Ulm City Library

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Ulm Central Library, photographed from the Ulmer Münster from

The Ulm City Library is the oldest public cultural institution in Ulm . It was founded in 1516 and is one of the oldest public libraries in Germany. It consists of the central library with a children's library and four district libraries in Böfingen , in Ulm's Weststadt, on Eselsberg and in Wiblingen . She has also been running a mobile library since 1961 . The central library is housed in the pyramid-shaped glass building designed by Gottfried Böhm in Ulm's old town.

history

The Schwörhaus, newly built in 1954

The history of the Ulm City Library goes back to the 16th century. Historians have been reporting on the library since the 17th century, including Martin Gerbert , who described it in his travelogue Iter Allemannicum ( Travels through Alemannia ), and Philipp Wilhelm Gercken . Based on Martin Gerbert's report, the misunderstanding arose that the library was founded in the 15th century. His statement that there was already a library in Ulm at this time, however, refers to the private library of Pastor Heinrich Neithart (around 1375–1439). Neithart had donated a chapel for the Ulm Minster , in the northern choir tower of which a collection of 300 manuscripts was kept after his death in 1439 . However, it remained a private library reserved for the Neithart family , which was not bequeathed to the city until 1658, when the Ulm City Library was already founded, and therefore cannot be considered the first public library in Ulm.

The Ulm City Library was founded on April 1st, 1516, when the estate of the lawyer and minister pastor Ulrich Krafft passed into public ownership. The library was originally intended for Krafft's successor as pastor to serve as inspiration for their sermons. However, the city decided to make the holdings publicly accessible. For this purpose a building was erected north of the minster and the library moved into it in 1520. The first library catalog dates from 1549 and comprises 800 titles, 370 of them from Krafft's estate. 186 of them are still in the library today. The library's holdings grew steadily, mainly through donations. In the 17th century it was a nationally important library that owned more than 22,000 printed matter and was therefore better equipped than some of the most traditional university libraries, such as the universities of Heidelberg and Tübingen .

In 1726 the premises of the growing library were no longer sufficient and she moved to the Ulmer Schwörhaus . A fire in the Schwörhaus in 1785 destroyed over a third of the works stored in the city library. The writer Friedrich Nicolai reported on this catastrophe . The library then moved back to the Münsterkirchhof and in 1826 to the Schuhhaus east of the Muenster.

Mobile library Ulm

In 1896, the so-called Volksbücherei was founded in Ulm, which, in contrast to the library, which was until then scientifically oriented, began to collect books for a wider audience. In 1908 the city library and the city archive moved into a specially built extension to the Ulmer Schwörhaus. Much of the building was destroyed during the Second World War . The books were relocated around this time and therefore remained undamaged. When the Schwörhaus was rebuilt in 1954, the library and archive moved in again.

In 1999 both libraries were merged to form the central library under the direction of the library director Jürgen Lange. In 2004 the central library moved into its newly completed building.

On April 1, 2016, a ceremony kicked off a six-month series of events for the library's 500th anniversary year.

Stocks and usage

From the holdings of the library founded in 1516, the Ulm Central Library took over approx. 49,000 titles that were published before 1800, including approx. 60 medieval manuscripts and 620 incunabula , numerous magazines and reference works as well as a holdings of legal literature from the 16th to 18th centuries . Since 1999 it has been largely an open access library . 180,000 volumes from the former academic library are still stored in a magazine. The inventory comprises a total of around 621,000 books and other media (as of 2014). Since the library of the University of Ulm has a medical-natural science focus, the city library for the humanities serves a catchment area far beyond Ulm. With almost 600,000 visitors annually and over a million loans per year (as of November 2015), it is the most popular cultural institution in the city of Ulm.

The current building

The “glass pyramid” of the central library in Ulm

The current building of the Ulm Central Library was designed by Gottfried Böhm . In 1998 the city of Ulm was looking for a design for the new library building in a competition. The architects Minkus & Wolf took first place. However, your design met with little approval from the Ulm population and media landscape. After public protests, the city finally decided on the now revised design by Gottfried Böhm, who originally came third.

The 36 m high building houses the library including the children's library, the administration, a bookbindery, an event hall and a café on nine floors. From the second floor onwards, the building is designed as a pyramid . It has a floor area of ​​29 x 29 m and a usable area of ​​4,600 m 2 . The construction work cost around € 12,700,000. The forecourt on the west side of the building is designed in the form of an ancient theater .

literature

Web links

Commons : Ulm City Library  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Alexander Rosenstock: 500 years of the Ulm City Library. Scientific tradition and extensive historical inventory as a task and opportunity of a communal library. In: Library Service . No. 50 (3–4), 2016, De Gruyter, ISSN  2194-9646 , pp. 354–370, doi : 10.1515 / bd-2016-0037 (paid access required).
  2. ↑ Helmut Pusch: 500 years of the Ulm City Library. In: Südwest Presse . March 31, 2016, accessed October 9, 2016 .
  3. ^ Bernd Breitenbruch: City Library (Ulm). In: Bernhard Fabian (Hrsg.): Handbook of the historical book inventory . ( Full text ).
  4. ↑ Ulm history (s): The swearing house. Website of the city of Ulm, accessed on October 5, 2016.
  5. ↑ a b The Oath House. Information booklet of the city of Ulm, accessed on October 5, 2016.
  6. ↑ Ulm City Library - Target Concept 2022 , accessed on October 9, 2016.
  7. ↑ For the sake of the citizens ... Gottfried Böhm is to build the central library in Ulm. In: Baunetz , July 15, 1999, accessed October 5, 2016.
  8. ↑ At the second attempt. Central Library Ulm completed by Böhm. In: Baunetz , February 3, 2004, accessed October 5, 2016.
  9. ↑ Library building in the Structurae database , accessed on October 5, 2016.

Coordinates: 48 ° 23 '48 "  N , 9 ° 59' 33.4"  E