The BiG is the main library of the federal administration and the Swiss Armed Forces. The library’s collections on civilian and military topics and its services are primarily provided for use by the staff of the federal administration and members of the Swiss Armed Forces, but they can also be used for scientific purposes and by the public.

The BiG is an institution of the Swiss Confederation under public law. It ensures the long term provision of international specialist literature in several fields such as economics, finances, history, politics, armed forces, civil protection, traffic, energy, migration, architecture, environment and agriculture. This specialist literature can be found in the library’s catalogue at www.alexandria.ch. The clients of the BiG, which is open to the public, include federal employees, military personnel and, due to its international reputation, also private persons from Switzerland and abroad. Its entire inventory consists of about 600,000 books and more than 7,000 newspaper articles. It also has various collections.

The Federal Military Library EMB that was founded through the efforts of General Henri Dufour (1787-1875) became the Library Am Guisanplatz in 2007. Since 2009, the latter has coordinates and leads the libraries of the federal administration, guarantees close cooperation in IT and documentation issues, leads the Federal Documentation conference FDC and is in charge of the Alexandria Library Network. Since 2005, the BiG is housed in the former arsenal at the Guisanplatz in Bern, which was especially renovated for this purpose.