Salzburg City Library

The Salzburg City Library (as a word mark in the spelling City:Library, until 2006 City Library Salzburg ) is the province of Salzburg’s main public library, run by the Austrian city of Salzburg.

The city library evolved from the Volksbildungsverein library and opened as a municipal library in 1941 at Salzburg’s Mirabell Palace.A youth library was added the same year it opened.The America House donated a book bus to the local library in 1961, and the third generation is still in operation today.The media library was established as a distinct branch in 1993, along with a music section.

On the location of Lehen’s former stadium, a new city library opened in 2009.The main library, the children’s and youth libraries, and the media center were combined in one structure as part of the Neue Mitte Lehen urban development project, which also includes stores, an event hall, a senior center, and flats, as well as a park and a so-called marketplace.The goal was to improve the quality of stay, offer new services (research, Internet access), and provide a more customer-oriented media presentation (information portals, subject merging).The Salzburg city council voted in July 2013 to include the panorama bar, which cantilevers 32 meters above the building, as a reading lounge and event venue.

The Salzburg City Library now has over 180,000 media in its collection.Books, periodicals, sheet music, laser discs (CD-Video), CDs, DVDs, CD-ROMs, VHS films, and cassettes are all included.Every year, around 1.1 million borrowings are recorded.Regular library users account for more than 15% of city inhabitants, putting them in the top category in an Austria-wide comparison.

Immediately following the launch of the new library, a digital library service for downloading e-books was established, which is now available on the library’s website.In addition, the Café Panoramabar, which is attached to the library, offers free online access to over 2000 foreign daily publications.

The Salzburg City Library also hosts free literary and linguistic activities for migrants, such as readings, book presentations, and German conversation classes.