New High German and works from the fields of theology, Classical Philology, Medieval Latin and Early German Studies.
   
• Rheinische Monographien - approx. 7,500 volumes on the subject "Rheinland in den Grenzen der alten preußischen Rheinprovinz".
   
• Rheinische Zeitschriften - Newspapers and periodicals from the 18th to 20th centuries with a connection to the city of Cologne or published by a Cologne publishing house.
   
• RHEINLANDBIB - Historisches Bestände im Rheinland - Catalogue of the Cologne "Arbeitsstelle Historische Bestände im Rheinland". It brings together the holdings of 21 small historical libraries in the Rhineland.
   
• Die virtuelle Bibliothek Elise und Helene Richter - an extensive library with a focus on English, Romance, linguistics and theatre studies, which was reconstructed and documented as part of the NS provenance research at the USB Cologne.
   
• Bibliothek Eugen Schmalenbach - Literature on the history of commercial accounting with only rarely offered second-hand literature from the antiquarian book trade.
   
• Sammlungen der Familie Schmitz-Otto - multi-layered collection of first and original editions, books on the Three Kings legend, manuscripts, autographs, prints, Cologne and Pierre-Marteau prints.
   
• Bibliothek Jürgen Scholle - Books from the 18th and 19th centuries from the epoch of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Realism and the Gründerzeit.
   
• Schulprogramme der USB Köln - around 20,000 school publications from the German Reich within the borders of 1871, from Austria-Hungary, from Switzerland as well as from other parts of the German cultural area of the time (Baltic States), from southern Scandinavia and the Netherlands.
   
• Alte Kölner Stadtbibliothek - Historical book treasures
   
• Syndikatsbibliothek - the Cologne Council Library with literature for the economic and educated middle classes of the time.
   
• Bibliothek Franz Thorbecke - Literature on the German colony of Cameroon, Africa and geography.
   
• Totenzettelsammlung - approx. 14,000 death certificates or death pictures from 1716 to the present day.
   
• Bibliothek Ferdinand Franz Wallraf - Manuscripts and historical prints from various fields of science often philology, natural sciences and theology.
   
• Bibliothek Franz Weinkauff - around 1,260 philological works with a number of valuable old prints.
   
• Sammlung Westerholt - over 700 volumes from the library of the noble von Westerholt family (travel literature and fiction).
   
• Sammlung Otto Wolff - Literature on German (esp. Prussian) and French history Especially for the revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848.
   
• Zeitungsportal NRW (zeit.punktNRW) - historical newspapers from North Rhine-Westphalia.