[3] It collects texts, media and cultural works from all fields across many languages, from all time periods and all countries of the world, and offer them for academic and research purposes.

"[6] The SBB is one of 12 libraries and archives with significant holdings of historical documents which form the Allianz Schriftliches Kulturgut Erhalten (DE) (English: Alliance to Preserve Written Cultural Heritage).

This alliance sets itself as main task raising the consciousness of the importance to preserve the century-old cultural heritage both by securing the physical integrity of the objects in question as well as making them available in digitized form, thus preventing their deterioration by use.

Built between 1775 and 1785 by Georg Christian Unger to plans by Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach, it was nicknamed the Kommode (Chest of drawers) after its Baroque design.

[9] The Bebelplatz building housed the library until 1914, when the headquarters moved into new, even larger premises on Unter den Linden, designed by court architect Ernst von Ihne.

The Nazi period severely damaged the institution through political intimidation, employee dismissals, restrictions on foreign acquisitions and the effects of World War II.

On 10 May 1933 a book burning ceremony was held at the Bebelplatz by members of the Deutsche Studentenschaft, the National Socialist German Students' League, Sturmabteilung "brownshirts" and Hitler Youth groups at the instigation of the Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels.

The Nazis burned over 20,000 books – mostly from the neighboring University, not the State library itself – including works by Thomas Mann, Erich Maria Remarque, Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx and many others.

After an Allied bomb hit the Unter den Linden building in 1941, the various holdings (consisting of some 3 million volumes and over 7,400 incunabula) were evacuated to 30 monasteries, castles, and abandoned mines around Germany.

By the end of the war, the main building was severely damaged, the valuable collections were distributed across the Allied zones of occupation, the library staff had scattered or been killed, and 700,000 volumes had been either destroyed or lost.

A larger proportion of the collection wound up in the American occupation zone, including a cache of 1.5 million volumes hidden in a potash mine near Hattorf, and was moved to the University of Marburg in 1946.

In 1962 the Federal Republic passed a law giving administrative responsibility for all these collections to Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and endowed it with State funding.

As such, repatriation and self-criticism about these materials became controversial issues, so in 2005 the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation established the Center for Provenance Research to resolve the problems.

For example, in 2008 a library user found an encyclopedia entitled Religion in History and the Present Day with a bookplate indicating it once belonged to a Jewish theologian.

The Neo Baroque design is by popular Wilhelmine court architect Ernst von Ihne and was further adapted by Alexander Baerwald, who was in charge of the construction management.

After delays and cost overruns, a 15 year restoration project was finally completed in January 2021, including a new translucent central reading room on the ruins of the old dome.