Friedrich-Adolf Schmidt-Künsemüller

Friedrich-Adolf Heinrich Hermann Schmidt-Künsemüller (born December 30, 1910 in Hanover , † August 9, 1993 in Kiel ) was a German librarian and book scholar . From 1959 to 1970 he was director of the Kiel University Library .

Live and act

Friedrich-Adolf Schmidt-Künsemüller was born on December 30, 1910 in Hanover . In 1929 he passed the Abitur examination at the high school in Hanover-Linden. From 1930 to 1935 he studied German, English, history and philosophy at the universities of Berlin and Göttingen , where he did his doctorate in modern philology. A year later he passed the examination for the higher teaching post. From 1936 to 1938 he was a library volunteer at the University Library of Marburg / L. and the Prussian State Library in Berlin, where he passed the library assessor exam in 1938.

From 1938 to 1945 he worked as a librarian at the Greifswald University Library , interrupted by military service and imprisonment (1942 to 1946). After working as a librarian at the Bayer paint factory in Krefeld and Leverkusen (1947–1951), he was a consultant in the library department of the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 1951 to 1956 . From 1956 to 1959 he was director of the Mainz City Library and the Mainz City Archives . In 1959 he took over the management of the Kiel University Library as director until he retired in 1975. During his tenure, the new building of the university library on the Westring, which was inaugurated in 1966, was built.

In addition to his library work, he held a teaching position for books and librarianship at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel from 1961 to 1975 (since 1965 as honorary professor).

As a renowned book scholar, Schmidt-Künsemüller dealt in particular with binding research , book art as well as incunabula and Gutenberg research and presented numerous publications in these areas.

Works (selection)

• Painter Müller's dramatic work. With special consideration of his Faust seals. Dissertation, Göttingen 1936
• The invention of printing as a technical phenomenon. Publishing house of the Gutenberg Society, Mainz 1951 (Small print of the Gutenberg Society, Volume 48)
• William Morris and the Modern Book Art. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1955 (contributions to books and libraries, volume 4)
• The university library . In: Erich Hofmann (ed.): History of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel 1665–1965. Volume 1, part 2, Wachholtz, Neumünster 1965, pp. 203-262
• Corpus of the Gothic leather cut bindings from the German-speaking area. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1980 (Monuments of Book Art, Volume 4), ISBN 3-7772-8022-4
• The occidental Romanesque blind stamp bindings. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1985 (Monuments of Book Art, Volume 6), ISBN 3-7772-8510-2
• Bibliography on the history of binding art from its beginnings to 1985. Reichert, Wiesbaden 1987, ISBN 3-88226-391-1

Festschrift

• Otfried Weber (Hrsg.): Library and book in past and present. Commemoration for Friedrich Adolf Schmidt-Künsemüller on his 65th birthday on December 30, 1975. Publication Documentation, Munich 1976 (with bibliography S, 306–317), ISBN 3-7940-3311-6

swell

• Kiel list of scholars: Friedrich-Adolf Heinrich Herrmann Schmidt-Künsemüller online
• Christiana Albertina. Volume 37 (1993), pp. 419-420 (obituary by Günther Wiegand).
• Gutenberg yearbook. Volume 1994, pp. 311-313 (obituary by Severin Corsten).
• Alexandra Habermann / Peter Kittel: Lexicon of German academic librarians. The academic librarians of the Federal Republic of Germany (1981-2002) and the German Democratic Republic (1948-1990) , Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2004 (Journal for Libraries and Bibliography, Special Issue, Volume 86), p. 160, ISBN 3-465- 03343-4 .
• Konrad von Rabenau: The estate of Friedrich-Adolf Schmidt-Künsemüller . In: Einband-Forschung, Volume 1998, H. 3, pp. 1-4.