 Until 1951 it belonged jointly to the city and the University of Bern, and was supported by the Canton of Berne and by the Community of Burghers of Berne.The collection of the library includes the illustrated late mediaeval historical chronicle Berner Chronik written by Diebold Schilling the Elder, "Liber ad honorem Augusti".It contains about 30 000 pictorial documents about Berne and about 1 000 precious codices, some of them from the late antiquity.