With more than 700.000 items, the BBF is today Europe's second largest library specialised in education. Like the Herzog-August-Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, it belongs to the association of German cultural research libraries fulfilling a national role.

The Library and Information Service (BIS) is the joint library for the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) and five institutes of the Center for Earth System Science and Sustainability. The cooperation with some university institutes regarding the library exists since the foundation of the MPI-M in 1975.