For specialized research the Foundation puts at disposal its library, which since 1977 has been entitled Giuseppe Dossetti, its founder and designer. His created system is still reflected in the current services: the access to the open shelves equals it to highest international standards. The library, originated in 1953 out of nothing, has developed to a today’s surface of 6.580 square metres with 5.800 m of shelves open to the scholars. It is open five days weekly for a total of 50 hours and puts at disposal of the scholars reading and reference rooms of 990 square metres with circa fifty thousand reference volumes and sources of common use. The newspaper library counts 2.393 periodicals covering all the survey of research on the history of Christianity and religion, exegesis, theology, auxiliary and analogous branches; actually circa 950 periodicals arrive in subscription or through exchange. Every year circa 2.500 volumes are chosen through the scrutiny of reviews in a weekly reunion of the Institute’s staff.

The Archive puts at disposal, after the necessary classification and digitalization, its own sources and papers (that of Dossetti and of Lercaro of old possession), those long waited for (especially the archives of John XXIII honouring a research enterprise started after his death), those arrived by donation (from the papers of Don Lorenzo Milani donated by his mother in order to guarantee a research contest, to those of the prior of Barbiana and Don Spadoni), those delivered during and for the research on the Second Vatican Council. It is supplemented by a multimedia library containing beta tapes, films, photographs, videos and audio cassettes and digital outpouring of the same devices.

Whoever works at the Institute, finds access to the main data banks of historical research - directly or through the Intralibrary Center of the University of Bologna (Tatoo, Brepolis, Cambridge History Resources, and so on) - thanks to the Internet access available in the library. Furthermore digital cameras, fotocopy machines, readers and printers for microfilms are available on request. The Archive and the multimedia library are at disposal of scholars on appointment.