Die Bibliothek ist eine Spezialbibliothek mit Sammelschwerpunkten in den jeweiligen Arbeitsgebieten des Instituts: biomedizinische Optik, Biophysik, molekulare Biomechanismen, molekulare Neurobiologie und Zellphysiologie.

The scientific research library provides literature and information for both the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics and the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. The main focus of the collection is set by the research priorities of the departments and is developed according to the research profile.

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of high impact scientific and medical information in print and online. NPG publishes journals, online databases, and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine. The MPG subscription also covers article-processing charges for Max Planck authors in Nature journals. Further details are available on the MPDL website.

The OSF Preprints search combines records from various preprint repositories, including arXiv, bioRxiv, Cogprints, PeerJ, PsyArXiv, RePEc and SocArXiv.

The journal collection on the SpringerLink platform includes more than 2,500 English-language and close to 200 German-language journals. The current subscription provides Max Planck researchers with full text access to nearly the entire journal collection. In addition, the Max Planck Society covers article-processing charges in line with the SpringerOpen and the Springer Open Choice programmes. Further details are available on the MPDL website.