Background information on Aachen City Library
Today's book and media center Stadtbibliothek owes its existence to the initiative of an Aachen citizen. The publicist, enlightener and councillor Franz Dautzenberg, who died in 1828, had bequeathed his 10,000-volume, systematically compiled library to the city in his will on the condition that it would be united with the previously non-public council library and made accessible to the public.
The academic municipal library, aimed at the educated middle classes, was opened in 1831 in the Coronation Hall of Aachen Town Hall. After the addition of a number of extensive libraries of scholars, including that of the Prussian diplomat Alfred von Reumont from Burtscheid and founder of the Aachen Historical Society, the library was given its first professionally trained director on July 1, 1889, in the person of Emil Fromm.
In May 1897, the city library moved into a purpose-built building on the Fischmarkt for the first time. In 1936, the city council decided to establish a municipal library. It was opened in 1940 in a new building in Peterstraße. Following war damage, the municipal library was also given a new building next to the municipal library in 1957. In 1957, the municipal library opened a children's and youth library, followed by the music library in 1967.
In 1977, the city library and municipal library were merged by council resolution to form the new public library of the city of Aachen.
In 1980, the library moved into its current building in Couvenstraße. Since 1980, the Public Library of the City of Aachen has participated in the rapid changes in the media landscape. Videos have been part of its collection since 1985, CDs since 1989 and CD-ROMs since 1994. In addition, the public library has offered public Internet access with 22 public workstations since 1998. In June 2008, it was renamed "Stadtbibliothek Aachen" again. Since 2014, the public library has been a member of the "Onleihe Region Aachen", a regional library network that jointly offers e-media for lending. Today, it is a high-performance education and information center for the citizens of Aachen and the entire region.