With its relentlessly growing supply of resources (printed or digital), the library strives at upholding the department's research objectives and hence acts as a central hub for scholarly work and exchange. Interaction between the institute's staff and the academic community and wider public interests in Greece is explicitly encouraged and sustainably endorsed at the DAI library in Athens.
Whereas it occupied only a small part of the institute's premises at its foundation, the library is now spread out over several added extensions. Especially the large library hall built under Wilhelm Dörpfeld and inaugurated in 1900 welcomes readers today to pursue their academic work within a historic ambience.
The archaeological library of the Athens Department is one of the largest and most prestigious of its kind in Greece. Since its foundation in 1874, it has served as a centre for scholarly work and is open to all researchers from Greece and elsewhere. This not only concerns professionals, but likewise students and anyone else interested in working academically on Ancient Greece.
The library's core collection consists of publications on Greek and Cypriot antiquity reaching from the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity. The main subject matters comprise archaeology, ancient history, history of art, architecture, classical philology and epigraphy, archaeological theory and method, ancient religion, and travel accounts. The collection is supplemented with archaeological works pertaining to the entire Mediterranean Basin depending on their relevance to Greek antiquity (e.g. the Greek colonies in Southern Italy, the Balkans, or the Black Sea region). Today the total collection amounts to about 90,000 volumes and approximately 1,000 journal titles (of which half are continuous).
The library premises also provide free access to Wi-Fi with admittance to the DAI's online digital resources (if necessary on request).