Bayerische Staatsbibliothek joins AI4LAM as a Founding Organisation
We are delighted to announce that the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (BSB), internationally also known as Bavarian State Library, from Munich in Germany has joined the AI4LAM community. The BSB enriches the AI4LAM family with its vast, high-quality data collection, its decades of expertise in the field of digitization, and its innovative development of digital collections.
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek /H.-R. Schulz
The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek is Germany’s largest academic universal library and a globally significant cultural heritage institution.
With 40.5 million media items and 6.3 million digitized works, it holds the country’s largest digital library collection. Through the Munich Digitization Center, it drives innovation in digitization and access to cultural heritage, serving as a leading hub for digital library technologies and research. In addition, the library is part of the National Research Data Infrastructure and is continuing to develop a portfolio of services through various specialized information services for a range of disciplines in the humanities and cultural studies, as well as for the digital humanities in these fields. The BSB is also responsible for bavarikon, the cultural portal of the Free State of Bavaria, and major digital projects related to manuscripts and early printed books.
The Bavarian State Library already has experience as a provider of artificial intelligence applications. It released an image similarity search feature for bavarikon in 2024 which is based on machine learning technology.
Since 2025, a cross-departmental process has been underway to examine the strategic potential of generative AI for the library, as well as the technical, legal and ethical aspects, with regard to the library’s entire portfolio.
This includes the optimisation and streamlining of internal processes, user services, AI literacy trainings, the generation, enrichment and optimization of metadata as well as new possibilities to analyze and search the library’s extensive collections.
The Bavarian State Library’s strategic focus in the use of generative AI lies in exploring new opportunities for digital research in the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences within its vast centuries-old and rich collections, and, in this context, on issues related to optimized data quality.
The Bavarian State Library views AI as an innovative and effective tool to support its mission of promoting free, trustworthy, and sustainable access to knowledge and cultural heritage. The use of AI is therefore always in accordance with the core values of sound scholarly practice, transparency, and social responsibility. A willingness to experiment with various technologies and responsible use must be balanced.
