Profile & Organization
Library profile
The University Library of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) provides the entire university with scholarly literature and information. Its collection priorities reflect the university’s academic profile. The University Library comprises nine branch libraries located in Munich, Garching, Weihenstephan, and Straubing.
Around 120 staff members working in six departments are dedicated to supporting all members of TUM in their studies, research, teaching, and administrative work. This support includes free access to literature and information, modern learning spaces, a wide range of training opportunities, publication support, and innovative digital tools and infrastructure for literature and data management.
Our services support
- Students, e.g., with learning spaces in the branch libraries and training and advisory services for key academic skills such as literature searching, reference management, and citation.
- Researchers, e.g., through services in research data management, open‑access publishing, and bibliometrics.
- Teaching staff, e.g., through course reserves, training on copyright issues in teaching, and modular learning content for tailored workshops and Moodle courses—such as literature searching, reference management, and citation.
- Research‑support staff, e.g., by providing subject‑specific information and assistance with acquiring required literature.
In addition, the University Library provides literature and information to external research institutions, companies, and private individuals, subject to licensing agreements. As part of the Bavarian legal deposit regulations, it also archives all technical literature published in Bavaria.
Portfolio of Responsibilities
The core responsibilities of the University Library include, in particular:
- Media and Information Provision
- Identifying the university’s needs for media and information
- Acquiring the required media and other information resources within available budgets
- Fully recording the acquired media in the University Library’s catalog
- Ensuring consistent shelving and good availability of the library holdings
- Supplying literature not available in the University Library’s own collection through interlibrary loan and document delivery services
- Branch Libraries
- Providing access to library collections across all branch libraries
- Offering study spaces, group rooms, and multi-purpose rooms
- Bibliometrics
- Supporting citation‑based performance reports and evaluations
- Research Infrastructure
- Operating the technical infrastructure for research data management
- Supporting researchers at TUM in all matters relating to research data infrastructure
- Technically operating the TUM research information system and providing user support during ongoing operations
- Publication Support
- Providing the institutional repository of TUM
- Compiling and publishing the TUM university bibliography
- Runnin TUM.University Press, the publishing arm of TUM
- Publishing and archiving doctoral and habilitation theses electronically
- Offering financial and organizational support and advice for publishing in open access
- Consultation and Training
- Providing an information service (First Level Hotline) for all customer inquiries
- Delivering a needs‑oriented training program, both online and on-site
Organization
The University Library is organized as a single-tier library system, with centralized management of personnel and resources. The acquisition, cataloging, and provision of media are carried out according to standardized principles. Six departments manage the business processes of the University Library and its branch libraries:
Library Management
The University Library and all branch libraries are under the direction of the Library Management. It comprises the units Human Resources and Budget Management, Communications & Public Relations, and TUM.University Press.
Public Services
The Public Services department manages the branch libraries and is responsible for lending print materials, providing external visitors with access to electronic resources, and maintaining study spaces.
Information Services
The Information Services department is responsible for the First-Level-Hotline and the broad range of training on literature research, citation, reference management, research data management, open-access publishing, and bibliometrics.
Research Data Services
The Research Data Services offers a wide range of consulting services, tools, and infrastructure solutions for sustainable research data management (RDM). The University Library is a co‑founder of the TUM Research Data Hub and, together with the MDSI, serves as the central contact point for all RDM‑related matters at TUM.
Acquisition & Cataloguing
The Acquisition & Cataloguing department is responsible for the acquisition, cataloging, and subject indexing of library holdings. In addition to print products, license agreements for electronic media are negotiated and managed bilaterally or in consortia. To promote open access, Publish & Read agreements and funding options are also concluded.
Library Technology
The Library Technology department is responsible for the University Library’s IT infrastructure. In addition to operating IT workstations, this includes the technical operation of systems such as the library management system FOLIO, the research information system TUMFIS, and the e‑media access system eAccess. The institutional repository mediaTUM and the TUM DataTagger are continuously developed in‑house as open‑source products.
This organizational chart visualizes the work structures, departments, and teams.
Focus Areas
In addition to library-related tasks, employees of the University Library engage in interdisciplinary topics aimed at continuously improving processes, fostering a positive organizational culture, and implementing sustainable, user-centered solutions. Among these, the following working groups are active:
Quality Management
The mission of the Quality Management working group is customer- and process-oriented monitoring of the University Library. This is pursued through implementing workflows, customer surveys, and supplier evaluations.
User Experience
The goal of the User Experience working group is to optimize the experience of our library visitors. This involves conducting surveys or observations in the branch libraries and deriving adjustments to our library services based on the results.
Occupational Safety & Health
The Occupational Safety & Health team ensures a safe and healthy workplace for its colleagues. In addition to annual safety training, they provide workplace advisory support for health-related questions.
History
The University Library was established in 1868, concurrently with the founding of the Technical University of Munich. It originally served as a library for the Munich Polytechnic School, primarily with engineering and natural science literature. Today, it is one of the modern university libraries in Germany and plays a central role in the research and teaching landscape of TUM.
More about the history and development of the library can be found in the Wikipedia article.