Centre for Collection Development

Collections

Sammlungen Tableau
Various objects from Göttingen's collections

The University of Göttingen maintains one of the most important academic collections in Germany. Spread across 30 locations on the Göttingen campus, over 70 sub-collections reflect the variety of subjects covered at the University of Göttingen. They include everything from the Culture Collection of Algae to the Teaching Collection of Pre- and Protohistory and the Museum of Zoology. In addition, there are the Special Collections of Göttingen State and University Library (SUB) and the Göttingen University Archives.

The objects in our collections are a central component of current academic knowledge production and hold a wealth of potential for future research questions and methods. As the material academic heritage, they are used for illustration purposes in teaching. They are of great historical interest as a testimony to the history of knowledge and the history of science and scholarship, epitomising the self-image of our university founded in the era of the Enlightenment.

Georg Christoph LichtenbergThe roots of many of the collections can be traced back to the "Royal Academic Museum". As early as the 18th century, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg stressed that the University of Göttingen was the "first university in Germany, and perhaps in Europe [...] to have its own academic museum". (1779)



Publications on the Göttingen collections













Sammlungsfuehrer_Cover 128Browse the general overview to "The Collections, Museums and Gardens of Göttingen University" from the Collection Guide and take the book with you.

Dinge des Wissens 128
A decisive moment for the future work of the Centre for Collection Development was the exhibition Objects of Knowledge. The Collections, Museums and Gardens of Göttingen University on the occasion of the university's 275th anniversary in 2012.

Exhibition catalogue published by Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2012.

Georgiacover128Find out more about the history, the present and the future prospects of the Göttingen University collections in the booklet "Collections - Wisdom, Insight, Innovation" from the Georgia Augusta academic journal (issue 8, December 2011).