German Studies

Printed books, e-books and journals available in the libraries on campus are listed in the GUK and in GöDiscovery (local scope). 

These two systems differ mainly in their search and display options, and in the fact that GöDiscovery also lists articles, whereas the GUK only contains books and journals. Please note, however, that the German studies articles in GöDiscovery represent only a small proportion of the total number of articles available in the field! To ensure that you don't miss any important articles relevant to your topic, consult the specialist bibliographies in German studies.

Another difference between GUK and GöDiscovery is that, with GöDiscovery, you can expand the search scope from local to supra-regional (global scope), which searches the libraries across our entire interlibrary loan region. From the global scope, you can directly place interlibrary loan requests.

To find the most up-to-date and relevant titles for your topic in German Studies, you must ensure that you have searched location-independently and, above all, that you have included articles in your search.

Academic articles (alongside monographs and anthologies) are listed in subject bibliographies, whereas you will find none in library catalogues such as the GUK, and only a selection in GöDiscovery. Furthermore, subject bibliographies offer a subject-specific database, whereas library catalogues and discovery systems list literature across all disciplines. 

To gain as comprehensive an overview as possible of the relevant literature, including articles on your topic, you should therefore search the subject-specific bibliographies: you can find these under TOP Databases in DBIS

Which bibliographies are recommended for the different sub-fields of German Studies? See the section ‘Researching topics in the subfields of German Studies’.

You can also search for books in our interlibrary loan region via GöDiscovery (global scope) or the Joint Union Catalogue (GVK). Bear in mind, however, that unlike the subject-specific bibliographies for German Studies, both systems index book holdings across all disciplines; you may therefore need to adapt your search terms to suit this more heterogeneous databases.

Many open-access books are regularly added to the GUK or GöDiscovery, albeit with a certain time lag after their publication date. The same applies to subject bibliographies, in which OA books are also only listed after a certain delay due to the cataloguing process. 

It is therefore best to use the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), where new open-access titles appear immediately, to find the latest open-access publications in your field.  

For open access journal articles search the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

In the DBIS Database Information System, you will find the most important subject-specific databases for German Studies listed under TOP Databases. Further databases are listed alphabetically in the ‘German Studies’ section.

If, for example, you need bibliographies or databases from other disciplines for interdisciplinary topics, look in the relevant subject section and narrow down the results using the filters on the left-hand side. Alternatively, you can use the advanced search in DBIS: as well as searching by keywords in the database descriptions, or by title or subject heading, you can search by subject area, database type, licence type or country of origin.

If you would like to find out which databases are available for your subject or area of interest, regardless of their availability at the Göttingen site, click on ‘Access provided by > ‘Choose no organisation’ in the top right-hand corner of DBIS and then continue your search across the complete DBIS collection.

Start your search in a subject bibliography to find the most relevant and up-to-date titles for your topic as quickly as possible. Find out which subject bibliographies are recommended for topics within the various sub-disciplines of German Studies in the section ‘Researching topics within the sub-disciplines of German Studies’.

To locate the book you have found here in Göttingen, it is best to use the ‘SUB Links’ button, which you will find in most subject bibliographies. This button will show you in which format the title you are looking for is available in Göttingen and where it is located. If a database does not have a ‘SUB Links’ button, search for the title in GUK or GöDiscovery (local scope), where the call number and location of the book or the link will be displayed.

Browsing the library shelves – for example, in the SDP's systematically organised library – often provides a good starting point for exploring a topic. Never been there before? The video ‘What should I know about the German Studies seminar library?’ (2021) provides a guide to this comprehensive collection of specialist German Studies literature. As a next step, you can complement the titles you have found on the shelves by searching the specialist bibliographies.

You can also start by picking a few titles on your topic in GUK or GöDiscovery (local scope) (though bear in mind that you’ll find few or no articles here!) and browse them for an initial overview, then go on working your way through the subject bibliographies.

You can also find literature on your topic in the footnotes and bibliographies of relevant titles that you already have at hand.

The video ‘How do I find specialist literature on German Studies in Göttingen?’ (2021) offers plenty of practical advice on searching for specialist literature in German Studies.

The quality of results from AI-assisted literature searches varies considerably across the different disciplines. In the field of German studies, the performance of AI search tools remains very unsatisfactory at present (October 2026). Under no circumstances can an AI-based search replace thorough bibliographic research in specialist databases, library catalogues and discovery systems. If you wish to try out AI tools, use them as a supplement to your search in the aforementioned subject bibliographies and catalogues.

Use the medievalist bibliography RIOPAC and if necessary, also the International Medieval Bibliography (IMB), the Bibliography of German Language and Literature (BDSL) and the MLA International Bibliography.

Basic information on authors and German-language works of the Middle Ages, as well as references to the relevant basic secondary literature, can be found in the Verfasserdatenbank, the database version of the Verfasserlexikon. Although this work is not entirely up to date any more, it is still an excellent starting point for studying medieval German-language texts. Secondary literature which appeared later than the articles’ publication dates has to be researched additionally. Questions regarding the use of the ‘Verfasser-Datenbank’ are answered in the video ‘What is the Verfasser-Datenbank?’!

Please also note the annotated list of important online resources, compiled by the Department of Medieval German Studies at the SDP. 

If you would like to find out more about literature searches, dictionaries or encyclopaedias in Medieval German Studies, you can also watch the video tutorials “From smartphone to book in medieval German studies” produced by the Department of Medieval German Studies in Göttingen.

For German linguistics, the most relevant bibliography is the Bibliography of Linguistic Literature (BLLDB), but depending on the topic, it may be important to consult other reference systems as well, see the recommendations below. Please also note the overview provided by the Institute for the German Language in Mannheim (IDS) on specialist information and research resources.

• Bibliography of Linguistic Literature (BLLDB)
• MLA International Bibliography
• Library catalogue of the Institute for the German Language in Mannheim – As this is a library catalogue, you will find books and journals here, but few or no articles. You should therefore supplement your search by consulting one of the above mentioned specialist bibliographies, as specialist bibliographies cover the literature down to the level of individual articles).

The following systems are also very useful, but please note their limited periods of coverage:

• Linguistics – Portal for Linguistics (up to date only until 2022)
• Online Contents Linguistics (1993 to 2014)

The Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Studies (HSK, click on ‘related publications’ to view the volumes) also contain, alongside specialist articles, bibliographical references that make it easier to get a handle on a new topic.

Further important links for linguistics (see ‘Useful Links’) are provided by the Department of German Linguistics at the SDP. 

Use the Bibliography of Linguistic Literature (BLLDB) and if necessary, complement your search with the following databases:

• MLA International Bibliography
• Library catalogue of the Institute for German Language in Mannheim – As this is a library catalogue, you will find books and journals here, but no articles, or only a few. You should therefore complement your search by consulting one of the specialist bibliographies (specialist bibliographies cover the literature down to the level of individual articles).
• Fachportal Pädagogik

Topics in Intercultural German Studies are often interdisciplinary, meaning that you need to search the reference systems of several different subjects. You should therefore first identify which disciplines your topic involves and then use the DBIS subject overview to select the appropriate subject bibliography from the respective TOP databases.

The DBIS is an important tool for research in Intercultural German Studies, as it helps you to identify the reference systems of other subjects while also providing information on their content and scope. Find out more about how to use the DBIS (see ‘Subject Databases’).

Recommendations for literature research in frequent subject combinations of the IKG:

• Linguistics: Bibliography of Linguistic Literature (BLLDB), MLA International Bibliography, library catalogue of the Institute for the German Language in Mannheim 
• Didactics of German Language and Literature: Bibliography of Linguistic Literature (BLLDB), MLA International Bibliography, Fachportal Pädagogik 
• Politics, Sociology: Pollux
• Psychology: PSYNDEX
• Sociology: Sociohub Note: By default, multiple search terms in a field are linked with the operator 'OR’, resulting in a very large number of hits; for example, ‘language migration barrier’ in the title field yields 243,059 hits. If you wish to link the terms with AND for a more precise result, enter the operator AND manually: ‘language AND migration AND barrier’ in the title field returns 10 results. 
• Economics (e.g. topics relating to the world of work, human resource management, etc.): EconBiz

The database Web of Science is also recommended, as it contains literature on psychology and psycholinguistics and thus often yields good results for IKG topics.