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Faculty of Arts and HumanitiesCentre for Children´s and Young Adult Media Research (ALEKI)

Library

The Center for Child and Youth Media Research (ALEKI - Arbeitsstelle für Kinder- und Jugendmedienforschung)  has a scientific reference library specialed in historical and contemporary child and youth literature. The library's 35,000 media units include scientific literature and specialist journals, current and historical children's and youth literature of all genres (from the 16th century onwards) as well as special collections such as a picture book collection, German-Jewish children's and youth literature ("Treasure Keepers"), and children's and youth literature of the German Democatric Republic DDR ("GDR Children's Books").

ALEKI also offers digital reviews of current childrens' and youth literature and films called Les(e)bar (readable) and Film-Les(e)bar and a collection of historical and contemporary children's and youth films.

The titles of the library can be accessed via the KUG of the University of Cologne and can be viewed directly at the user workstations. Copying and scanning is possible during opening hours, as well as  weekend borrowing from  Thursdays to Mondays.

  • Historical children's and youth literature from the 15th century to 1950: approx. 2,300 volumes (including approx. 1,000 volumes of girls' literature and approx. 100 historical children's and youth magazines); archive with approx. 7,000 titles in copies, scans etc.; picture archive with illustrations from historical children's and youth books
  • Contemporary children's and youth literature from 1950 to the present: collected since 1989, currently approx. 10,000 volumes (including 1,000 books produced in the GDR); the gap between 1950 and 1988 was closed by two donations (approx. 8,000 volumes currently being catalogued for the KUG)
  • Historical women's literature of the 18th to 20th century: approx. 570 volumes
  • Scientific literature, publications on the main areas of research: approx. 3,000 titles, 14 current periodicals; as a gift from the Reading Foundation of the Bertelsmann Foundation, approx. 1,500 volumes (including journals and guides) expand the library
  •  Adventure collection: approx. 2,000 volumes of primary and secondary literature mainly from the 19th century (retro-cataloguing coming soon)
  • Index of historical journal holdings [in Portable Document Format].
  • List of journals listed in the ZDB [in Portable Document Format].

    New acquisitions

  •  2017: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August
  •  2016: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

     
    Special collections

  • Collection portal GDR children's book. A collection of ALEKI [a service of Cologne University and City Library].
  • Collections portal Schatzbehalter - The portal for historical children's and youth literature [in cooperation with the Burg Wissem Picture Book Museum - a service of Cologne University and City Library].
  • Collection portal Historical women's reading. ALEKI Collection [a service of the University and City Library of Cologne].