Every year, scholars from various countries, including Japan, Belgium and the USA, visit us to conduct research in Wilhelm Ostwald’s library preserved in its original form. They can avail themselves of a wide range of options for their work and we support them every step of the way.

In the library visitors can consult Ostwald’s publications on a wide range of subjects such as physical chemistry, electricity, energy technology, natural philosophy, educational theory, monism, colour theory and many more. They can also use our archive and the reference library, which contains more recent works devoted to colour and chemistry. In addition, scientists have access to other workplaces behind the scenes where they can work undisturbed.

The extensive correspondence between Wilhelm Ostwald and various scientists and scholars of his age amounting to some 60 000 original letters is preserved in the archives of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. If you would like to conduct research in this field, please get in touch with us. We will send you further information about our stocks of literature.