The Competence Centre for Old Prints and Printed Works can offer support in the form of consultation and training or by organising joint indexing and cataloguing projects. Institutions can turn to the HAB when questions arise about digitising old holdings or when the measures taken affect the listing of books and the systematising of the holdings. The Competence Centre also gives advice on how measures can be funded and carries out specific projects itself.

Moreover, the HAB is involved with national biographical cataloguing projects charting the publication of works in German-speaking areas: VD16 traces works in the 16th century, while VD17 does the same for the following century.