The Bibliothèque serves the Genevan community but also a vaster public of international users. Indeed, it is actually several libraries at once, i.e., a conservation library that is responsible for forming and transmitting the city’s intellectual tradition and its encyclopedic heritage to present and future generations; a scholarly library of extensive specialized collections, with widely recognized areas of excellence in the humanities and the social sciences; a study and information library that enables the public at large to take advantage of its collections and forges working partnerships with researchers of all stripes; and finally a library with an international profile, influence, and scope, maintaining ties with comparable institutions in Switzerland and abroad while serving as an exemplar and point of reference for the city’s literary, scholarly, and scientific output.

The Bibliothèque acquires, conserves, and makes available to the public the traditional supports of learning, viz., manuscripts, printed books, images and visual sources generally. The Bibliothèque is mindful of the complementarity of paper documents and those from the new digital technologies. It takes advantage of those technologies, moreover, to enhance its collections and make them available to as broad a public as possible. As for acquisitions (purchases, donations, exchanges, legal deposits), the Bibliothèque is allowed complete freedom, neutrality, and curiosity in terms of culture, ideology, politics, and religion. In particular, it conserves documents from a number of controversial schools of thought. And to ensure the most complete range of services and an optimal availability of general and scholarly materials, the Bibliothèque situates its own development at the heart of a network of cantonal, regional, national, and international cooperative ties. The Bibliothèque’s missions are driven by a strong conviction that knowledge, study, and research play a decisive role in affirming fundamental human values, be it the dignity of the individual, defense of democratic freedoms, the openness of our minds, or tolerance.

The Bibliothèque de Genève occupies four different sites in iconic places within the city.
The central Bastions site (next to the University buildings, facing the Reformation Wall), the Musée Voltaire in Les Délices, the Musicale in the Grütli Theater and the Centre d’iconographie on the Boulevard du Pont d'Arve.
In addition there is the historical library of the Villa La Grange, (the only existing 18th century library in Geneva,) which is managed by the Bibliothèque de Genève.

Facts and figures (2018)

60 km of books
30,000 books on Voltaire
60,500 musical scores
More than 4 million images

Collections (2018)

2,602,625 works in print
31,440 maps and charts
165,012 microforms
65,057 manuscripts
662'858 ebooks available on line
30'566 other digital items available on line

Use (2018)

93,771 direct loans (number of items in circulation)
97 events organized (tours, exhibitions, talks)

Resources (2018)

119 staff members (78.10 equivalent full-time employees)

You can find further detailed statistical data at the Federal Statistical Office website (see the French page, Thèmes > Bibliothèques)