In the late 1800's, Dutch physician and feminist Aletta Jacobs and her husband C.V. Gerritsen began collecting books, pamphlets and periodicals reflecting the revolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights. By the time their successors finished their work in 1945, the Gerritsen Collection was the greatest single source for the study of women's history in the world, with materials spanning four centuries and 15 languages. The Gerritsen curators gathered more than 4,700 publications from continental Europe, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand, dating from 1543-1945. The anti-feminist case is presented as well as the pro-feminist; many other titles present a purely objective record of the condition of women at a given time.

Karger is a scientific publisher of journals and books in all medical areas, including immunology, genetics, oncology, nephrology, neurology, cellular and molecular biology. MPG staff has full text access to the current content of the entire Karger journal collection and selected eBooks. In addition, the agreement covers arising article-processing charges for Max Planck authors in Karger hybrid and Gold Open Access journals. Further details are available on the MPDL website.

The MPI EVA Library Catalogue provides information on books and journals available from the Institute's library.

The MPI-CBG library provides comprehensive literature and informations services to all MPI-CBG members and guests.

The special library maintained by the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology contains approximately 15,000 books and series of volumes and 25,900 bound journals covering the fields of biochemistry, organic chemistry, molecular and cell biology, protein chemistry and structural biology.

The Otto Hahn Library is a special scientific library which provides the institutes on the Max Planck Campus at Göttingen-Nikolausberg with literature and information. Its holdings primarily consist of literature covering the fields of research of the institutes Multidisciplinary Sciences and Dynamics & Self-Organization.

The library of the MPIs Martinsried is a specialized reference library primarily rendering services to research staff and visiting scientists. Its collection of books and ejournals is mainly used on behalf of the Institute's research projects.

The Campus Library is a shared service unit for following neighboring Max Planck institutes: Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen and the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory

Access to full text archives (incl. 2007) of selected titles with a subject focus on medicine, chemistry and biology has been enabled.