Library and Reading Room

The MAK Library and Works on Paper Collection is one of the most important institutions of its kind in Europe and forms a center for scholarly research. Large parts of the collection can be accessed online at sammlung.mak.at.

With its unpretentious ambience, its large work tables, laptop ports, free WLAN, and room-filling skylight the MAK reading room provides ideal conditions for undisturbed work - at the weekend and public holidays as well.

General Information

Research, study, and read, at the weekend as well

Visitors to the MAK Reading Room have access to 250,000 books on art, design, applied and non-European art, architecture, contemporary art, and museology, as well as to some 3,900 journals. This comprehensive collection is complemented by ca. 400,000 works on paper (hand drawings, graphic works, posters, photographs, and bequests) and by the world’s oldest archive of resources on the applied arts. The collection makes the MAK Library and the Works on Paper Collection one of the leading institutions of its kind in Europe and a major center of scholarly research. Large parts of the collection can be accessed online at the MAK Collection online.

Designed in 1993 by Ursula Aichwalder and Hermann Strobl, with its unpretentious ambience, its large work tables, laptop ports, free WLAN, and room-filling skylight the reading room provides ideal conditions for undisturbed work. On the open shelves you will find current scholarly journals and reference works. New publications and literature on current exhibitions are also available.

You may scan MAK publications and magazines published after 1950 in the reading room free of charge. Color photocopies and photographs may also be ordered. Scans up to size A2 as well as Internet and WLAN are free of charge. Requested books are immediately supplied from the stacks. A scholarly information service is available.

Use of the MAK Reading Room is free of charge.

Opening Hours

Tue to Sun 10 am–6 pm

Open on public holidays

Closed on Mondays

Closed in August

Admission is free

Christmas 2024
Tue, 24.12.2024: 10 am–3 pm
Wed, 25.12.2024: closed
Thu, 26. until Sun, 29.12.2024: 10 am–6 pm
Mon, 30.12.2024: closed
Tue, 31.12.2024: 10 am–3 pm
Wed, 1.1.2025: closed

Contact

T +43 1 71136-259
F +43 1 71136-222
library@MAK.at

Admission via
Stubenring 5, 1010 Vienna
(Main Entrance MAK)

Catalogues

Research and Scholarship

One of the MAK Library and Works on Paper Collection’s central tasks is the rigorous scholarly processing and digitalisation of the collection’s inventory. At sammlung.MAK.at more than 160,000 image and data records can thus be accessed by researchers and the broader public. The exceptionally high number of page views and a constantly increasing volume of requests for object loans and reproduction rights bear witness to the positive reception of these efforts, fostering dialogue between the collection and its users.

Numerous research projects, some of them supported by outside funding, place the collection’s holdings in ever-new contexts, the results of these projects eventually finding their way into exhibitions and publications.

In 2001, the museum’s tradition of regular publishing was successfully revived: MAK Studies, a series of publications initiated by the Library and Works on Paper Collection, casts an interdisciplinary light as well as opens up new perspectives on the MAK Collection. To date, 28 MAK Studies have been published. Special mention should be made of the 2017 publication Ephemera, that reproduces from a range of scholarly perspectives the unique body of commercial graphic works in the MAK Library and Works on Paper Collection. The publication received the European Design Award.

Starting in 2012, the Journals published by the MAKMittheilungen des k. k. Österreichischen Museums für Kunst und Industrie (1863–1897), Kunst und Kunsthandwerk (1898–1926) and Alte und Moderne Kunst (1956–1985)have been scanned and indexed and their full text made available online. This abundant resource for researchers has been further enriched since 2018 by the successive digitalization of the MAK in-house catalogs, providing a comprehensive history of the museum’s exhibitions.

Through its projects, the MAK Library and Works on Paper Collection underscores the MAK’s prominent position in the world of museum scholarship.