• 1946 Two years before the foundation of the WCC,

Dr W. A. Visser’t Hooft, its first General Secretary, donated his private library and gathered hundreds of printed materials related to ecumenism from all over the world.He created a library which would serve as a centre for ecumenical study and research and a depository for documentation of the ecumenical movement and the institutional memory of the WCC.

• 1952 The Bossey Ecumenical Institute established its

own library serving the Graduate School in Ecumenical Theology, which today is part of the University of Geneva.For decades both libraries developed separately. Recently they began to share the same budget and catalogue system as partner libraries in the RERO Library Network of Western Switzerland.

• In 2012 they finally united their main collections

at Bossey Ecumenical Institute. Today the WCC Library, housed in Bossey, furthers ecumenical theological education and research worldwide. It serves the academic needs of the Ecumenical Institute,students, faculty, researchers, visitors, and WCC staff, while perpetuating the historical legacy of the WCC and the ecumenical movement.