Especially the libraries of the Orient Department reflect its history. Intended as a working tool for scholars from all over the world involved in research at the department's premises, the libraries are spread over their four locations in Berlin, Baghdad, Damascus and Sana'a, each with its respective regional speciality. The libraries at the Orient Department and the branch offices are managed as one library - with archival character in Berlin, associated reference libraries, and as predominantly online libraries with special printed collections abroad

The holdings of the library at the Orient Department in Berlin go back to the founding of the library at the Baghdad Department, which now is accessible in the Orient-Haus in Berlin. Today it holds about 45,000 volumes, 147 currently acquired periodicals, maps and e-journals. The library is thus one of the largest libraries specialised on ancient Near Eastern philology and Near Eastern archaeology worldwide and is a valuable subject-related component of Berlin's librarian  environment as a whole.

The library in the Orient-Haus in Berlin was created with the founding of the Baghdad Department in 1955. Rainer Michael Boehmer transferred large parts of its book collection to Berlin in 1984. Today it so-to-speak forms the 'heart' of the department. Its basic holdings go back to the private libraries of the ancient Near Eastern scholar Hans Ehelolf, the architect Friedrich Wetzel, as well as the vestiges of the library at the former, so-called Stützpunkt of the DAI at Isfahan which operated between 1937 and 1941. Significant parts of the private libraries of Walter Andrae, Julius Jordan and Ernst Kühnel, Arnold Nöldeke and Karl-Heinz Bernhardt were added later.