We modernise for you!
Tours still taking place!

Extensive construction work will be taking place in the issues desk and some of the reading rooms from October 2023 and is set to continue until autum 2024. However, we ask for your understanding that it is not possible to access some areas such as the media issue and the historic reading rooms during this period.
You will find the dates and times of our guided library tours in our events calendar.
Unfortunately, we are currently unable to offer individual group tours of the German National Library in Leipzig.

Guided tours in Leipzig

Introductory sessions in Leipzig

From Edison Cylinder to Blu-ray

Guided tour of the historic sound reproduction devices and sound recordings in the German Music Archive

Photo: PUNCTUM / Alexander Schmidt

Immerse yourself in the history of music and follow the development of sound reproduction devices and sound recordings.
We show you a whole range of music playback equipment: gramophones, a reproducing piano that plays automatically, and early sound reproduction devices for digital sound recordings . Different forms of musical notation, famous record covers and damage to sound recordings are also explained. From analogue media such as wax cylinders and records made of shellac or vinyl to the world of digital sound recordings – a tour of the German Music Archive at the German National Library will introduce you to the whole spectrum of music playback devices.
Along with the music exhibition “From Edison Cylinder to Blu-ray”, we will also show you the music reading room and our soundproof listening booth.

To the exhibition

Information and contact

The tours are available to groups of between seven and 20 people. They are also suitable for school classes from grade 6 and up.

These tours provide only brief explanations of how to actually use the German Music Archive.
Introductory sessions in Leipzig

Booking/Appointments

Make an appointment for a group tour:
fuehrungen-dma@dnb.de

Guided tours are available from Monday to Friday between 9 am and 3 pm. For organisational purposes, we would be grateful if you could contact us no later than three weeks before the desired date.

Duration

approx. 1.5 hours

Meeting Point

Foyer of the old building

Please lock your bags and backpacks in the lockers.

Costs

Free admission

Signs – Books – Networks

Guided tours of the German Museum of Books and Writing

Photo: DNB, Annett Koschnick

Our guided tour of the permanent exhibition “Signs – Books – Networks: from Cuneiform Script to Binary Code” at the German Museum of Books and Writing takes you and your group on a journey through 5,000 years of media history.
Tally sticks, tattoos, anatomy textbooks, neon signs, disguised publications, gravestones, novels or love letters: for more than 5,000 years people have been recording information using written signs. The permanent exhibition of the German Museum of Books and Writing provides a brief history of human media based on the three media innovations.
The exhibition extends an open invitation to explore earlier forms of communication, memory and writing systems, "old" book forms and "worlds of reading". It documents censorship, showcases masterly examples of book art and addresses the rapid pace of media development in the 20th century.

To the exhibition

Subject survey

Would you rather explore a specific topic in media history in greater depth? If so, bring your group to one of our focal tours, each lasting around one hour.

• Media history through a magnifying glass

  Five objects from the permanent collection will be used to guide you through media history in the blink of an eye. The tour of discovery begins with a tally stick, takes a look at censored comics, car license plates and the Brockhaus encyclopaedia, and ends with images of a futuristic media world. It conveys an impression of the profundity of the cultural revolution that took place with the invention of writing: the exchange of knowledge, opinions and feelings beyond all constraints of time and space. If required, the guided tour can also take the form of a dialogue.

• Hands-on history of books

  On this tour of various stages of the permanent exhibition, historic books, materials like parchment or papyrus and writing utensils that you can touch and grasp give an instructive insight into the history of books from their beginnings to the present day.

• Banned and burned – Censorship in book history

  The long arm of censorship has stretched across all eras and all aspects of literature production. From the Index librorum prohibitorum through the book burnings in the “Third Reich” to camouflaged publications issued in the recent past. The cases of censorship documented in the permanent exhibition reveal the full extent of the bans and countermeasures.

• Writing worlds

  For more than 5,000 years now people have been recording their messages, their knowledge and thoughts using written signs and scripts. The guided tour of the permanent exhibition uses a selection of objects ranging from tally sticks through tattooing machines to car license plates to show how information is disseminated through writing.

• Coded World – Between Cave-Painting and Unicode

  All forms of writing are based on images. But when and how does an image become a written character? When, how and why do scripts develop? How can a computer distinguish between text and images? These and similar questions are answered during a leisurely tour of the permanent exhibition of the German Museum of Books and Writing at the German National Library.

Information and contact

The tours are available to groups of between four and 20 people.

Booking/appointments

Make an appointment for a group tour:
dbsm-info@dnb.de
Phone + 49 341 2271-324

The group tours are held during the museum's opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 10 am to 6 pm, Thursday 10 am to 8 pm and public holidays 10:00 to 18:00. For organisational purposes, we would be grateful if you could contact us no later than three weeks before the desired date.

Duration

approx. 1.5 hours

Meeting point

Museum foyer

Costs

Free admission

Depot Whispers: of Mortars, Quills and 3D Printers

Guided tour of the Cultural History Collection of the German Museum of Books and Writing

Photo: PUNCTUM / Alexander Schmidt

Have you ever gazed at sieves, typesetting and stitching machines, or watermarking screen print rollers from close up? A guided tour of the Cultural History Collection’s stacks in the German Museum of Books and Writing at the German National Library will give you and your group the opportunity to get acquainted with an array of unusual objects.
Come and explore our technical holdings repository on the guided tour “Depot Whispers”. The room, which is five metres in height, contains a wide variety of machinery and equipment used for paper-making, book-binding and printing. Heavyweight machines are displayed alongside inkwells and delicate quill pens.
Join us on a journey through media history. Our cuneiform tablets, Chinese stamps and historic printing presses will tell you a lot about the development of writing and graphic techniques. We explain how various machines work and describe various paper-making processes and printing techniques.
During the tour, which lasts around one-and-a-half hours, you will familiarise yourself with our varied collection and explore rooms that are usually only accessible to our staff.
We will also gladly answer your questions and pay particular attention to certain aspects at your request.

Information and contact

The tours are available to groups of between four and 20 people.

Booking/Appointments

Make an appointment for a group tour:
dbsm-info@dnb.de
Phone + 49 341 2271-324

The group tours are held during the museum's opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 10 am to 6 pm, Thursday 10 am to 8 pm and public holidays 10:00 to 18:00. For organisational purposes, we would be grateful if you could contact us no later than three weeks before the desired date.

Costs

Free admission

Duration

approx. 1.5 hours

Meeting point

Museum foyer

Discovery tour for children and young people

Guided tour of the permanent exhibition of the German Museum of Books and Writing

Photo: PUNCTUM/Peter Franke

Tally sticks, wax tablets, stone drums or electronic tablet devices – together we set off on a tour of discovery, look behind the scenes and open the doors to the repository where the museum’s artefacts are stored.
Cuneiform, papier-mâché, letters, pixels and printing ink: education, entertainment, the imparting of knowledge and the joy of discovery are not mutually exclusive – and nowhere can this fact be better explained and experienced than in the Museum.
The varied tour program offers plenty of opportunities for active, creative investigations of the history of writing, books, paper and media. The tour, which lasts about one hours, sheds light on objects in the exhibition “Signs – Books – Networks” – enhanced by a theme-based trolley heavily laden with exciting museum treasures to look at and touch.

Information and contact

The tours are available to groups of between four and 30 people.

They are intended for children from pre-school age and up and young people. Other events for children and young people are offered by our hands-on museum.

Booking/Appointments

The tours are available to groups of between four and 30 people:
dbsm-info@dnb.de
Phone + 49 341 2271-324

The group tours are held during the museum’s opening hours: The group tours are held during the museum's opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 to 18:00, Thursday 10:00 to 20:00 and public holidays 10:00 to 18:00. For organisational purposes, we would be grateful if you could contact us no later than four weeks before the desired date.

Duration

approx. 1 hour

Meeting point

Museum foyer

Costs

Free admission

Address and getting here

German National Library
Deutscher Platz 1
04103 Leipzig

Getting here

We advise you to use public transport.