BASE is a multidisciplinary search engine for scholarly internet resources which have been harvested from several hundred scientific repositories. Some of the indexed resources in BASE are subject to license, while most material is free available ("open access").

The EZB is a huge directory of electronic journals which mirrors the central Max Planck Society subscriptions as well as the local licensing situation of the institutes. Access rights to the contents of the individual journals are indicated with "traffic lights". Entries are searchable on journal level.

The Max Planck Journal Index provides holdings of a great range of printed journals available within the Max Planck Society. Besides, it contains metadata of electronic journals as loaded from the EZB. The database is updated regularly from the ZDB (twice a year) and the EZB (monthly).

In addition to the 75.000 prints belonging to the basic content, VD16 comprises a supplement of more than 25.000 new titles. New titles are added continuously through acquisitions by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek for the Collection of German Prints, as well as through data provided by national and foreign libraries.