The BVB is the regional association of around 200 predominantly academic libraries under state and church sponsorship as well as libraries of nationally important institutions in Bavaria. In a strategic alliance with the Kooperativer Bibliotheksverbund Berlin-Brandenburg (KOBV), the BVB operates the joint union catalog B3Kat, in which the titles of almost 20 university and college libraries from Berlin and Brandenburg as well as the Kunstbibliotheken-Fachverbund (kubikat) are also listed.
The BVB's "Gateway Bayern" portal, which is open to the public (see "Related links"), offers direct access to one of the largest bibliographic data pools in Germany using search engine technology:
- Over 30 million title records and over 77 million holdings records from the union database B3Kat,
- Index of German-language prints of the 16th century and
- Around 62 million article references from more than 23,000 journals
[As of 01.07.2023]
The portal also allows users to search WorldCat, the world's largest online catalog database. It shows the holdings of over 10,000 libraries worldwide and supports links to the library systems of Bavarian universities and colleges for the use of local services.
As a web portal, Gateway Bavaria is permanently available. The full range of services can also be used on mobile devices.
The joint union catalog B3Kat is available as linked open data via the OpenData portal of the Free State of Bavaria for free re-use.