Considerable Damage at BBF after Burglary

1.3.2021. Unknown villains broke into the office building on Warschauer Straße in Berlin - which houses, among others, the BBF | Library for Research on the History of Education - during the night from Friday to Saturday and caused considerable damage. They destroyed, for example, the drains of washbasins in the toilets and turned on the taps. The water severely affected the newly renovated rooms of the BBF on the floor below. The research library's holdings, including historically important sources, were affected.

"The damage hits us hard. Our premises had only been reopened in November after extensive and costly renovation work. At present, we cannot yet foresee how quickly and with what resources we will be able to compensate for this setback," explains Prof. Dr. Sabine Reh, director of the BBF. The library has an outstanding library and archive collection on the history of German education in its international context - a total of approximately 760,000 media. It is a department of the DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education. Sabine Reh is also Deputy Executive Director of the DIPF, which is based in Frankfurt am Main and Berlin.

Thanks to the quick and expert efforts of the BBF staff the damage to the holdings could be successfully contained. Over the weekend, the employees began to take care of the sensitive books on an emergency basis and to dry them. Fortunately, the BBF's historical holdings were largely spared and the damage to the unique collection of historical educational journals is relatively minor, according to current knowledge. However, several thousand volumes from the reference library of the reading room and acquisitions of recent years, which include older prints since 1850, were much more severely affected. Some of the damaged books will not be salvageable, others will have to be professionally restaurated by the BBF. Even after the Corona measures are relaxed, it is not yet clear how long the BBF will be limited in its function as a research facility by the damage to the rooms.

The collection of pre-ordered media, as far as not affected by the damage, is still possible with an appointment and takes place at the library administration, Warschauer Straße 38, staircase C, 2nd floor.

Donations for the restoration of the library's holdings are possible through "Förderkreis Bibliothek für Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung e.V. " (Association of Friends of the BBF | Research Library for the History of Education):

Donation account:

Förderkreis Bibliothek für Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung e.V.
IBAN: DE80 1203 0000 4465 42
BIC/SWIFT: BYLADEM 1001