ALEX Historische Rechts- und Gesetzestexte Online (Austrian National Library)

Overview

ALEX (Historische Rechts- und Gesetzestexte Online) is the digital reading room of the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) for historical legal and legislative texts. The platform provides free, searchable online access to Austrian laws and official gazettes issued between 1780 and 1945, comprising approximately five million pages of legal and statutory material.

History and Background

ALEX was developed as part of the Austrian National Library's broader digital transformation strategy. It is closely linked to the ANNO newspaper digitization project, and both portals underwent a coordinated relaunch as part of the Library's 2017–2021 strategic plan, which added modern layouts, enhanced search functionality, and expanded content. The platform was built to complement the Federal Chancellery's Legal Information System (RIS), which covers Austrian laws from 1945 onwards; together, ALEX and RIS provide near-complete digital coverage of Austrian legislation.

Collections and Holdings

ALEX covers Austrian and Austro-Hungarian legal texts from 1780 to 1945. Key collections include: the Justizgesetzsammlung (1780–1849), the first official collection of legislative acts of the Habsburg Monarchy; the Official Gazette (Reichsgesetzblatt); provincial law gazettes of the former crown lands and today's Austrian federal states; and the stenographic records of the Austrian Parliament (Reichsrat) as well as provisional and constituent national assemblies. The holdings are also accessible through the Parliament's own website. ALEX is also a source for German Reichsgesetzblatt materials covering the 1938–1945 period.

Access and Usage

All content is freely accessible at alex.onb.ac.at. Users can browse tables of contents of national and state legislation and perform full-text searches across an increasing share of the collection. The Austrian National Library holds no copyright claims over the content, which may be freely reused. For citation, users should reference the title, law gazette number, year, and note ALEX/Austrian National Library as the source.