Bochum University Library defines its mission in the following way:
- to provide high quality information in printed and in electronic form, to provide high quality collections and services to support the teaching and research program at the Ruhr-University Bochum;
- to convey, as a teaching library, the competence to use this information effectively and efficiently;
- to provide a space which promotes discovering and independent learning outside the classrooms and labs and as a supplement to these;
- to share the collection of the university libraries with universities and scientists in the region, in the country and internationally;
- to co-operate actively in order to provide and maintain access to information sources and to extend information resources for research.