[1] After several moves the library found its current location in 1955 in a block of flats of the services trade union Ver.Di by Franz Hoffmann [de] and Max Taut.

After the Kingdom's transformation into the Free State of Prussia, with many expressions like the term from Greek: βιβλιοθήκη (transcription: bibliothēkē) and Roman numerals being replaced by designations then considered more demotic, the name became 1.

[5] Returning from his 1841 journey through the United States the professor was deeply impressed by the broad knowledge of average US citizens, whom he had encountered travelling on a Mississippi steam boat.

[6] By the end of 1841 Raumer and other enthusiasts first founded the Verein für wissenschaftliche Vorträge (i.e. Association for scientific public lectures).

[5] The Verein, using the Singing Academy concert hall as its venue for lectures, succeeded to collect Thaler 4,000 (then about £ Sterling 592,59[7]) forming the starting capital for Berlin's to-be-founded public libraries in 1846.

[9] In December 1848 King Frederick William IV approved the foundation of public libraries, however, his decision remained unpublished due to the repercussions of the March Revolution of that year.

[9] The Prussian government added the clause that all works suited to endanger ethical life, religion or the state were strictly to be withheld from the library, while books apt to strengthen traditions, faith and the king's subjects' fidelity were to be preferentially acquired.

[10] With effect of 1 August 1850, the first day at school after the summer holidays, four public libraries opened, numbered I to IV.

Each was located in a gymnasium (grammar school) or other highschool of the city and run by its respective director or another appointed teacher.

IV was situated in the Louisenstädtische höhere Stadtschule (Luisenstadt Higher City School) on Sebastianstraße 49, both libraries were then in what is Mitte since 1920.

[13][14] The number of youth among the users had risen by the time since Berlin's public libraries then had also started to hold media of their interest.

[15] Organisations such as the Gesellschaft für die Verbreitung von Volksbildung (Society for spreading knowledge among the people; established in 1871), the Comenius-Gesellschaft (established in 1891), and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ethische Kultur (DGEK, German Society for Ethical Culture; established in 1892), confederated in order to promote better organised, more professionally run and better funded libraries, distinguishing themselves from the old-fashioned libraries by terming their institutions public reading or books halls (Lese- or Bücherhalle;[15] the latter term remained namegiving for the charitable endowment holding Hamburg's public libraries).

[16] Frustrated by this inactivity the DGEK raised funds for a private public library of the American type and on 1 January 1895 it opened the Erste Öffentliche Lesehalle zu Berlin (first public reading hall) on Neue Schönhauser Straße 13, in a rear wing of the Volkskaffee- und Speisehalle.

[16] Then Peiser had become the head librarian and director of the library of the Kaufmännischer Verband für weibliche Angestellte (Mercantile Federation for female Employees, another trade union), and she made both libraries under her auspices the first institutions for the professional education of women as librarians in Germany.

I moved within the school compound into larger rooms equipped with all new library technology of the time, such as a card catalogue on a turning table, movable shelves, book charts etc.

[24] Its affiliate libraries were reorganised into six units delineated along the boundaries of the six new boroughs covering Berlin's pre-1920 municipal territory.

V (specialised on children), IX, XIV, XXII and XXIV, became part the umbrella unit Stadtbücherei Kreuzberg (Kreuzberg city library),[21] directed by Curt Wormann [de] (he; 1900–1991), who had started working with the network of public libraries under the Stadtbibliothek Berlin in 1923.

[27] Right after the Nazis' takeover of power their newspapers started an inflammatory propaganda against – what they called – subversive literature among the public libraries holdings.

[32] On 26 April 1933 Berlin's Library Councillor Dr. Max Wieser and the librarian Dr. Hans Engelhard issued a black list of undesired books.

[33] The concerned books were then stored away in the stacks in the Neuer Marstall,[33] since 1921 part of the premise of the Stadtbibliothek Berlin collections.

[17] As part of the Nazi employment policy the number of librarians in Kreuzberg's public libraries rose from 14 to 31,[31] as generally with all the government workforce and bureaucracy.

[34] In summer 1945 the once forbidden books stored away since March 1933 in the premises of the Stadtbibliothek Berlin were handed over again to those 43 public libraries, out of a 106 as of 1939, which were at all able to resume operation.

[30] In September 1945 Georgy Zhukov ordered that all state-owned and private public libraries in Berlin have to hand in all literature of Nazi and militarist content.

I, like all over the western sectors this black list circulated by the magistrate was not followed since it was considered as subsuming too many titles of other leaning as National Socialistic or militarist.

I moved into a location in the Verbandshaus der Deutschen Buchdrucker on Dudenstraße 10,[40] with the reading room only opened some months later.

[41] The bookstock had recovered in numbers, but it was widely antiquated, since due to lack of funds, many book donations of poor shape, quality and currentness had been integrated into the collection.

I profited from the new act, which in the early 1960s was already de facto suspended by the House of Representatives when the earmarking of funds for libraries was skipped.

[45] Following the 1968 movement labour and the forms of collaboration among the librarians became less hierarchic, more collegial and broader as to the number of personnel included in decision taking.

[46] The informal new panels seized also tasks of other boards, so that in 1977 purchase conference ceased to meet, and all librarians are involved in the decision taking.

[51] Occasionally the Raumer Library hosts art exhibitions, such as works of the Bildhauerwerkstatt (sculptors' workshop) of the Hector-Peterson-Schule (in 2002[52]) or paintings by Luise Grimm (in 1965 and 1970).