Museum Society Zurich

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The Museum Society Zurich (Mug) is a reading society with its own literature house in Zurich.

history

The founding was decided on February 16, 1834 in Zurich. The circle soon grew to 374 members, and the constituent assembly was held on March 16, 1834. The board of directors consisted of academics and business people. The first president was the silk merchant Hans Conrad Pestalozzi-Hirzel (Pestalozzi-Hofmeister in his second marriage, 1793-1860). He was supported by Hans Conrad Ott-Usteri (1788–1872), also a businessman, as the first vice-president. From 1834 to 1859, the two men alternated in the exercise of the presidium and vice-presidency.

The purpose of the society was both to broaden horizons through reading and to socialize educated men of all classes.

Reading societies had long existed in many places in the 1830s. The Zurich Reading Society quickly caught up, it met with great interest. The focus of the offer was initially periodicals and manuals . The reading room was open daily from 8 a.m. (9 a.m. in winter) to 10 p.m. Eighty to one hundred visitors came in the first year. In 1860 there were 656 members (109 of them extraordinary).

Limmatquai 62, seat of the Museum Society Zurich

On November 7, 1865, the museum company acquired a building site on the corner of Marktgasse and Limmatquai near the town hall and commissioned the architect Ferdinand Stadler to build a commercial building. For the first time in January 1868 the board of directors could meet in the new, own house. The reading rooms on the first floor formed the core of the building .

In 1894, the Museum Society officially opened to female members, with women apparently being accepted as extraordinary members as early as the 1870s. With the revision of the statutes of 1906, members could now also acquire the right to visit the reading room for their wives. In 1919, 409 of the nearly 1,700 members were women. The time of the First World War brought a boom in membership to the museum society, which then flattened out again.

The years of National Socialism and Frontism , during which Herrmann Schollenberger (1882–1954) headed the library, were difficult times . It was necessary to weigh up the needs within the members, some of whom insisted on distancing themselves from conformity and, as a result, on the dismantling of Imperial German periodicals and books, while the others demanded to be able to form their own opinion on the events firsthand . While the number of members went down from 1919 to 1938, it rose again significantly with the outbreak of war, although not as pronounced as in the First World War.

The post-war years required a reorientation. In 1953, the company received an annual subsidy from the Canton of Zurich, but it wasn't until the end of the 1950s that a balanced result was achieved. In 1955 and 1965, renovations of the own house were necessary, which were due to the creation of additional space for books and periodicals. With the founding of the Literaturhaus in 1999 and the associated regular public events in the house, structural changes became necessary, and the architect Gret Loewensberg was commissioned to design them.

In 1988, the 42-hour week was introduced in the library, which is still in force today. With the change of presidium in 1998, on the occasion of which Niklaus Appenzeller was elected, and in August 1999 a managing director in the person of Richard Reich was appointed for the first time, an opening of the house took shape. The expansion to the literary house as well as the refreshment of the appearance to the outside world have now been realized.

The Museum Society has been the publisher of the “Fundus. Writings Museum Society and Literature House Zurich ».

Structure, membership and income

The Museumsgesellschaft Zürich (MuG) has been an association since 1834. She runs a house of literature in her society house on Limmatquai in Zurich . There are two reading rooms, a library and events, especially readings, are held here. In addition to rental income, membership fees, donations and subsidies, sponsoring and income from around 100 annual events also contribute to financial consolidation. From 2000 to 2012, the number of books and other media borrowed increased by 21%, to which the new range of audio books contributed in particular .

Since 2000, the number of members of the MuG has remained relatively constant at 1200 members.

According to the statutes of 2013, the board consists of volunteers who are each elected by the general assembly for a term of office of four years, with two re-elections being permitted. The work of the board of directors is generally carried out on a voluntary basis, whereby the board of directors can set appropriate compensation for special services. The election of the president of the board takes place directly by the general meeting, otherwise the board constitutes itself.

Reading room

The two reading rooms form the heart of the museum society. The large, listed room has a representative effect; The salon is elegant and sober and becomes an event hall in the evening. Working people, retired people and students with their different interests and schedules successfully share space and reading here.

The reading rooms are open daily until 9:30 p.m. There are around 100 newspapers from Switzerland and abroad as well as 300 magazines from a wide range of topics for reading.

Library

The museum society has a total of around 140,000 titles. Since the 1830s, fiction and general non-fiction have been collected in German, English, French and Italian. The selection of historical holdings is correspondingly rich.

Around 1,000 new, up-to-date books, audio books and films are added every year. Contemporary literature finds its place alongside the tried and tested classics and the forgotten bestsellers of the past that are waiting to be rediscovered.

Well-known members and guests

literature

  • Thomas Ehrsam, with contributions by Richard Reich, Beatrice Stoll and Ulrich Pfister: Silentium! Reading and literary life in Zurich: Museum Society and Literature House. Limmat Verlag, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-85791-588-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Series Fundus Volume 1 and Volume 2, http://www.mug.ch/museumsgesellschaft/publikationen
  2. ↑ Book premiere May 6, 2014, archived copy ( memento of the original from June 9, 2018 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.google.de
  3. ^ Museumsgesellschaft - Literaturhaus, Annual Reports, http://www.mug.ch/museumsgesellschaft/publikationen
  4. ↑ Statutes 2013, p. 5
  5. ↑ Statutes 2013, p. 5