German National Library of Economics (ZBW)

The German National Library of Economics (ZBW) – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics is the world’s largest specialist library for economics, with locations in Kiel and Hamburg. Our mission is to procure and supply economic information and literature nationally. We aim to offer our customers comprehensive services that will facilitate efficient and effective utilisation of economics-specific information.

We procure economic literature and subject specific information from all over the world. We make them available to customers by interlibrary lending and document delivery as well as by local lending and use them as the basis of our information services. We also engage in national and international projects to advance the development of new information services. The ZBW is a WTO depositary library and maintains a European Documentation Centre at both locations, in Kiel and Hamburg. Its services and products range from traditional library services like ECONIS, one of the world’s largest databases dedicated to economics, to innovative services like its EconBiz portal and EconDesk, the ZBW’s reference service to answer questions on economic topics via chat, e-mail or telephone.

Our customers are always at the centre of our thinking. Their wishes and their needs guide our work. Using Service Design methods helps us to put this thinking consistently into practice and to make usage of our services a pleasant experience. This applies not only to existing services and the development of future services, but also to the design of the innovation process itself, in which we will increasingly integrate our customers.

to German National Library of Economics (ZBW)