Bennata Otten

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Bennata Otten - Painting in the Scharbausaal (Konsistorialsaal) of the Lübeck City Library

Bennata Otten (born December 21, 1882 in Lübeck ; † April 17, 1955 there ) was a German librarian.

Life

Bennata Otten was born in 1882 as the daughter of the merchant Friedrich Reinhard Otten from East Frisia and his wife Emma, ​​née. Pflüg, who came from a Lübeck wine merchant family, was born in Lübeck.

After attending the Freese School in Lübeck, she attended one of the first courses for librarians in Berlin , which was offered by Prof. Christlieb Gotthold Hottinger (1848–1914) in the course of the library movement .

At the beginning of the 20th century, she worked for a short time at the publishing house of the German Poet Memorial Foundation in Hamburg . In 1905 she returned to Lübeck and took over the management of the Lübeck library on September 1, 1906 . This was founded in 1879 as a public library by the Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activities to supplement the then purely academic city ​​library . After Bona Peiser , Otten became the second woman in Germany to head a full-time library.

Otten saw her task in building a modern library based on the model of the public library . Under her leadership, the book inventory increased from 6,000 volumes in 1906 to 25,000 in 1923, and the number of loans rose from 73,000 to 189,000 by 1920. Three district libraries and one library for children and young people were founded. It should also be pointed out to her national and social sense of responsibility since the beginning of the war in 1914 (First World War) by putting together hospital libraries and organizing a department "Reading material for our troops". She also made sure that the branches remained open to the public.

She processed her experiences in Lübeck in a handbook that was used throughout Germany and advocated the open-access loan system based on the Anglo-Saxon model, which was hardly widespread in Germany at the time , which triggered a dispute over the direction in the professional association.

In the course of the nationalization of the public library in 1923, it was subordinated to the city library and its director Willy Pieth . Since Otten could not and did not want to support the loss of independence, she resigned from the library service and started a company for office furniture and library supplies. Meta Corssen was her successor .

Bennata Ottens portrait hangs today in the Scharbausaal of the city library.

Works

  • The German public libraries and reading rooms in cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants. Harrassowitz, Leipzig 1910.
  • Library technology guide for public libraries, reading halls and related libraries with bibliography of specialist literature from 1900–1912. Harrassowitz, Leipzig 1913.
  • War poems from the first months of the World War 1914. Schmidt, Lübeck 1914.

literature

  • Gerhard Meyer: Otten, Bennata. In: Alken Bruns (Ed.): Lübeck resumes. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1993, ISBN 3-529-02729-4 , pp. 278-279.
  • Dagmar Jank: The first librarians in leading positions. Biographical notes on Bennata Otten and Marie Nörenberg . In: Helga Lüdtke (Hrsg.): Passion and education. On women's work in libraries. Orlanda-Frauenverlag Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-922166-79-2 , pp. 151-171.
  • Jörg Fligge in: City and Library. Literature supply as a communal task in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic. Edited by Jörg Fligge and Alois Klotzbücher. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997. (Lectures at the… Annual Conference of the Wolfenbüttel Working Group for Library History…; 8) (Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesen. Vol. 25) On Bennata Otten: pp. 106–115. ISBN 3-447-03885-3 .
  • Andrea Mielke: Bennata Otten; Head of the Lübeck library from 1906–1923; one of the first directors of a public library in Germany. (= Publication by the Lübeck City Library. Series 3, Volume 7). Edited by the library of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck with the support of the Association of Friends of the Lübeck City Library eV Lübeck City Library, 2000, ISBN 3-933652-08-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jörg Fligge in: City and Library. Literature supply as a communal task in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic. Edited by Jörg Fligge and Alois Klotzbücher. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997. (Lectures of the… annual conference of the Wolfenbüttel working group for library history…; 8) (Wolfenbüttel writings on the history of the book industry. Vol. 25) p. 106. ISBN 3-447-03885-3 .
  2. ^ Jörg Fligge in: City and Library. Literature supply as a communal task in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic. Edited by Jörg Fligge and Alois Klotzbücher. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997. (Lectures at the… annual meeting of the Wolfenbüttel working group for library history…; 8) (Wolfenbüttel writings on the history of the book system. Vol. 25) pp. 93-101 (years 1879–1899); Pp. 102-115 (years 1899-1923). ISBN 3-447-03885-3 .
  3. ^ Jörg Fligge in: City and Library. Literature supply as a communal task in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic. Edited by Jörg Fligge and Alois Klotzbücher. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997. (Lectures of the… annual conference of the Wolfenbüttel working group for library history…; 8) (Wolfenbüttel writings on the history of the book industry. Vol. 25) S. 112. ISBN 3-447-03885-3 . - Her war poems (see: Works) prove her concern with the events of the time.
personal data
SURNAME Otten, Bennata
BRIEF DESCRIPTION librarian
DATE OF BIRTH December 21, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Lübeck
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 1955
Place of death near Lübeck