Abstract
This article is a preliminary report of the provenance research project at the University Library of Salzburg, which started in July 2009. Special emphasis is put on methodological questions and problematic historical sources. Accordingly, the evaluation of the book acquisition records of the »Studienbibliothek Salzburg«, the previous designation of the University Library of Salzburg, is presented. Furthermore, the paper discusses the library’s acquisition of Nazi-looted books during National Socialism by taking into account the current state of regional historical research. The objective of the project is to detect looted books in the current inventory of the University Library of Salzburg by means of a so-called »autopsy«, i.e. an item by item inspection, of around 240,000 books.