Lund University Library

The Lund University Library on the Helgonabacken

The University Library Lund ( Lunds Universitetsbibliotek abbreviated, UB ), the University Library of Lund University and one of the largest university libraries in Scandinavia . The library is the main library of the Lund University Library Network (Lunds universitets bibliotek, LUB) , which includes 33 specialist libraries in Lund , Malmö and Helsingborg .

The university library is, besides the Kungliga Biblioteket, the only library in Sweden that receives and stores all mandatory copies of the country and receives the so-called "national reserve copy ". In contrast to the Kungliga Biblioteket, the Lund University Library makes this material available nationally and internationally through interlibrary loan . The building has been a listed building since 1994 .

history

founding

The Liberiet Cathedral Chapter House

The university library was founded on December 19, 1666 as part of the university and is therefore the same age as it. The library did not have a large collection of books until 1671. In that year, however, the library of the cathedral chapter was assigned to her and the number of books grew considerably. These books were kept in the Liberiet Chapter House , southeast of the cathedral .

During the Skåne War , university operations largely came to a standstill. The library was moved to Malmö , where it was kept in Saint Peter's Church . In 1682 teaching was resumed. A few years later the library holdings grew significantly when King Charles XI. donated a collection of books that he had acquired from his former teacher Edmund Gripenhielm (Bibliotheca Gripenhielmiana). Another royal donation was the former bishop's house in Lundagård Park in 1688 , the so-called Kungshuset (royal house). The library moved there in 1690.

The first directors of the library were university professors who worked as librarians alongside their teaching duties. Neither Christopher Rostius, a German and holder of the Chair of Practical Medicine, nor his two successors, Eric Elfvedalius, Professor of History and Practical Philosophy, and Lars Norrman, Antiquarian and later Bishop of Gothenburg , studied the library in depth. The first full-time librarian came with Zacharias Hulth-Lilienstråle. He was followed by Bonde Humerus in office. On his initiative, King Charles XII. one year after his accession to the throne in 1698, permission was given that the library should receive a deposit copy of every writing that was printed in the Swedish Empire . In the same year, the Catalogus Bibliothecae Carolinae, the first catalog of the collected book inventory, was completed.

18th century

The 18th century did not bring any major changes to the university library. Bonde Humerus was appointed professor in 1702 and was replaced a year later by his brother-in-law Johannes Steuchius, who later became the Archbishop of Uppsala . He was to hold this post for four years. This was followed by Andreas Stobæus and finally his son Nils Stobæus, in their function also rectors of the university. Other librarians in the first half of the 18th century were Petrus Aurivillius, Nils Lagerlöf, Nils von Oeilreich and Jonas Wåhlin.

With Johan Corylander, who became a librarian in 1745, a period of longer terms of office followed. The holdings have been re- cataloged under Corylander . Books up to 1730 were listed as the “Old Library” (Bibliotheca vetus), and more recent books as the “New Library” (Bibliotheca nova). In 1753, Corylander also wrote a description of the library for the university administration. This description contained the first complete overview of the layout of the premises in Kungshuset .

Johan Corylander was followed in 1767 by Gustaf Sommelius, who was in charge of the university library for 32 years, i.e. until 1799. Under his leadership , an exchange was set up with the Uppsala , Åbo and Greifswald libraries , which were then under Swedish rule. King Gustav III raised the rank of library manager to that of professor in 1777. In 1799, Sommelius was followed by Anders Lidbeck, who later became professor of aesthetics.

19th century

Kungshuset - the library was housed here from 1690 to 1907

Under Lidbeck as librarian, the Kungshuset was rebuilt between 1802 and 1806. As early as 1801, Anders Lidbeck employed the young Esaias Tegnér as an assistant. Tegnér helped to reform the catalog. Lidbeck introduced a new systematic catalog and an alphabetical register served as the nominal catalog. Tegnér worked at the library until 1811.

In 1818, exchanges with foreign libraries were established when the university library joined the Academic Exchange Association in Marburg . After Lidbeck's sudden death in 1829, Vice-Librarian Peter Wieselgren followed as deputy library head, but after conflicts with the university management, he left the library in 1833 to take up church service in nearby Löberöd. Its patron Jakob De la Gardie had an extraordinary collection of historical manuscripts and Wieselgren managed to have these donated to the university library. Today the collection in the library represents the largest coherent collection of manuscripts.

The theologian and later Bishop of Lund and Archbishop of Uppsala Henrik Reuterdahl became the new deputy head of the library . During his time the Kungshuset was extended by a third floor between 1837 and 1839 and the furnishings were renewed. Reuterdahl introduced a catalog of the loose-leaf collection in the form of a file folder , which made bound catalogs and their renewal obsolete and thus made work easier.

In 1844 Reuterdahl left the library. With Edward Berling, a regular library manager came back. Berling also took care of improving the catalog. The systematisation of the sciences in the existing catalogs was out of date. Berling's plan was to expand the loose-leaf collection introduced by Reuterdahl and to catalog two copies of each title. One copy for the comprehensive nominal catalog , the other for the real catalog . The renewal of the system could not be completed, but the cataloging began as planned. Under Berling, the library published a classification catalog every year .

In 1870 a new service regulation was introduced, which, among other things, brought about the establishment of a library commission. The new body decided, for example, which foreign literature should be purchased in addition to the local one, since this was not covered by the legal deposit.

At the same time as the existing building grew, so did the need for a larger space. As early as 1868 a proposal for the further expansion of the Kungshuset was worked out, but this was not implemented. In the 1870s, the house was only renovated and it was given its current appearance. The plaster applied in the 1740s was removed and the tower and gable were expanded. When the university took over the building after the work in 1882, the entire building was left to the library.

After Berling's death in 1883, no successor could be found. The new director, Elof Tegnér, Esaia Tegnér's grandson, finally came from the Kungliga Biblioteket in Stockholm. The 17-year-old leadership of Tegnér as librarian (1883–1900) is considered to be the most formative of the library. The premises were rebuilt again, but when they moved back in 1885 it was clear that they would soon be too small.

The existing exchange with the Kungliga Biblioteket was continued with the publication of a joint classification catalog initiated by Tegnér (first year 1886–1887). Tegnér began to redesign the library catalog through a new, systematic listing of the holdings. The system of the Kungliga Biblioteket served as a model . The catalog he created, on which the current catalog is based until 1957, was divided into subjects, and these in turn were divided into sub- sections with signatures , the abbreviated plain text of which was noted in the books. The books were arranged in alphabetical order, often in the lowest subdivision of the current classification. In 1898 the re-categorization was largely completed.

The lack of space became acute even before the new catalog was completed, as specialist libraries were set up in several faculties . Most of the literature was not stored locally in the faculties, but in the university library. In the course of this development, Elof Tegnér suggested building a new library complex in 1896.

Relocation and construction of the library

The first plans were to connect the Kungshuset with an extension. This found support from the consistory as well as from the Reichstag , which had to approve the financing. The townspeople as well as the local council ( kommunfullmäktige ) were against such measures in Lundagård. In addition, the project turned out to be too costly. The council suggested to the city to the costs involved would be if the library would be built at another location, and then a set up by the consistory committee submitted two proposals: a space between the street S: t Petri kyrkogata and the square Clemenstorget or on the Helgonabacken . Elof Tegnér was against a new building on the Helgonabacken. Nevertheless, this proposal was accepted and work began in 1902, two years after Tegner's death. The building was constructed in the neo-Gothic style by architect Alfred Hellerström and completed in 1907. The Lund rune stone, found in the ruins of the All Saints Monastery, has been in the library's entrance hall since 1957 .

The new building of the library on the Helgonabacken , around 1907

International cooperation

Cooperation on an international level takes place, for example, in the Universitas 21 Information Services Group and the Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche (Liber) . The LUB network is a member of the Standing Committee on Rare Books & Manuscripts of IFLA .

The library management has developed and operated a number of electronic services over the past few years. This includes, for example, the Directory of Open Access Journals , a directory of electronic journals that are freely accessible on the Internet according to the principles of Open Access . A similar service, ELIN @ , was developed in collaboration with the University of Nottingham and is now present in around ten libraries in Sweden and a number of foreign libraries such as Aarhus and Ghent .

LUB organizes the Nordic Conference on Scholarly Communication (NCSC) every second year .

literature

Gerd Hackberg: Från Lundagård till Helgonabacken. Om planerande, byggande och flyttning till Lunds universitetsbibliotheks första egna byggnad. Borås 1998, ISSN 1401-5358 .
Lund University Library (ed.): Här får intet arbete utföras. Universitetsbiblioteket 100 år på Helgonabacken. Lund 2007, ISBN 978-91-977006-0-3 .