AARL

Review article

The origins and roles of library exhibitions: a major work of scholarship. Kaltwasser, Franz Georg

Die Bibliothek als Museum. Von der Renaissance bis heute dargestellt am Beispiel der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek [The Library as Museum. From the Renaissance to To-day, as Exemplified in the Bavarian State Library] (Beiträge zum Buch- und Bibliothekswesen 38) Wiesbaden Harrossowitz 1999. xii 490p illus ISBN 3 447 03863 2 No price given

Dr F G Kaltwasser, director of the Bavarian State Library (BSB) from 1972 until 1992, has produced a work that is as impressive as it is hard to classify. It is certainly a major contribution to the history of BSB, but in a rather particular sense. It is also a contribution to the study of the growth and rationale of exhibitions of library treasures, and the dynastic, political and cultural roles played by the collecting of manuscripts, book rarities and works of art. It also examines the methods used to house, display, protect (from theft), and preserve rare books and manuscripts. It adds to our knowledge of the design of libraries, and incidentally to the migration of manuscripts and rare books as war plunder, through theft or through unspecified misappropriation. A number of other related topics are given incidental treatment, so that the reader gains an excellent insight into the way the princely library evolved and how it was managed. The sociological profile of BSB in more recent times emerges as well. The quasi-encyclopaedic nature of the work is apparent from this account of its scope.

BSB grew from the acquisition by the Wittelsbachs, the ruling family in Bavaria, of private libraries formed by Renaissance scholars and wealthy merchants (the Fugger family, for instance) and of court libraries inherited by marriage and other family occurrences. These events are described in detail so that the panorama becomes one of cultural history extending beyond Munich. The upshot of this very detailed, painstaking research is that the reader learns a great deal about the princely libraries in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (and later on as well) and gains a clear understanding of how BSB became one of Europe's outstanding research libraries, and why its collections are national treasures in both Bavaria and Germany.

The sub-title of the work indicates the focal point of its research. From the earliest days of the ducal library (founded in 1558 by Duke Albrecht V in Munich), the display of choice or curious items in princely collections was usual. It was customary for princely houses to have both libraries and other segregated collections of coins and medals, jewels and items of silver and gold, statues of Greek and Roman origin, and paintings and works of art. Cabinets of curiosities were also created which housed items of natural history and other things of interest to aristocratic families. The house of Wittelsbach was highly active in all species of collecting, spurred on to some extent by its connections with the great Italian princely families. The contacts between Bavaria and Italy during the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation were deep and influential.

Originally only members of the aristocracy, and particularly visiting members of other princely houses, were permitted in Munich to view the Duke's treasures. The personal permission of the Duke was at some periods required for anyone to visit the library to inspect rarities. If the Duke happened to be absent from Munich, permission was not granted. Gradually permission was extended to members of the bourgeoisie. By the 19th century tours of inspection of the library and its treasures had become a matter of routine and proved extremely disruptive to the daily operations of the library. This was because a member of the library staff (not numerous until much later) had personally to conduct visitors and explain points about the exhibits and of course answer visitors' questions. By 1789 the Court and State Library had become open to the public with liberal arrangements in place for its use by practically any citizen (pp86-90). It was in this respect ahead of most other libraries in Europe. Visitors for some time were in fact allowed to handle the manuscripts and rarities; this inevitably did some harm to them. Kaltwasser points out that tourist guides to Munich which were produced in the 19th century drew attention to BSB as an important place to visit. The guides produced by the London publisher John Murray from 1836 onwards were much used by English visitors who came in considerable numbers to BSB (p174).

Visitors to the library from outside Germany grew in number and on pp120-133 the author deals with the information about them contained in the Visitors Books (Fremdenbücher) for the years 1783-1803, and a second one for 1788-1804 (p89). Dr Kaltwasser's researches have been greatly facilitated by the availability of a remarkable array of records, diaries of staff members (especially of the staff member Schmeller who was also a notable philologist ), memoirs published by visitors to Munich and the State Library, and so on. He has in fact mastered a large amount of material to compile an encyclopaedic, minutely organised text. But it must be added that the text is readable and enlivened with occasionally humorous sallies by the author. Another feature is his interpolation of scholarly digressions ('excursus') to follow up some particular theme that is not central to the text. One such case concerns the peppery remarks of Panizzi about BSB's failure in 1843 to answer a questionnaire sent by the British Museum Library to many major European libraries seeking information about collections, staffing and management. The episode which created some ill feeling arose because of a misunderstanding in Munich where the willingness to provide information and help was in fact keen. An article (1984) in Australian Academic & Research Libraries by Dr E Flowers deals in part with this incident and provides a copy of the questionnaire.[1]

The Book as Museum is divided into eight comprehensive chapters with a number of special scholarly or historical interpolations ('excursus'). He also offers a great deal of comparative material on the practice and incidental history of other major European and foreign libraries. He casts a very wide net and has in the process caught some unexpected fish. One of the interesting fish is the Russian librarian Sobolschchikov whose descriptions of the major libraries in Europe and England which he inspected in 1859 is of considerable comparative importance.[2] Portions of the Russian text are translated into the German text. This is not the only instance of such scholarly documentation that greatly enriches the depth and colour of the author's narrative. Kaltwasser provides through his original research a great deal of new material and he is able to correct earlier researchers' findings. On p56 he has a section headed: 'An unfortunately necessary Supplementary Remark to this Section' in which he takes issue with the recent writings of scholars working in the field of library and museum history.

With regard to the rare books and manuscripts that loom so large in this work, Kaltwasser is generous with his listings and descriptions of them; these details of provenance and important features of the individual rarity give his work some of the features of a reference book. Certainly students in the field of illuminated manuscripts and early printed books would want to a 'Kaltwasser' at hand with their standard references works. Excellent coloured plates of some of them are featured in the work

Die Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in historischen Beschreibungen (1992) [Historical Descriptions of the BSB] was dedicated to him on his retirement. The descriptions of BSB made by visitors over a long period are often quoted by the author and it assists to have a copy of this second book on hand.[3]

Kaltwasser traces in minute detail the changes that took place in exhibiting treasures over the centuries. Originally shown only to a limited number of visitors, rarities later on were placed on continuous display. In time this policy yielded to the custom (from 1894) of holding changing exhibitions of a thematic nature. These latter exhibitions were devoted to a single theme, generally circumscribed in period and accompanied in recent times by catalogues with learned commentaries. Catalogues in turn grew in the Bavarian State Library to become substantial contributions in their own right to learning and scholarship. Clearly the image of the library as a centre of learning and culture was extending beyond the earlier view of it as a treasure house of luxury items, rarities and curiosities.

Although the focus is constantly BSB, there is a wealth of comparative material where the author outlines, sometimes very fully, the display procedures of other great libraries. It comes as a surprise to learn that the St Petersburg Imperial Public Library, opened in 1814 and based on some 250 000 volumes taken as a trophy collection from the Warsaw Library of the Zaleski brothers in 1795, was noteworthy for its exhibitions mounted by its outstanding director Baron M Korff (p228ff). The material Kaltwasser provides on exhibitions held by various European libraries in the 19th and 20th centuries is fascinating and important for the cultural historian. He also lists exhibitions in the New World and even one in Manila. This latter exhibition was held in 1910 and featured valuable and rare books from Asia. There are no listings for Australasia. Whether no exhibition catalogues or reports from this part of the globe have survived is not clear. Kaltwasser's commentary on exhibitions of libraries outside Munich are often detailed and little vignettes in themselves (cf his commentary on the 1892 exhibition on the International Exhibition for Music and Theatre in Vienna, p248).

Whilst exhibitions mounted by BSB often commemorated significant anniversaries and led to the publication of notable monuments of scholarship and learning, a definite political element entered into them from 1933 and the rise of National Socialism in Germany. A new director general was appointed in 1935: Dr Rudolf Buttmann, a party member holding party membership card no 4, a former parliamentary librarian and also a former state and federal (Reichstag) member. At his invitation Hitler visited BSB in 1935. Kaltwasser gives intriguing information about Buttmann's tenure of office which was not always negative (p314ff). But exhibitions with a political purpose were staged. The list of exhibitions from 1933-1941 contain relevant details (pp317-322).

Exhibitions resumed after the war, the first being held in 1949 in co-operation with the Art Museum of Bern. Although BSB had sustained significant loss of stock and damage to its premises (85 per cent destroyed) during the war, it managed to improvise for some time until the building was restored. Kaltwasser underlines the contribution of director-general Gustav Hofmann (1948-1966) in again raising the public profile of BSB by holding a series of outstanding exhibitions that emphasised the cultural and historical mission of the library. Visitors came in large numbers and the sale of catalogues was also significant. All this is symptomatic for the postwar period in Germany where the populace flocked to cultural events as a relief from the traumas of the war and the Nazi period.

After 1972 when the author became the new director general, Kaltwasser changes the style of his presentation by speaking more directly in his own person. This part of the work is enlivened by some personal revelations about difficulties encountered with Bavarian counterparts to our 'bean counters'. We are in fact given insights into matters which are generally not known outside the bureaucracy itself. This lends the book yet another important facet. The exhibitions organised during this period (1972-1992) are done full justice and include distinguished ones with celebrated catalogues. This reviewer was present at several and still cherishes the catalogues purchased then.[4] Das Buch als Museum contains plates (some in colour) of exhibition catalogues and of the openings of specific exhibitions that give readers a better idea of what exhibitions represented in the life of BSB during the Kaltwasser years. They were, and probably still are, as significant as the great exhibitions Australians may better associate with the British Library in London. The catalogues are items that research libraries would want to hold.

This work is an outstanding example of meticulous historical research and expert knowledge about library history, rare and valuable books and manuscripts and the role libraries and museums play in society. It is in some respects directed to specialists in these fields, but educated laymen would also derive benefit and pleasure from reading it as well. The illustrations are well-chosen and add to the text in a meaningful way. The wealth of information and the wide scope of this book make it impossible for reviews to do full justice to it. It would be a great pity if this work were not translated, if only in part, into English. It is a work that is essential for research libraries to acquire and it is a monument to F G Kaltwasser who has shown what can be achieved by scholar-librarians in their retirement.

RL Cope was NSW parliamentary librarian 1962-1991. He writes and reviews for the Australian Library Journal and Australian Academic & Research Libraries.

Notes

• E Flowers 'Panizzi's questionnaire' Australian Academic & Research Libraries vol 15 no 1 (March 1984) pp33-41
• The
• name of this Russian librarian (1813-1872) is variously transliterated as Sobol'shchikov, Sobolschchikov, Sobolščikov. The work Kaltwasser draws on was published in Russian in 1860. He does not mention the French edition of the same work (Principes pour l'organisation et la conservation des grandes biblioth&eagrave;ques Paris 1859). One copy of this work is known in Australia: it was the property of the Victorian Parliamentary Library until handed over in recent times to Deakin University Library. Sobolschchikov is again acquiring notice in the West for his importance in library history: see Hoare & Peter 'Sobol' Shchikov and the Modern European Library in 1859', Library History Vol 14 (May 1998) pp47-53.
• Die Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Historischen Beschreibungen Munich Saur 1992 16 coloured illlus, 16 black and white illus (dedicated to Dr F G Kaltwasser)
• Some of these catalogues are reviewed by R L Cope 'Making an Exhibition of Oneself: Reviewing Some Recent German Examples' in R L Cope and F G Kaltwasser Focusing on the Bavarian State Library: A Collection of Writings (pp47-57) in Libraries and Librarianship: Studies & Reviews no 1 1996. Bullaburra The Bullaburra Press 1996