The Saxon State Office for Libraries looks back on a history of over 100 years. On the eve of the First World War, it was founded in Leipzig in 1914 as the State Central Office for Popular Libraries in the Kingdom of Saxony. Since then, it has supported libraries run by local authorities and acted as a link between them and their owners. Since 2022, it has been operating under the organisational umbrella of SLUB Dresden.

As a state agency, we contribute our professional know-how to ensure that all public libraries in Saxony can fulfil their diverse tasks. We also support institutions in rural areas in particular in their transformation from libraries to attractive places of information, encounter and lifelong learning.

With these services we are at your side:

Advice We offer you our extensive experience in the expansion of public libraries, in questions of building and furnishing, in organisation and administration, in alliances and consortia, in stock building and maintenance, in new media, in reading promotion, library education and public relations.

Information We inform you about funding opportunities, prepare working aids, offer you library statistical data including evaluation - and provide you with specialist information on all areas of public librarianship via newsletters and on our homepage.

Qualification We organise further training for full-time, part-time and voluntary library staff, cooperate with external further training institutes and develop our own formats. To this end, we cooperate with the Gutenbergschule Leipzig (specialist for media and information services), with the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (library and information science) as well as with the metropolitan libraries of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz.

Expansion of the media offer We arrange supplementary stocks and media boxes for municipal and city libraries, orders within the framework of regional interlibrary loan as well as library services from regional library associations and specialist companies.

Networking in the sector We shape local and regional library associations, network online services of public libraries with each other and with the IT-supported services of academic libraries.

Cooperation with initiatives We are happy to work with all civil society initiatives that are committed to promoting reading and media literacy as well as cultural education.