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Resources for audiovisual documents and photographs

• Prints and Drawings Department
  Since the early 20th century, the Prints and Drawings Department collects photographs, in particular views of places and landscapes as well as portraits.
• Memobase
  Memobase is the national research portal of Memoriav, the competence centre for Switzerland's audiovisual cultural heritage.

List of Swiss platforms and databases providing access to images, sounds, films and videos: 

Audiovisual documents (PDF, 477 kB, 02.04.2020)

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Resources for biographical information

• Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (HDS)
  Covers the various periods of human history and presents them to a wide audience in easily accessible form.
• Base de données des élites suisses au XXème siècle
  Political, economic, administrative and academic elite in the 20th and early 21st century.
• Members of the Federal Council since 1848
• Members of Parliament since 1848
• SIKART
  Contains information on artists, their works and exhibitions
• Autorinnen und Autoren der Schweiz AdS
  Directory of contemporary Swiss writers
• SME-Musinfo
  Web platform for contemporary Swiss music
• fotoCH
  Online resource with a biographical dictionary of photographers and a directory of institutions that hold photographic archives and fonds.
• ARH-Portal People and Institutions
  The online-portal People and Institutions operated by the Archives of Rural History (ARH) contains information on around 11’000 people and 700 organizations in the agricultural and food sector.

Catalogues and biographical databases of the NL:

• HelveticArchives
  Archive database
• Biographical catalogue of newspaper articles (1930-2012)
• World Biographical Information System (WBIS Online)
  The most comprehensive global biographical database from the 8th century to the present. Consultation on site.

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Resources for maps or information about a place, region or locality

• Map viewer of Swisstopo
  Interactive presentation of maps and additional information from all the federal offices on a range of subjects.
• The Dufour Map
  The first official map covering the whole of Switzerland
• The Siegfried Map
  The original surveys for the Dufour Map were used for the publication of the 1:25 000/1:50 000 Topographic Atlas of Switzerland (Siegfried Map).
• Hiking in Switzerland
  SwitzerlandMobility selects routes and hikes and presents them on maps from the Federal Office of Topography.

In the online catalogue Helveticat:  

• Geological Atlas of Switzerland
  Geological Atlas of Switzerland 1:25 000
• Aeronautical charts ICAO
• PLANCATO
  Swiss cadastral survey, by sheet and commune. Only available for reading-room loan.

Search by keyword in the NL’s Helveticat catalogue to find the maps you are looking for.

• Helveticat
  Search term ‘Kartenmaterial’, ‘Document cartographique’, ‘Documento cartografico’; to search for electronic records add ‘elektronische’, ‘électronique’ or ‘elettronica’.
  It may help to truncate the name of the region.

Online place name portals and sites:

• ortsnamen.ch
  Names of places and localities
• Glossarium Helvetiae historicum [online edition]
  Contains a total of 1,400 Swiss place names in German, French, Italian and Romansh.
• Geographisches Lexikon der Schweiz [Digitalisierte Ausgabe]
• Namenbuch und Flurnamenforschung
  GIS Wiki der HSR Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil

Reference works at the NL:

• Dictionary of Swiss commune names
  Dictionnaire toponymique des communes suisses, DTS = Lexikon der schweizerischen Gemeindenamen, LSG = Dizionario toponomastico dei comuni svizzeri, DTS, 2005
• New geographical dictionary of Switzerland
  Neues schweizerisches Ortslexikon = Nouveau dictionnaire géographique de la Suisse = Nuovo dizionario geografico della Svizzera, 1983

The geographical name directories of the various cantons and regions are listed in the online catalogue Helveticat:

• Helveticat
  A keyword search using the following terms (sometimes truncated with an asterisk) will find the corresponding documents: “Ortsname*”, “Flurname*”, “lieu-dit”, “lieux-dits”, “toponym*”, “toponim*”, “toponom*” (from Toponomastik, Toponymie or Toponymik, Ortsnamenskunde or -forschung)

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Resources for Swiss e-books

The NL does not lend out e-books but many public libraries offer this service. Digital Helvetica can only be consulted on site.

• e-Helvetica
  e-Helvetica provides access to the NL’s digital and digitised collections. Consultation is subject to specific rules to protect copyright.
• Bibliothèque numérique romande BNR
  The BNR provides digital books of texts in the public domain by authors from the French-speaking part of Switzerland and neighbouring French-speaking regions, translations by Swiss-German and Ticino authors as well as books by foreign authors set in Switzerland.
• Nos livres.net
  French-language books in the public domain, available free of charge.

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Resources for information about a company or association

• Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce (SOGC)
  Publishes legally prescribed notices and official information

The full gazette can be consulted online via two platforms:

Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce (SOGC) in e-Helvetica

Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce (SOGC) in E-Periodica

Search for information on a company in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce SOGC (PDF, 127 kB, 26.11.2025)

Other tools for the research on a company

 

• Zefix
  Central Business Name Index
• Cantonal registries of commerce
• Moneyhouse
  Commercial register data and business information, updated daily.

List of publications of corporations and associations

Documents and publications from Swiss corporations or associations, companies, industries, schools and cultural institutions, both cantonal and local. The institutions from which we hold documents are contained in this list. The documents of these bodies are listed either in Helveticat or in the Corporate publications catalogue on site.

List of corporate publications (in German and French) (XLSX, 2 MB, 21.01.2025)

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Resources for genealogical information

• Register of Swiss Surnames
• Addresses of archives
• Swiss Society for Genealogical Studies SSGS
• Helveticat
  Online catalogue (OPAC) of the Swiss National Library (NL). Includes all monographs as well as periodicals and newspapers that are still published. The process of cataloguing old newspapers and periodicals is currently still in progress.
• Familienforschung Schweiz : Jahrbuch = Généalogie suisse : annuaire = Genealogie svizzera : annuario (1996-)
• Swiss genealogy on the internet
  The main online genealogy resources

NL genealogical information

A number of resources can be consulted on site:

Catalogue of family names

Index of genealogical articles that have appeared in serial publications and monographs, in alphabetical order of family names.

Catalogue of genealogical tables

Tables of ancestors, dynasties and family lines of descent; genealogical trees and tables from the Prints and Drawings Department. Consists of three parts: an alphabetical catalogue of authors, a systematic catalogue of family names, and a location catalogue (call numbers).

Heraldic catalogue

Index of family coats of arms published in some reference works. This catalogue was updated until 1980.

Familiengeschichtliche Bibliographie der Schweiz von Mario von Moos

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Resources for newspapers or periodicals

Most newspapers and consumer magazines from German- and French-speaking Switzerland from the mid-1990s onwards are available in digital form in the Schweizer Mediendatenbank (SMD), the Swiss Media Database. The full texts and images can be accessed in the National Library's information room via Swissdox essentials. This licensed access allows full-text searches and the downloading of content, in some cases in the original layout as a PDF file.

The latest issues of the most widely read Swiss journals and newspapers are on display in the public rooms of the NL:

List of Journals: Reading room (PDF, 113 kB, 19.09.2014)

List of Journals: Library and Information Science (PDF, 51 kB, 19.09.2014)

List of Journals: Swiss History (PDF, 53 kB, 19.09.2014)

List of Journals: Swiss press (PDF, 50 kB, 11.01.2016)

List of Journals: Swiss Literature (PDF, 55 kB, 19.09.2014)

List of Journals: Swiss art and architecture (PDF, 54 kB, 19.09.2014)

A growing number of Swiss newspapers and magazines are available online in digital form:

• E-Periodica
  E-Periodica is the platform operated by the ETH Library for digitised Swiss journals covering numerous subject areas.
• e-newspaperarchives.ch
  e-newspaperarchives.ch (e-npa.ch) is the platform operated by the Swiss National Library (NB) for digitised Swiss newspapers.
• Impresso App
  The «Impresso-App» enables critical text mining of newspaper archives and offers technical tools to extract, process, link, and explore data from print media archives. To use the app, registration is required once.

Many newspapers are also available on microfilm at the NL.

List of microfilmed newspapers (in German and French) (PDF, 705 kB, 24.03.2022)

Journals and newspapers in Helveticat

The Swiss National Library's (NB) online catalogue Helveticat lists all books and electronic documents as well as current newspapers and journals. The cataloguing of ceased newspapers and journals is currently in progress.

Helveticat

Catalogue of serial publications of the NL (“P-Katalog”)

Card index for on-site consultation listing all serials that were catalogued before 2005: newspapers, journals, series, annual publications (except carnival programmes and corporate publications).

Further catalogues, bibliographies and indexes

• Bibliographie der Schweizer Presse (Blaser)
• Bibliographie der Gesellschaftschriften, Zeitungen und Kalender in der Schweiz (Brandstetter)

• Bibliography of Swiss History
  Monographs and dissertations, as well as articles from anthologies and journals, and licentiate and master's theses that are not listed in the NL-catalogue Helveticat

List of catalogues, bibliographies and indexes

Swiss Periodicals and Newspapers: catalogues, bibliographies, indexes (PDF, 77 kB, 28.10.2021)

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Resources for specific legal texts, Federal Supreme Court decisions or official texts

• Federal law
  Federal laws of the federal authorities. English is not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. This translation is provided for information purposes only and has no legal force
• Curia Vista
  Curia Vista is the database of parliamentary proceedings. It contains details of items of business since the winter session 1995 (Federal Council dispatches, procedural requests, elections, petitions, etc.).
• Lexicon of Parliamentary Terms
  The alphabetically organised parliamentary dictionary explains around 500 terms used in everyday parliamentary life. It is continuously updated and expanded.
• Official publications of the Confederation
  The Swiss Federal Archives have digitised numerous official documents and made them available online.

An overview can be found in the table below.

Searching for a legislative text and preliminary activities (in German) (PDF, 125 kB, 29.07.2021)

• HDS: Laws
  The history of legislative developments in Switzerland in the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (in German, French and Italian).
• Federal Supreme Court Case law
  Portal containing the case law of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. (In German).

Catalogue of official serial publications (on site)

Directory of periodical publications by public sector bodies (Confederation, cantons, communes, churches, etc.). Starting from June 2005, new titles are only listed in Helveticat.

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Resources for political, economic and cultural information about Switzerland

• Discover Switzerland
  Maintained by the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, this website contains general information, charts and dossiers on topics related to Swiss society, history, politics, economics, science, education and the environment.
• ch.ch, the portal of the Swiss authorities
  The portal of the Swiss authorities covers topics such as work and foreign residents in Switzerland, education and research, health and social affairs, mobility, people, security, the state and law.
• SWI swissinfo.ch
  The site of Swiss radio and television’s (SRG SSR) international service, with information in 10 languages on politics, the economy, culture, society, science and technology

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Resources for help with school-leaving exam essays

If you want to study a topic related to Switzerland for your school-leaving exam essay, here are some ideas for subjects that might interest you.

Already chosen your topic? We’ll be happy to assist you with your research in the catalogues and databases of our collections and other institutions. We also offer a free library tour for school classes and groups, including a research workshop (in German or French).

More on this topic

Research information on registered marks (PDF, 203 kB, 06.08.2018)

Amtliche Publikationen des Bundes (PDF, 330 kB, 06.08.2018)

Last modification 05.01.2026