| Österreichische Nationalbibliothek | |
|---|---|
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 Austrian National Library entrance at Heldenplatz | |
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| 48°12′22″N16°21′59″E / 48.20611°N 16.36639°E /48.20611; 16.36639 | |
| Location | Neue Burg,Hofburg,Innere Stadt,Vienna,Austria |
| Established | 1368 (as Imperial Court Library) |
| Collection | |
| Size | 12,229,285 items |
| Other information | |
| Director | Johanna Rachinger |
| Website | www |
TheAustrian National Library (German:Österreichische Nationalbibliothek,pronounced[ˌøːstəʁaɪçɪʃənatsi̯oˈnaːlbiblioˌteːk]) is the largestlibrary inAustria, with more than 12 million items in its various collections. The library is located in theNeue Burg Wing of theHofburg incenter ofVienna. Since 2005, some of the collections have been relocated within theBaroque structure of thePalais Mollard-Clary. Founded by theHabsburgs, the library was originally called theImperial Court Library (German:Kaiserliche Hofbibliothek); the change to the current name occurred in 1920, following the end of the Habsburg Monarchy and the proclamation of the Austrian Republic.[1] The library complex includes four museums, as well as multiple special collections and archives.
The institution has its origin in the imperial library of theMiddle Ages. During theMedieval period, the AustrianDukeAlbert III (1349–1395) moved the books of the Viennese vaults into a library. Albert also arranged for important works from Latin to be translated intoGerman.[1] In the Hofburg, the treasure ofArchduke Albert III had been kept insacristies inside the south tower of the imperial chapel.[1] The Archduke was aconnoisseur of art; he supported theUniversity of Vienna, and he founded a royal workshop for illustrating manuscripts. The oldest book on record at the library, the 1368 goldenHoly Gospels, was owned by Albert III; in 1368,Johannes of Troppau, priest at Landskron and canon in Brno,transcribed the fourGospels of theBible in gold letters with detailed illustrations in the school ofBurgundian book art.[1] On scenes depicting the lives of thefour Evangelists, four coats of arms show the House of Austria,Tirol,Styria, andCarinthia, the lands which Archduke Albrecht III had ruled at the time.[1]
Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor (1415–1493), had the goal of consolidating the art treasures among theHabsburg possessions. Among other things, he brought some valuable books into the Vienna, among them thePrager Wenzelsbibel and the document of the golden bull.
Through his marriage withMary of Burgundy,Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (1459–1519) came into possession of important books from Burgundy and north France, and brought these toWiener Neustadt. With a value at that time estimated at 100,000guldens, these books represented about an eighth of Mary'sdowry. Also Maximilian's second wife,Bianca Maria Sforza, brought into the marriage books fromItalian workshops as part of her dowry.
At that time the books of the library were kept partially in Wiener Neustadt, partially in Vienna, and partially inInnsbruck. After the death of Maximilian, the books were sent to the palace atInnsbruck. In addition to the valuable books from the public treasury, theBibliotheca Regia, which collected and categorized scientific works, was developed in Vienna during the 16th century. Besides books, that library also containedglobes andatlases. Over time the library expanded thanks to donations from the personal libraries of individual scholars.
The first head librarian,Hugo Blotius, was appointed in 1575 by EmperorMaximilian II. His most important task was drawing up the inventory of the library, which had grown to approximately 9,000 books. As a consequence, new works were added systematically, and other libraries were incorporated.
Caspar von Nydbruck, imperial counsellor who was for a time in charge of the library, was a crypto-Protestant who provided much assistance to the Lutheran polemicistMatthias Flacius, who composed the major anti-Catholic history known as TheMagdeburg Centuries. Flacius and his Lutheran associates took care to find and quote original sources to prove what they considered as "the grave corrupting errors" of the Catholic Church. In his position at one of the major libraries of Europe, von Nydbruck was in a position to greatly facilitate their work.
On 26 August 1624, delivery of copies was regulated by order ofFerdinand II. The Imperial Library also increased by purchases. In particular, the library ofPhilipp Eduard Fugger led to a major expansion. The library currently has about 17,000 sheets of one of the first periodic printing elements, the Fugger newspapers, from the Fugger library.
In 1722,Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor authorised the construction of a permanent home for the library in the Hofburg palace, after the plans ofLeopold I. The wing was begun byJohann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and started accommodating the library in the 18th century.
The most valuable addition at that time was the extensive collection ofPrince Eugene of Savoy, whose 15,000 volumes included valuable books from France and Italy. The State Hall of the library housed about 200,000 books at this point.
During the reorganization there was for the first time criticism regarding the fact that the library served mainly as representation rather than the search for knowledge. DoctorGerard van Swieten, physician toMaria Theresia, and his sonGottfried van Swieten supplemented the collection with numerous scientific works. Gottfried van Swieten also successfully introduced thecard index. This facilitated the continuous updating of the inventory.
After theHoly Roman Empire was dissolved byNapoleon and theAustrian Empire proclaimed in its place, the library was again reorganized. Under custodianPaul Strattmann, the library received a program for the first time which described its order; the library gained a three-way viewpoint:
The collection politics of the Imperial Library separated at the beginning the 19th century appreciably due to the requirements of the representation and its attention to scientific works. The multinational condition of the Austrian Empire brought with itself that, not only German-language books were collected, but also books of the Slavic and Hungarian linguistic area. Substantial parts of the Hungarian collection moved toBudapest, however, after reconciliation with Hungary. During theMarch revolution of 1848, the Imperial Library was in extreme danger, when after the bombardment of Vienna caused the burning of theHofburg, in which the Imperial Library was located.
An important addition to the Imperial Library is the papyrus collection, which goes back to the acquisitions of the Viennese of antique dealerTheodor Graf.
After the proclamation of the Republic of Austria, the Imperial Library was renamed in 1920 as the Austrian National Library.[1]The collection politics of intermediate wartime concentrated on "the national literature of those German trunks, which came now under foreign-national rule." The director at that time of the library wasJosef Donabaum. Under the line of the general manager,Paul Heigl, during theNazi period (NS-zeit), hundreds of thousands of writings were accommodated here or the library served for majority the worthless, but seized works as transit camps into German libraries.
After the fall of the Nazi regime, the Austrian National Library held on to many of these seized works. In December 2003, in response to the passage of an art restitution law in 1998, the Library submitted a report on such seized works to theCommission for Provenance Research detailing works not yet returned to their rightful owners.[2]
Renamed again into the Austrian National Library after 1945, small parts were returned again, but the majority remained in the collections. The attention of the collection activity was directed again in small steps toward Central and Eastern Europe.
In 1966, large parts of the collections were moved from the building at Josefsplatz to the premises of the Neue Burg wing atHeldenplatz, where new reading halls were set up. Due to the rising space requirement in 1992, the library opened up to approximately 4 million works. Wider ranges for reading halls were furnished at the same time, so that three levels are currently at the disposal of visitors (two floors of the main reading hall and the magazine reading hall).
For an extensive amount of time, the library used a card-catalog index. Since 1995, an electronic system has been in place, which went online in 1998. As of 2001, books confiscated from Jewish Austrians during World War II have been slowly returned to the heirs. It is estimated that nearly 25,000 works fall into this category.
On 1 January 2002 the library gained the full legal capacity to dismiss staff. This brought the full control to the mechanism in budget and personnel questions. The library has a certain part of its budget funded by the state; additional funds must be raised by sponsorships, reproduction services, and the loaning from the premises. Organizationally, the library uses a central management and has three chief departments (personnel and accounting, inventory structure and treatment, as well as use and information), plus the individual collections.
The head of the library reports to a board of trustees on a quarterly basis.
The Prunksaal (English:State Hall) is the central structure of the old imperial library and part of the Hofburg palace. The wing is located in-between Josephsplatz to the north and the Burggarten to the south.
The books in the monastery of theConventual Franciscans (Minoritenkloster) were stored here. The wing was begun in 1721 byJohann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and finished after his death in 1723 by his sonJoseph Emanuel.
The sculptures on the wing are byLorenzo Mattielli. The hall is divided, after the original list of the books, into two opposite "war" and "peace" sides, which is reflected also in the wallfrescoes, fromDaniel Gran. The fresco in the central dome represents a kind ofApotheosis of Emperor Charles VI, whose image is held byHercules andApollo. Around the image of the emperor, several types of allegorical figures meet in a complicated theme, which symbolize the virtues of theHabsburgs and the wealth of their domains.
Located in the hall are marble statues of emperors with the statue of emperor Charles VI in its centre, created by the sculptorsPeter Strudel andPaul Strudel. The four largeglobes are byVincenzo Coronelli.
During the reign of EmpressMaria Theresa, cracks started appearing in the dome. Court architectNikolaus Pacassi soon strengthened the structure with an iron ring. The memorial fresco of Gran (in which the trace of a tear can be seen) was restored byFranz Anton Maulbertsch.
Also during her reign, the wing was extended on both ends, connecting the central Prunksaal with the Hofburg andSt. Augustine's Church, formingJosefsplatz (Joseph Square).
One of the major tasks of the Austrian National Library is the collection and archiving of all publications appearing in Austria (including electronic media). Depending on the law for the medium, four copies, and by other printing elements, two obligation copies each, must be delivered to the National Library by periodic printing elements appearing in Austria.
In addition, the library collects all works of Austrian authors appearing abroad, as well as such works which concern Austrians or the Austrian spirit and culture. Further publications from the foreign country are taken up with emphasis on the range of theGeisteswissenschaften. Tasks and services of the national library cover the development of the existence and their supply in the form of local-loan, remote-loan, and search services as well as Auskunfts, information and reproduction services.
The legally given general order for education is obeyed also by co-operation with universities, schools and adult education mechanisms.
Altogether, the library has more than seven million objects, of which approximately three million are printed.
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Dating from the 4th century CE to the present, this collection includes antique, medieval and modern manuscripts from almost every literate culture. Notable items in the collection include the 7th centuryNotitia ecclesiarum urbis Romae and theVienna Dioscurides, the latter of which was inscribed onUNESCO'sMemory of the World Programme Register in 1997 in recognition of its world significance and outstanding universal value.[3]
Themap collection includes maps back to the 16th century and it has existed since 1905. After the First World War, the collection of theHabsburgs was taken over, designated as the Habsburg "Family Estate Library" (Familien-Fideikommiss-Bibliothek).
The map collection includes theGlobe Museum, containing over 380 globes, some dating back to the 16th century. It is the world's only public globe museum, and has been in existence since 1956. The principal part of the Globe Museum's inventory consists of globes which existed before 1850. There is also technical literature in the collection, plus similar instruments, such asarmillary spheres.
The map collection also includes the 17th-century Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem, a 50-volume set that consists of more than 2,400 maps, prints, and drawings. Considered the most beautiful and most remarkable atlas ever composed, it includes four volumes of manuscript maps and topographical drawings originally made for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). It was inscribed onUNESCO'sMemory of the World Programme Register in 2003.[4]
During the 19th century, thepapyrus collection became an important part of the library. The collection goes back to a private collection of AustrianArchduke Rainer, who gave the collection to EmperorFranz Joseph I of Austria on 18 August 1899. The papyrus collection contains about 180,000 objects from the period between that of the 15th century BCE to the 16th Century CE. Besides papyri the collection includes papers, records onclay tablets, inscribed wood and wax trays, stone tablets, leathers, textiles and bones, as well as gold, silver and bronze articles with inscriptions. The papyrus collection is the largest such collection worldwide, and was inscribed onUNESCO'sMemory of the World Programme Register in 2001.[5]
The Papyrus Museum, located in the library in theNeue Burg wing of theHofburg Palace, has around 200 objects from the collection on display.[6]
Since 1826, the music collection has contained numerous scores and first-printings of works of well-known composers, such asAnton Bruckner andRichard Strauss. Numerous recordings such as records or CDs are kept as well. Among the music collection are also many handwritten notes of composers.
Containing old and valuable printings, the collection ofIncunabula is one of the five largest collections of historical block printing of the world. As an independent collection, it has existed since 1995 and ranks thereby among the youngest of the library. The collection covers approximately 8,000 incunabula (the fourth largest in existence worldwide), block printings from 1501 to 1850 (e.g. the Fugger newspapers), and bibliophile as well as rare and valuable printings without temporal restriction. The SIAWD collection has also been supplemented withChinese andJapanese printings.
The Department of Planned Languages and Esperanto Museum incorporates a collection of materials related to planned languages.[7]
The Department of the Library which collects, digitizes and works to promote publications on women and gender studies is known asAriadne. Founded in 1992, the department digitized its materials in 2000 and works to improve the visibility of women's contributions to society and in the history of Austria.[8]
The library hasarchived websites since 2009. Its themed collections are women's and gender studies, media, and politics; event collections include sites reflecting on 100 years since theFirst Austrian Republic, elections and thepandemic.[9] Collection lists may be researched on the dedicated website and access to archived copies is possible on the premises of the library in Heldenplatz, and also theAdministrative Library of the Austrian Federal Chancellery,Vorarlberger Landesbibliothek,University Library of Graz, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Tirol, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Salzburg andWienbibliothek im Rathaus.[10]
