Max Joseph Husung

Max Joseph Husung (born November 16, 1882 in Zerbst / Anhalt , † September 17, 1944 in Helmstedt ) was a German librarian and binding researcher .

Husung studied Classical Philology and received his doctorate from the University of Greifswald in 1910 . In 1912 he became a volunteer and in 1914 an assistant at the Göttingen University Library . In 1915 he first moved to the University Library of Münster as an assistant librarian and from 1919 as a librarian . From 1922 he worked as a scientific clerk at the Prussian State Library in Berlin, where in 1925 he became head of the office of the general catalog of incunabula and in 1927 head of the incunabula collection . There he founded the "binding collection".

Husung was dismissed from service for political reasons in September 1933 and was the only academic official at the Prussian State Library who had to retire from service between 1933 and 1945 for purely political reasons .

He is regarded as an expert in the auxiliary sciences of incunabula and bookbinding in the Middle Ages. His main themes of the Romanesque blind stamp and the Gothic leather-cut bindings and also his pursuit of the relationship he inspired between book covers and graphics in the Middle Ages prove how great Husung's interest in art history was in binding. Throughout his life he tried to place the meaning of the book cover in its art-historical context. One of his central demands was: "The demand to include the history of the book cover in comparative art history cannot be raised often enough"

The binding collection in the Berlin State Library and extensive collections of binding rubbings recorded in the binding database form the basis of a number of other activities in the field of binding research.

Publications (selection)

• Book and book cover, its technology and its history . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1890 (= Seemann's art handbooks), Vol. 6. (Reprint KG Saur, Munich 1993)
• Book covers from the Darmstadt regional library , 1922, in: Journal for book lovers . NF 14, 1922.
• (Ed.): The influence of monastery work on the art of binding , in: Buch und Bucheinband. Essays and graphic sheets for the 60th birthday of Hans Loubier . Karl W. Hiersemann, Leipzig, 1923, pp. 148-169.
• Book covers from the Prussian State Library in Berlin: explained in historical order . Hiersemann, Leipzig 1925.
• Restoring old books. Restoration work on old books, bindings, also manuscripts as well as explanations about the necessary understanding of the technology of the book to assess the time and origin of old bindings , Wilhelm Knapp, Halle adS, 1927.
• History of the book cover , in: Handbuch der Bibliothekswissenschaft , ed. by Fritz Milkau. Vol. 1. Scripture and book . Arranged by Hans v. Carolsfeld. Harrassowitz, Leipzig 1931, pp. 666-716.
• From the medieval book cover in Lübeck , in: Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen , year 21, 1934 ( digitized ).
• An unknown signet by the incunable printer Michael Garaldus in Pavia , Helmstedt, Heinrichspl. 12: Bibl. R. Dr. MJ Husung, 1937.

literature

• Alexandra Habermann, Rainer Klemmt, Frauke Siefkes: Lexicon of German Scientific Librarians 1925–1980 . Klostermann, Frankfurt 1985, ISBN 3-465-01664-5 , pp. 137-138.
• Friedhilde Krause , Rolf Volkmann: Max Joseph Husung. Portrait of an important cover researcher and bibliophile , Laurentius, Hannover 1993.
• Felicitas Hundhausen: Association of German Librarians 1900–2000. Bibliography and Documentation . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-447-04844-1 , p. 244.

Individual evidence

1. ^ SB Berlin .
2. ^ Friedhilde Krause, Rolf Volkmann: Max Joseph Husung , Hannover 1993, p. 10.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Eike Barbara Dürrfeld: Research into book clasps and book fittings (dissertation) (PDF; 13.4 MB), 2000
4. ↑ SB Berlin ( Memento of the original from July 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.