Reading Room & Borrowing
The Abbey Library, Switzerland’s oldest library with a unique collection of books, is now an operational lending library.
St.Gallen Abbey Library owns roughly 170,000 books and other media. Documents published since 1900 can be borrowed. The modern specialist library with a focus on the Middle Ages, codicology and palaeography maintains the fullest possible collection of literature about the St.Gallen manuscripts. To ensure that we are always up-to-date, we are grateful for suggestions from users who are familiar with these specialist fields. A list of recent acquisitions (in German) is regularly compiled.
No charge is made for borrowing or consulting our books or media. A valid user identity card is required by readers wishing to take items home with them.
As a local research resource, the Abbey Library has a reading room with a reference library, which stocks leading reference works and compendia. Further basic literature is kept in the stack room but can be fetched easily. There is also a computer in the reading room for searching the library catalogue, and free wi-fi access is available.
Books and media produced before 1900 and rare books can be consulted in the reading room. Manuscripts and incunabula can likewise be viewed in the reading room for research purposes only. This requires prior notification and the consent of the abbey librarian (Turn on Javascript!). The Library reserves the right to restrict usage on conservation grounds. Anyone interested can consult the manuscripts already digitised to extremely high standards at www.cesg.unifr.ch.
Further details about borrowing and using the Abbey Library can be found in the rules and schedule of fees (in German).
Opening hours: lending service and reading room
Monday – Friday
8:30 – 11:45 am and 1:45 – 5:00 pm
The library is closed to users on the following dates:
29.03. and 01.04.24 Good Friday and Easter Monday
09.05.24 Ascension Day
20.05.24 Whit Monday
28.06.24 alterations (open in the morning/closed in the afternoon)
03.07.24 staff excursion
01.08.24 National Holiday
16.10.24 Feast day of St Gall
01.11.24 All Saints' Day
11.11. – 25.11.24 alterations
24.12.24 – 02.01.25 Christmas Holiday