Located in the North Wing of the Theodore Sedgwick Wright Library at Princeton Theological Seminary, the Center for Barth Studies (CBS) is home to the Karl Barth Research Collection, the world’s largest single collection of works by and about Karl Barth. The Karl Barth Research Collection holds over 12,000 items from books, articles, essays, books reviews, and dissertations. It is considered a living collection, expanded weekly by staff at the center, and includes physical and digital copies of all of Barth’s extant professional and personal writings. The Karl Barth Research Collection is divided into three separate collections: the Hans Markus Wildi Collection of Barth, the Hans Markus Wildi Collection of Barthiana, and the Karl Barth Research Book Collection. The purpose of these collections is to allow scholars to survey all the literature written by and about Barth in one room without traveling to Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Korea, or other centers of Barth scholarship. CBS also holds a digital copy of nearly all files within Karl Barth’s collection from the Karl Barth-Archiv in Basel, Switzerland.
The Wildi Collections of Barth and the Barthiana are named in honor of Hans Markus Wildi, who, in collaboration with Jakob Matthias Osthof, compiled an exhaustive bibliography of the works by and about Karl Barth through the early 1990s.
If you are on campus at Princeton Seminary, please visit us from 9:00 – 4:00pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to access our resources and utilize our reading and research space. CBS strives to make its resources available to all, including Princeton Seminary library patrons, visiting students, pastors, scholars, and online patrons. If you have any research requests or would like further information about our collections, please do not hesitate to contact us at barth.center@ptsem.edu.
The Hans Markus Wildi Collection of Barth
The Wildi Collection of Barth currently holds a physical copy of over 80 percent of all published materials authored by Karl Barth, including first editions, revised editions, republications, and translated materials. The collection is expanded weekly with the goal of housing a complete collection of all known published writings by Karl Barth. Library patrons are free to use the collection to make copies of the items for personal use, and we encourage online and remote patrons to contact us so we can assist you in accessing all that the collection offers.
The Hans Markus Wildi Collection of Barthiana
The Wildi Collection of Barthiana is the world’s most exhaustive collection of secondary source materials pertaining to the life and work of Karl Barth. The collection holds over 3,000 book reviews, 6,000 articles, and several hundred miscellaneous items. The items in the collection date from the earliest interactions with Karl Barth in the 1910s to the present day. The Wildi Collection of Barthiana is also updated on a weekly basis with the goal of housing a physical copy of all peer-reviewed reputably published materials about Karl Barth.
The Karl Barth Research Book Collection
The Karl Barth Research Book Collection is one of the world’s largest special book collections for primary and secondary books pertaining to the life and work of Karl Barth. The collection holds over 2,200 books in various languages including the Church Dogmatics in Japanese, Korean, French, and Russian (partial translation).
The Robert W. Jenson Papers
This collection consists of personal papers and documents from the life and work of Robert W. Jenson (1930-2017). Included within these papers are personal correspondence between Jenson and other theologians and academics, mainly from the 1960s through 1980s. The collection also includes an extensive holding of Jenson’s typescripts, manuscripts, and works-in-progress for both publication and public presentation, including sermons.
The Barth Literature Search Project
In cooperation with affiliates at the Protestant Theological University in Amsterdam and Gröningen, Netherlands, CBS develops and maintains the Karl Barth Literature Search Project. The literature search project is the largest online searchable database pertaining to Barth, boasting bibliographic entries and summaries for over 20,000 materials by or about Barth. The database can be searched by keyword, title, author, and more. CBS is continually working towards the goal of obtaining one copy of every item (books, articles, articles in books, book reviews, dissertations, etc.) in the database for the convenience of scholars and students researching Karl Barth.
All of our resources are located on site in the Center for Barth Studies on the third floor of the North Wing in the Theodore Sedgwick Wright Library (Room 3177). There are directories posted around the library, which will help guide you to CBS.
