The Gotha Research Library conducts and supports research. It sees itself as part of national and international early modern and modern research. It is a scientific institution of the University of Erfurt and at the same time a scientific information and service facility. With its culturally and historically significant collections, it is part of the cultural heritage of Thuringia and Europe. The research library collects, indexes, preserves and researches its holdings in original and digital form, makes them available and communicates them to science and society. The staffThe library's staff publish their work and research results and see themselves as strong cooperation partnersThe research is source-based and infrastructure-related.

The research library is an inspiring place to work and meet for national and international academics. It facilitates guest seminars by external lecturers and supports local university teaching, including in the Master's degree course on the history of knowledge and culture at the University of Erfurt. Together with the Gotha Research Centre, the library runs scholarship programs for work with the historical collections and for the promotion of young academics in Gotha. It is also a place for school learning and facilitates school projects.

The Gotha Research Library is part of the collections of the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, which existed from 1640 to 1825, and the collections of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which were collected in Gotha between 1826 and 1945. Together with the museum collections, the Secret Archives, the Ducal Museum and the former ducal apartments as well as the park landscape, it forms a unique collection, building and garden ensemble of European standing.

The Gotha Research Library preserves around 1 million physical library objects, including around 350,000 prints from the 16th to 19th centuries. There are also around 11,700 manuscripts. The outstanding collection of manuscripts, autographs and bequests on the cultural history of Protestantism in the early modern period forms the core of its universally oriented holdings up to around 1850. The collection of around 3,500 oriental manuscripts is one of the largest of its kind in Germany. The library also holds an important collection of letters from German emigrants to America from the 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to current literature from the research library, users can access more than one million monographs and journals as well as databases and electronic media from the Erfurt University Library in Gotha.