Karl Preusker Library
| Karl Preusker Library | |
|---|---|
 logo
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| founding | 1828 |
| Duration | 34,000 (2011) |
| Library type | library |
| place |
Großenhain 
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| ISIL | DE-D207 |
| operator | Karl Preusker Library e. V. |
| Website | www.buecherei.grossenhain.de |
The Karl Preusker Library is the first public library in Germany. It was founded on October 24, 1828 by the rent clerk Karl Preusker and the doctor Emil Reiniger in Hayn, Saxony, as a patriotic citizen library .
Libraries Day has been a reminder of this important educational event since 1995 .
history
After an apprenticeship as a bookseller in Leipzig , Karl Benjamin Preusker from Löbau joined the Lusatian Landwehr during the Wars of Liberation . He served in the administration and rose to the rank of regimental quartermaster. Preusker also attended lectures in camera sciences . As a result, after completing his military service in 1824, after an adjunct period, he was able to obtain the post of rent clerk in Hayn .
A town fire in 1744 destroyed the Hayner church library . Building a new public library was a long-debated issue among the local bourgeoisie . In order to implement this project, Karl Preusker, now part of the middle-class Hayner Society, together with the doctor and poet Emil Reiniger (1792–1849) suggested the establishment of a library association on September 18, 1828. While Preusker planned the administration, Reiniger took care of the fundraising and asked for book donations. On October 24, 1828, they founded a school library in the Hayner boys' school , which was accessible free of charge to students and teachers as well as to the “commercial middle class”. The basic inventory consisted of 132 books that were given as gifts and which could be borrowed for one hour on Sundays. Local teachers took care of the loan on a voluntary basis. When the library association disbanded a short time later, Preusker took over sole management. A gathering of library friends expanded the concept in 1832 to create a city library in Hain , on whose board, in addition to Preusker, were the mayor Carl Moritz Hofmann and the superintendent Karl Wilhelm Hering. The networking with the local Sunday school and the trade association had a significant influence on their further development and the selection of newly acquired titles.
The supply of books grew steadily over the next ten years. Originally limited to educational and business studies, it was gradually expanded to include historical and scientific literature, biographies and, later, travel reports and fiction . As planned by Preusker, the school library for teachers and pupils developed into a comprehensive public library that anyone interested could use free of charge. One of the problems facing the young library was its funding, mainly to buy new literature. For this reason Karl Preusker had established a reading circle in 1834 , the books of which the participants acquired became part of the library after reading. The city only made a regular contribution after 40 years of existence. This also made repeated changes of the premises necessary. In 1839 Preusker created an additional traveling library for the surrounding villages.
During this time Karl Preusker wrote several articles and writings on popular education and libraries , with the aim of enabling "education for everyone" and promoting "lifelong learning". His ideas and the practical implementation of the Großenhain model library were recognized throughout Europe and thus contributed to the creation of further citizen libraries in Germany and Switzerland. When he handed over the management of the Großenhain City Library at the age of 83 in 1869, there were now over 3,000 works in the inventory.
From 1877 to 1962 the city library was located in the new Großenhain town hall . The literature for children and schoolchildren has been outsourced to a separate school library. At the beginning of the 20th century, the main focus of the adult library shifted from educational to entertainment literature . Between 1945 and 1948 the book inventory was greatly reduced. After the founding of the GDR , the city library was upgraded by employing full-time employees. In memory of its founder, it was named Karl Preusker Library in 1949 . With the status of a district library, 43 community libraries were looked after by the Karl Preusker City and District Library from the 1950s onwards. In 1955, the Großenhainer Bücherei gave half of the preserved book inheritance from Karl Preusker with around 500 works to the Saxon State Library in Dresden .
In 1962 the city library moved to the former official building on Grossenhainer Neumarkt. At the new location, which was opened on September 10th, a changed user concept was also offered for the first time, the open- access loan . The library stock that could be borrowed could be browsed freely by the visitors in the aisles, instead of being offered books that were often only considered suitable for the reader when they were borrowed.
The Preusker Bibliothek eV association founded on December 10, 1996. V., later in Karl-Preusker-Bücherei e. V. renamed, became from 1997 the new private law carrier of the library. It is financially supported by the city of Großenhain.
Between 2004 and 2005, the library building was renovated and modernized. The media offer on two floors with a total of 777 m² usable area now includes traditional books and magazines as well as modern digital data carriers . Several internet workstations can be used, the library catalog can be viewed online via web OPAC . There is a separate children's area . Readings by authors, art exhibitions and events for children take place regularly in the library. In 2011, 26,000 readers visited the library, which has over 34,000 media in its inventory.
architecture
The Karl Preusker library has been located in the former Großenhain administrative building since 1962 . This original Renaissance building was erected in 1599 on the former farm site of the Magdalenenkloster , which burned out in 1540 . In the later Baroque period , the building was adapted to the needs of the time. In the years 1783 to 1794 the building was increased and extended right up to the monastery church. Large parts of the Gothic monastery ruins were removed between 1862 and 1872, also in order to create a passage from the city center to the newly built Leipzig train station , only the church tower and one wall of the choir have remained since then. The Großenhain District Court was located in the building until 1878, after which the Royal District Tax Office was located there. During the GDR era, there was a student dormitory on the upper floor of the Amtshaus.
In the narrow neighboring house, which functioned as a rent office from 1788 to 1854 , Karl Preusker lived and worked with his family from 1824 to 1853. This, too, was given an additional floor in 1788 as part of a Baroque style. The office of the rent clerk was on the ground floor, above the living area. During the renovation in 2004, a Renaissance wooden ceiling decorated with acanthus foliage paintings was discovered on the upper floor , the construction of which is estimated around 1630. The “Preusker Room” contains a small exhibition about the founder of the library.
The inner monastery garden , in which a selection of characteristic culinary and medicinal herbs of the Middle Ages have been grown since 2005, can be used for reading. The entire building complex is a listed building.
Appreciation
Karl Preusker was awarded the Royal Prussian Medal for Science and Art in 1840 for his library publications and the establishment of a library .
On the 167th day the Karl Preusker Library was founded in 1995, the German Literature Conference in Grossenhain, under the patronage of the then Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker, proclaimed the Day of Libraries . The motto of the first event was “Libraries for everyone in the future too!”.
In 2012, the Saxon State Center for Political Education (SLpB) recognized the Karl Preusker Library together with the Radebeul Friedenskirche as “Political Places in Saxony 2011”.
literature
- Karl Preusker : The city library in Grossenhayn . Grossenhayn 1833.
- Felicitas Marwinski : Karl B. Preusker and the Großenhainer Library . In: Library work in the Dresden district . tape 2 . Dresden City and District Library , Dresden 1979.
- Ilka Wilkening: Karl Benjamin Preusker - life and work . Grossenhain 2005.
- Regina Smolnik , State Office for Archeology Saxony , designed and compiled by Jens Schulze-Forster (Ed.): Karl Benjamin Preusker - Archaeologist - Reformer - Networker . Sax-Verlag , Beucha, Markkleeberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86729-088-3 .
- Frankdieter Werner: The Karl Preusker books in Großenhain - on building history. in: Sächsische Heimatblätter 60 (2014) 3, pp. 230–233
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Grossenhainer care (= values of the German homeland . Volume 70). 1st edition. Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-09706-6 , pp. 110–112.
- ↑ Barbara Bechter, Wiebke Fastenrath u. a. (Ed.): Handbook of German Art Monuments , Saxony I, Dresden District . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-422-03043-3 , p. 418 .
- ^ Volksbücherei and Friedenskirche - The Political Places 2011 in the district of Meißen . In: Saxon State Center for Political Education (Hrsg.): Newsletter . No. 3/2012 . Dresden June 8, 2012, p. 14 ( slpb.de [PDF; accessed on February 10, 2016]).