Bona Peiser

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Bona Peiser (born April 26, 1864 in Berlin ; died March 17, 1929 there ) was the first German librarian , d. H. the first woman in Germany who worked full-time in libraries.

Life

Bona Peiser was born as the daughter of the Jewish publisher Wolf Peiser and his wife Rosalia, b. Gottheil was born in Berlin and spent the first years of her life at Auguststrasse 73 and Linienstraße 80, in the Spandau suburb on the edge of the Scheunenviertel . From 1875 until her death she lived at Brandenburgstrasse 11 (today: Lobeckstrasse) in Luisenstadt . She attended - because more was not possible for girls - a secondary school for girls , probably first the Luisenschule and later the Viktoriaschule near their respective places of residence.

In contrast to the accelerated development of public libraries in the Anglo-American countries, the public libraries in Berlin since 1850 led a meager marginal existence in schools, were looked after by teachers on a voluntary basis and offered no training or employment opportunities. Bona Peiser decided to take the initiative to train for library work. a. through specialist studies in England , where she got to know one of the best-developed public library systems, the Public Library of Manchester , better. In 1894 she published an essay in "Ethical Culture" about its exemplary public reading rooms . In Berlin she got involved in the 1889 run by Minna Cauer a . a. founded "Commercial and Industrial Aid Association for Female Employees" (later: Association for Female Employees, VWA), which very soon sought to create its own library, and the "German Society for Ethical Culture" (DGEK) founded in 1892, one of the most important supporters the book and reading hall movement in Germany. Bona Peiser became a founding member of the library commission of the DGEK, the chairwoman of which, Jeannette Schwerin , also made special merits as coordinator of the social work of the DGEK and in the women's movement (girls and women groups for social aid work, Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine / BDF).

The first public reading room in Berlin

The library commission collected books and donations, won the librarian Ernst Jeep from the Royal Library as an employee and opened it on January 1, 1895 in the courtyard building of the people's coffee and dining hall built by Alfred Messel at 13 Neue Schönhauser Strasse 'First public reading hall in Berlin'. At the same time, a 'Call for the Construction of Public Reading Halls', signed by illustrious names from various political directions and social groups, appeared in all of Berlin's major newspapers, appealing to the common sense of all fellow citizens to actively support the expansion of reading rooms in view of the hesitant behavior of the authorities.

In the first year of its existence, almost 50,000 people visited the reading room, 122 daily, 232 on Sundays, they borrowed over 21,000 books in the reading room or used the wide range of magazines and newspapers. The reading room was open on weekdays from 6 pm to 10 pm, from the end of 1897 also for lunch from 12 pm to 3 pm, and on Sundays from 9.30 am to 1 pm and 5 pm to 10 pm. By the end of 1895 the stock of books had grown to 3,500 volumes and could be supplemented in a targeted manner from the incoming donations from Ernst Jeep and Bona Peiser. From 1900 books were also loaned out and the number of visitors rose to 110,000 in the following year.

Bona Peiser and Ernst Jeep stated in their first annual report:

“The new educational establishment, which the German Society for Ethical Culture made the first attempt at naturalization in Berlin, should, like its model, the Public Library of England and America, not only address the lower classes: it belongs to the whole of the people. It has to meet the demands of - popular - science as well as those of entertainment. Combine reading room and lending library and finally grant access all day long. "

Successes and Developments

The public success of the first reading room was so great that the Berlin magistrate finally had to grant the city librarian Arend Buchholtz the long-denied funds for expanding the public libraries and setting up urban reading rooms. The first four urban reading rooms were opened between 1896 and 1900, and nine more followed by 1914.

On January 1, 1895, Bona Peiser also became the full-time director of the VWA library, which she also looked after until the end of her life, and for many years both libraries were the most important training place for many women who wanted to learn the librarianship and work in public libraries. From 1906 to 1909 the VWA library was located at Alte Jakobstrasse 20/22, under one roof with the 'Library on the Women's Issue' of the 'Frauenwohl' association founded by Minna Cauer . In 1909 the VWA library, together with the administration of the association, was able to move into a new building at Köpenicker Strasse 74, only a few steps away from the new location of the reading hall. After moving to Münzstraße 11 in 1902, it was located in Rungestraße 25-27 from 1908 in a newly built industrial complex (today: JannowitzCenter).

Bona Peiser introduced the book card reference catalog she had developed in both libraries. It was used by many German libraries until well after the Second World War , as an efficient working tool for organizing lending and reading advice in libraries in which the holdings are not yet freely accessible.

Bona Peiser published the first informative essays about the new profession of the librarian, committed herself lifelong to ensuring the quality of the training and established contact with colleagues through a traveling letter and meeting in the Berlin women's club from 1900 , which in 1907 established the association of women working in libraries led. The association organized around 70% of all women working in the profession up to 1920 and from 1912 published the notices of the association of women working in libraries as a supplement to the papers for public libraries and reading halls . In 1920 it was dissolved in favor of the mixed-sex Reich Association of German Library Officials and Employees, on whose board Bona Peiser had been a member from the very beginning.

By 1920, over two million readers had come to the reading room, but after the war and inflation , their financial situation became increasingly difficult. In 1927, the DGEK finally handed it over to the Mitte district , and it became one of the branches of the Mitte city library. Bona Peiser remained the leader and was active not only on the board of the Reich Association until her death , but also on the local branch of the VWA. Beyond the technical issues, she was committed to the interests and value of women's professional work and to a reorganization of library training, which, as the obituary of a colleague says, “also ensures that women have the necessary female influence in the direction and goal of public library work should help ”.

On March 17, 1929, Bona Peiser died after a long illness, she was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Weißensee , her tombstone is still well preserved (field L, department II, row 2, near the cemetery wall).

Honors

Memorial plaque on the Rungestr. 22-25

Through the articles by Erwin Marks and Thomas Adametz in the journal Der Bibliothekar (41 (1987), pp. 57–60 and pp. 111–113) and the exhibition “Berlin Libraries then and now” in 1988, after long forgetting also in library historical representations, for the first time again reminded of Bona Peiser and the first public reading room in Berlin. The reader "Passion and Education. On the History of Women's Work in Libraries" published by Helga Lüdtke in 1992 and the publications by Frauke Mahrt-Thomsen in "Book and Library" (1995) and "Ariadne" (1998) made the achievement and importance of Bona Peiser for the development of the library profession again known to a wider professional and women public. The support of the 'Luisenstadt Citizens' Association' contributed greatly to the fact that the district library in Oranienstrasse  72 ( Berlin-Kreuzberg ), which is close to where they lived and worked , was given the name Bona-Peiser-Bibliothek on August 27, 1994 . In September 1995 a memorial plaque for Bona Peiser was attached to the house at Rungestrasse 25-27 (JannowitzCenter) by decision of the plaque commission in the middle. The Bona-Peiser-Bibliothek has been endangered in its continued existence since 2014 by the resolutions of the BVV Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. Also on the basis of a resolution in the Berlin-Mitte district, the name 'Bona-Peiser-Weg' was given to the private road at the Ver.di federal administration in Berlin in 2004 .

As part of the 120th anniversary of the Perleberg City Library, the library was renamed BONA Perleberg City Library.

To date, no single photo of Bona Peiser is known, but there is a photo from the reading room from 1914, on which one can see a female person in the background next to many readers, who is probably Bona Peiser.

literature

  • Thomas Adametz: Bona Peiser (1864-1929). Pioneer of the library movement and Germany's first female public librarian . In: Helga Lüdtke (Hrsg.): Passion and education. On the history of women's work in libraries . Berlin 1992, p. 133 ff .
  • Helga Lüdtke: Demanding work for “needless” women. The first female librarians in Germany . In: Helga Lüdtke (Hrsg.): Passion and education. On the history of women's work in libraries . Berlin 1992, p. 25th ff .
  • Frauke Mahrt-Thomsen: “The public library must be open to everyone free of charge at all times”; Bona Peiser - Germany's first librarian . In: book and library . Issue 1. Bad Honnef 1995, p. 56-60 .
  • Bona Peiser: The librarian . In: Centralblatt des Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine . Berlin 1900, p. 180/181 .
  • Frauke Mahrt-Thomsen: Bona Peiser (1864-1929). The first German librarian . In: Ariadne . No. 34 , November 1998, pp. 26-30 .
  • Frauke Mahrt-Thomsen: Bona Peiser: the first German librarian; Pioneer of the book and reading hall movement and women's work in libraries , Berlin: BibSpider, 2013, ISBN 978-3-936960-56-3
  • Frauke Mahrt-Thomsen: Bona Peiser . In: Günter Benser , Dagmar Goldbeck, Anja Kruke (eds.): Preserve, spread, enlighten. Archivists, librarians and collectors of the sources of the German-speaking labor movement. Supplement . Bonn 2017, ISBN 978-3-95861-591-5 , pp. 90-99. Online (PDF, 2.7 MB)

Web links

Commons : Bona Peiser  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bona-Peiser-Weg. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  2. ↑ ppagentur: Library is now called BONA. In: Prignitzer Press Agency. September 13, 2019, accessed on January 19, 2020 (German).
personal data
SURNAME Peiser, Bona
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German public librarian
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1929
Place of death Berlin