The Saxon State and University Library Dresden (SLUB) has an extensive collection of audiovisual objects, which is kept in the Media Library (Mediathek). This collection includes more than 200,000 sound recordings and films from 1896 until now—everything from shellac records to Blu-ray discs.

In addition to industrially produced media that can be checked out, the Media Library also holds a great quantity of rare and unique sound and film recordings in all sorts of formats.
A selection of these historical recordings is made available to the public in the Digital Media Library.

SAVE - Sicherung des audiovisuellen Erbes in Sachsen

Fachstelle der Deutschen Digitalen Bibliothek für Fotografie und Ton

Entwicklung KITODO für AV-Medien

Normdaten für Tonaufnahmen

Archiv der Stimmen

Central to the Media Library’s pursuits is collecting audiovisual media belonging to so-called Saxonica. In the area of music, the focus is on musical theater and exemplary interpretations of all musical genres, including international performers. The discipline of film is represented from its origins—all sorts of media are collected, from the first motion pictures up to contemporary documentary films dealing with historical topics, with contemporary art and the history of technology.

The Media Library’s collection contains—excluding multiple copies of the same title—approximately 19,000 DVDs, 25,000 VHS cassette tapes, 48,000 CDs, 79,000 LPs and 55,000 shellac discs, as well as many other sound recordings and films—most of which are rare, often unpublished and/or unique copies.

The in-house AV media are supplemented by the databases of the Digital Concert Hall and the Naxos Music Library. These items can also be searched for in the SLUB catalogue.

Most of the film and audio documents in the Media Library can be borrowed and are listed in the SLUB catalogue. Historical media can be digitised and ordered for in-house use (reference use only).

• More than 13,000 media are available for loan in the open stacks on level -1 of the Central Library. They are arranged according to a special system .
• All other media can be ordered via the SLUB catalogue.
• The archive collection contains a lot of unique historical media. If these are not already available online, they can be digitised and, depending on the legal situation, made available on the Digital Media Library or at a reference use only location in the library. The commercial use of such media is regulated on the SLUB's Library Fees and Charges webpage.