Leipzig University Library

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Leipzig University Library
Logo University Library Leipzig.png
founding 1543
Duration > 5.5 million volumes
Library type University library
place Leipzig , Beethovenstr. 6th
ISIL DE-15
management Ulrich Johannes Schneider
Website www.ub.uni-leipzig.de

The Leipzig University Library is a central facility of the Leipzig University . It is one of the oldest libraries in Germany. Its main building is the Bibliotheca Albertina . In 2017 the institution was named Library of the Year .

history

Main building Bibliotheca Albertina (2007)

The library was created during the Reformation , when the Leipzig Dominican Monastery of St. Pauli was dissolved. Its property and buildings were donated to the University of Leipzig in 1543 by the Albertine Duke Moritz von Sachsen . In one of these buildings, the Mittelpaulinum , the book collections of several monasteries were brought together. This is how the foundation of the library was created.

Librarians of particular importance are: Joachim Feller (librarian from 1675) as editor of a printed manuscript catalog, Christian Gottlieb Jöcher (librarian from 1742 to 1758) as initiator of an alphabetical general catalog and Ernst Gotthelf Gersdorf (from 1833 first full-time director of Library), who reorganized the library according to scientific principles.

The building

Planning and construction

Entrance (2013)

Due to the strong growth in the book holdings, also due to the takeover of the Goethe collection from the publisher Salomon Hirzel , but above all due to the increasing publishing production in the 19th century , a move to a larger building became necessary. The music district built in the 1880s in the immediate vicinity of the Imperial Court building and the then Gewandhaus was chosen as the location for the new library building . Like the first, the Bibliotheca Albertina is an important building in the neo-renaissance style . In response to a call, 34 building designs were submitted; on October 15 and 16, 1883 a jury discussed the ten proposals selected for the final round and decided in favor of Arwed Roßbach's project . The groundbreaking ceremony took place in June 1887 , the topping-out ceremony in May 1889 , and the inauguration ceremony on October 24, 1891. The construction was the responsibility of the master builder Hugo Nauck , the construction costs amounted to 2.6 million marks . The new building was named Bibliotheca Albertina after the sovereign King Albert of Saxony .

The building is a 107-meter-long, symmetrically laid out four-wing structure with two inner courtyards , which are now roofed over and serve as reading areas. There are currently around 700 user places. The building extends over four floors. The street front facing south-southeast ends on both sides with two corner projections . The entrance is framed by a central projectile. The keystones above the three entrance doors show the heads of Juno (left), Minerva (center) and a youth as the embodiment of beauty, wisdom and strength. The entrance portal is closed at the top by a group of figures about 3 meters high, with which the founding of the University of Leipzig is represented in an allegorical way.

A total of 16 statues and 16 picture medallions were used to depict people who were related to the University of Leipzig. These are Johannes Otto von Münsterberg as the founding rector, Caspar Borner as the founder of the university library , Friedrich the arguable as the founder of the university and Mortiz von Sachsen , who transferred the Dominican monastery of St. Pauli to the university. In addition to these representations that still exist today, the original building was decorated with medallions by Albrecht Dürer and Michelangelo as well as statues by Dante , Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and William Shakespeare .

Staircase hall of the Bibliotheca Albertina (2016)

The various parts of the interior of the building are accessed through the central stairwell. The upper area is visually dominated by the columns made of white Carrara marble , contrasted by eight black columns, which are grouped into double columns and carry the front part of the gallery and between which you enter the stairwell. Numerous decorations, whose formal language consisting of capitals , pilasters and cornices is reminiscent of palaces, create a monumental impression. Original frescoes and ceiling paintings are no longer available.

Destruction and rebuilding

Main building with war damage (1953)

During the Second World War , two thirds of the main building on Beethovenstrasse was destroyed in the air raids on April 6, 1945 . However, the catalogs and holdings had been outsourced and remained intact. After the war, only the undamaged left wing of the building was used. For decades, there was no financial means to rebuild the main building. Because of the damage to the main building of the university library, use was often relocated to the respective institute and section libraries in the following decades.

It was only after the fall of the Wall in 1994 that the extensive restoration and expansion of the main building including the reconstruction of individual parts of the building began, which was completed in 2002. The ruins of the right wing (basement level) were removed, a second basement level excavated, and the facade - despite considerable additional costs - rebuilt true to the original (see picture above, today only a small expansion joint reminds of it). Considerable increases in capacity were achieved: The building now offers space for 4 million of the 5.5 million books compared to the original one million. The reading areas offer space for almost 900 users compared to 130 spaces in the former reading room. Repair, renovation and restoration lasted until 2002 - the cost was 64 million euros .

Today the main building of the university library , the Bibliotheca Albertina , is one of a total of 15 locations of the university library and is used as the humanities central and archive library of the University of Leipzig.

Stocks

Bibliotheca Albertina , Reading Room West (2017), emerged from a covered inner courtyard

The Bibliotheca Albertina is the core of today's single-tier library system of the university library. It is the center for literature acquisition and indexing with a central business route for numerous branch libraries as well as for interlibrary loan. Central technical facilities such as the photo office, bookbinding and restoration workshop are located in the Bibliotheca Albertina.

The inventory currently includes over 5.5 million volumes and around 6,500 current journals. Around 3.5 million of the total holdings are now stored in the magazines, the remaining holdings are freely accessible. Over 800 workplaces are available in the main building alone.

In addition, the library has a number of special collections, including approx. 8,700 manuscripts, including approx. 3,200 in the special collection ( oriental manuscripts ), approx. 3,600 incunabula , prints from the 16th century and approx. 173,000 autographs . There is also an important collection of papyrus and ostracas . The inventory includes the Ebers papyrus , one of the oldest medical treatises of all (around 1525 BC) or the Leipzig World Chronicle , the remains of the oldest surviving world chronicle (2nd century AD).

In 2010 Brigitte Schellenberger-Tübke, wife of the Leipzig artist Werner Tübke , gave the library 12 sketchbooks from her husband and a number of diaries. The sketchbooks were presented in 2011 in the Werner Tübke exhibition The Sketchbooks in the university library.

In 2014, an early, unknown manuscript fragment of Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach was found in the holdings of the Manuscript Center , which is being worked on as part of a cooperation project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) to develop medieval manuscripts from smaller collections in Central Germany. The fragment is in a manuscript volume in the cathedral monastery library in Naumburg and served as bookbinding material in the 15th century.

Outstanding

The Leipzig University Library is in possession of parts of the Codex Sinaiticus, a Bible manuscript from the 4th century. The Codex contains large parts of the Old Testament and a complete New Testament in ancient Greek and is one of the most important known manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament and the New Testament. It is the oldest completely preserved copy of the New Testament.

The library also owns the Ebers papyrus, a medical papyrus from ancient Egypt. It is one of the oldest still extant texts and is also one of the oldest known texts on medical topics, including a wide range of descriptions of diseases and their symptoms and diagnoses.

Special collection areas

Since 1998, the library has also been the seat of the special collection areas 3.5: Communication and Media Studies , Journalism and 4.1: History of Medicine and Natural Sciences and Ethics in Medicine. The inventory of monographs in the special collection area 3.5 comprises around 30,000 volumes and 400 specialist journals. As part of the special collection area 3.5, the virtual specialist library medien buehne film was developed from 2007 to 2012 together with the University Library in Frankfurt am Main .

The special collection area 4.1 was handed over by the library at the end of 2005, the special collection area 3.5 was closed at the end of 2013 when funding by the German Research Foundation was discontinued.

Specialized information service

The library has been developing the specialist information service for media, communication and film studies "adlr.link" since 2014. A central search portal for specialist scientists has been online since 2016. The specialist information service is funded by the German Research Foundation.

The specialized information service is the successor to the special collection area 3.5 and the virtual library.

Senior Librarians and Directors of the Library

Until 1832, professors at the University of Leipzig ran the library as a sideline. From 1833 the management of the library was transferred to a full-time director.

No. Surname from to comment
1 Caspar Borner 1543 1547
2 Johannes Menzel, Donatus Zöllner, Lorenz Rülich, Petrus Lossius, Wolfgang Trübenbach, Andreas Hommel 1547 1599 full senior librarians
3 Johann Friedrich 1599 1630
4th Heinrich Höpfner 1630 1642
5 Johann Ittig 1642 1670
6th Friedrich Rappolt , Christian Friedrich Franckenstein 1670 1675 provisional
7th Joachim Feller 1675 1691
8th Christoph Pfautz 1691 1711
9 Christian Friedrich Börner 1711 1738
10 Georg Friedrich Richter 1738 1742
11 Christian Gottlieb Jöcher 1742 1758
12 Karl Andreas Bel 1758 1782
13 Friedrich Wilhelm Reiz 1782 1790
14th Christian Daniel Beck 1790 1817
15th Christian Daniel Beck, Gottfried Heinrich Schäfer 1817 1832
16 Ernst Gotthelf Gersdorf 1833 1874
17th Ludolf Krehl 1874 1892
18th Oskar von Gebhardt 1901 1906
19th Karl Boysen 1906 1921
20th Otto Glauning 1922 1937
21st Egon Mühlbach 1937 1939 provisional
22nd Fritz Prinzhorn 1939 1945
23 Otto Kielmeyer January 1946 December 1946
24 Karl Buchheim 1948 1950
25th Helmut Mogk 1950 1958
26th Johannes Muller 1959 1969
27 Fritz Schaaf 1969 1985
28 Bodo Mewes 1985 1986 provisional
29 Bernd Rüdiger 1986 1990
30th Dietmar Debes October 1990 April 1992 interim
31 Ekkehard Henschke 1992 2005
32 Charlotte Bauer May 2005 December 2005 provisional
33 Ulrich Johannes Schneider since 2006

Movie

The short film Schattenspiele , made by students from Leipzig University, is set in the Leipzig University Library and was shot in 2005 in the rooms of the main building.

Exhibitions

The university library shows excerpts from its outstanding book collections in changing exhibitions. The exhibition room, the air conditioning of which meets the conservation requirements as closely as possible, is open to the public every day, as is the lower part of the stairwell. Previous topics of exhibitions included:

  • 2010: Leipzig Jewry in City and University designed by Johannes Schneider; ditto: exhibition catalog.
  • 2011: Werner Tübke : The sketch books ; Exhibition catalog.
  • 2012: The economist and newspaper scholar Karl Bücher . The Leipzig years , no catalog, just a booklet with exhibition texts and a facsimile.

literature

  • Cornelius Gurlitt : University Library. In:  Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the Kingdom of Saxony. 18th issue: City of Leipzig (Part II) . CC Meinhold, Dresden 1896, p. 257.
  • Ekkehard Henschke (ed.): The Bibliotheca Albertina in Leipzig. Commemorative publication for the completion of the reconstruction in 2002 . Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11623-3 , doi : 10.1515 / 9783110976106
  • Sophia Manns: Between monument protection and user demands. Reconstruction and expansion of the Bibliotheca Albertina in Leipzig . Berlin Handouts on Library Science, Volume 151, Institute for Library Science, Berlin 2005, ISSN 1438-7662 ( online ).
  • Horst Riedel (Red .: Thomas Nabert ): Stadtlexikon Leipzig from A to Z. PRO LEIPZIG, Leipzig 2012, ISBN 978-3-936508-82-6 , p. 613 f.
  • Reinhold Scholl (Ed.): Buried - Lost - Found - Researched. Papyrus treasures in Leipzig. (Series: Writings from the Leipzig University Library. ) Universitätsverlag Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-86583-483-6 .

Web links

Commons : Leipzig University Library  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ German Library Association eV: Digitally autonomous, freely accessible and highly innovative. In: www.bibliotheksverband.de. June 22, 2017. Retrieved July 11, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Horst Riedel, 2012, p. 613.
  3. ↑ Horst Riedel, 2012, p. 614.
  4. ↑ a b c d University of Leipzig, Bibliotheca Albertina , January 2016, 20-page brochure
  5. ^ Mario Beck: Bibliotheca Albertina: Knowledge store opened for 125 years. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , October 18, 2016, page 14
  6. ^ LVZ online: Bibliotheca Albertina: Jubilee colloquium for the 125th birthday
  7. ↑ Leipzig University Library: Locations , accessed on April 5, 2017
  8. ↑ What was already forgotten is now a real treasure in FAZ of July 12, 2011, page 35
  9. ↑ University of Leipzig, Press Release 172/1914 , 24 June, 2014 , Retrieved on October 28, 2017
  10. ↑ http://wikis.sub.uni-hamburg.de/webis/index.php/3.5
  11. ↑ Virtual library medien buehne film : Project description ( Memento from May 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ http://wikis.sub.uni-hamburg.de/webis/index.php/4.1
  13. ↑ adlr.link activated . Retrieved July 20, 2017.
  14. ^ Specialized information service for media, communication and film studies "adlr.link" . Archived from the original on June 30, 2016. Retrieved July 20, 2017.
  15. ↑ Homepage of the permanent exhibition

Coordinates: 51 ° 19 ′ 56.8 ″  N , 12 ° 22 ′ 5.6 ″  E