The Upper Lusatian Library of Sciences () contains about 150,000 volumes, making it the largest library in

Görlitz Görlitz (; ; ; ; ; Lusatian dialects, East Lusatian: , , ) is a town in the Germany, German state of Saxony. It is on the river Lusatian Neisse and is the largest town in Upper Lusatia, the second-largest town in the region of Lusatia after ...

and the most important regional library between

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

and

Wrocław Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...

. Cornered between

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

and

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

and therefore looking back on a rich history, its goal is to provide historical research and enhance knowledge transfer in the region.

History

In 1779,

had roughly 7,500 inhabitants and was the center of the economical and political independent

Upper Lusatia Upper Lusatia (, ; , ; ; or ''Milsko''; ) is a historical region in Germany and Poland. Along with Lower Lusatia to the north, it makes up the region of Lusatia, named after the Polabian Slavs, Slavic ''Lusici'' tribe. Both parts of Lusatia a ...

at the corner of the

Electorate of Saxony The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony ( or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356 to 1806 initially centred on Wittenberg that came to include areas around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz. It was a ...

. On 21 April 1779, 20 members of educated and sophisticated classes and nobility came together to found a society called ''Upper Lusatian Society for the Promotion of Historical and Natural History''. Later in 1792 the society was renamed to ''Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences''. The Upper Lusatian Library of Sciences was founded 1950 by merging the collected volumes of the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences and the Library of Milich, that came to Görlitz in 1727.

Library of Sciences

Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences was founded 1779 in

by the initiative of the lawyer, historian and linguist Karl Gottlob Anton (1751–1818) and the landlord and natural scientist Adolf Traugott von Gersdorff (1744–1807). Both and their members were powered by the ideas of enlightenment which centered the faculty of reason and did research on many scientific disciplines. Thus, the collected volumes were broad, including natural science, grammar and linguistic, encyclopedia and historic literature. Later in the 19th century Upper Lusatian Society shifted the subject of research torwards the regional history of the

Adolf Traugott von Gersdorff (1744–1807)

As one of the two founders, Gersdorrf donated his collected scientific volumes and a library with about 10,000 books to the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences. The literature covers physical,

meteorological Meteorology is the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agriculture ...

mineralogical Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proces ...

topics. He left a large collection of literature about

lightning protection A lightning rod or lightning conductor (British English) is a metal rod mounted on a structure and intended to protect the structure from a lightning strike. If lightning hits the structure, it is most likely to strike the rod and be conducted ...

of the 18th century. His travel journals, geographic works and maps show a remarkable intellectual life in the

and a vivid exchange with thinkers in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Karl Gottlob Anton (1751–1818)

The resident of

and lawyer Karl Gottlob Anton, ennobled in 1802, wanted to found a 'busy academic society' in 1779. His scientific interest lay in

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and

Slavic studies Slavic (American English) or Slavonic (British English) studies, also known as Slavistics, is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic peoples, Slavic peoples, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or ...

. His research about

Sorbian languages The Sorbian languages (, ) are the Upper Sorbian language and Lower Sorbian language, two closely related and partially mutually intelligible languages spoken by the Sorbs, a West Slavs, West Slavic ethno-cultural minority in the Lusatia region ...

Slavs The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and ...

and the early

agricultural history Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least eleven separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin. The development of agriculture ...

gained lasting recognition. In 1801 he donated his scientific works and roughly 10,000 books to his Upper Lusatian Society. As founder and secretary of the Society he bought the house in Handwerk street on the Lower Market Square to meet the demand of the growing library.

Library of Milich

The Library of Milich was a private collection by the Świdnician lawyer Johann Gottlieb Milich (1678-1726). It contained legally and religious items, 7,000 books, 200 handwritten scripts, 500 coins and a handful of curiosities. In 1727 the library was handed to the ''Augustum-Annen-Gymnasium'' in

by his will under the condition to keep the library open to the public two days a week for the next 200 years. Over time the library has been merged with donations from inhabitants of

and the collection of the local monastery library.

A neo-classicistic scenic library

The library hall was occupied in 1806, when Karl Gottlob Anton donated his own library to the Society. Possibly the first four arches belonged to this donation; in 1841 another arch was added. The large library hall was modeled on the library of the

Francke Foundations The Francke Foundations (Franckesche Stiftungen), also known as Glauchasche Anstalten were founded in 1695 in Halle (Saale), Halle, Germany as a Christian, social and educational work by August Hermann Francke The Francke Foundations are today ...

Halle (Saale) Halle (Saale), or simply Halle (), is the second largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is the sixth-most populous city in the area of former East Germany after (East Berlin, East) Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Chem ...

and noble private libraries in central Germany and

Silesia Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...

. The basic idea follows baroque theatre architecture - with triumphal arches of knowledge that divide the hall in different sceneries. As a research library, it lacks ornamentation. Only the backs of the book decorate the room. The older stuccoed ceilings were knocked off so that nothing distracted from the power of the word. During the restoration in 1951, the original stucco was painterly suggested again. Due to its simplicity the historic library hall is a prominent example of the early

Neoclassicism Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative arts, decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiq ...

Library stock

The Upper Lusatian Library of Sciences contains about 150,000 items and roughly 40% of them have been published before 1900. The library includes several rarities and valuables like

Francysk Skaryna Francysk Skaryna (alternative transcriptions of his name: ''Francišak Skaryna'' or ''Francisk Skaryna''; , ; , ; 1470 – 1551/29 January 1552) was a Belarusian humanist, physician, and translator. He is known to be one of the first book ...

Bible (1517-1519),

Incunable An incunable or incunabulum (: incunables or incunabula, respectively) is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. The specific date is essentially arbitrary, but the ...

s from the 15th century, a collection of flyers from the Reformation period, manuscripts and 3,000 historic maps and atlases including sheets of

Gerhard Mercator Gerardus Mercator (; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a Flemish geographer, cosmographer and cartographer. He is most renowned for creating the 1569 world map based on a new projection which represented sailing courses of constant bearing ...

(1571) and

Abraham Ortelius Abraham Ortelius (; also Ortels, Orthellius, Wortels; 4 or 14 April 152728 June 1598) was a cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer from Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands. He is recognized as the creator of the list of atlases, first modern ...

(1621). A handwritten

codex The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...

from the 11th century with texts by the Roman historian

Sallust Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust (, ; –35 BC), was a historian and politician of the Roman Republic from a plebeian family. Probably born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines, Sallust became a partisan of Julius ...

is the oldest item in the library. The items with the most important scientific value are grouped in the complex ''Archive''. It contains the collected items of Karl Gottlob Anton, Adolf Traugott von Gersdorff and assets of other scholars and poets of

. The collection ranges from manuscripts of the great Upper Lusatian enlightener

Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus or Tschirnhauß (; 10 April 1651 – 11 October 1708) was a German mathematician, physicist, physician, and philosopher. He introduced the Tschirnhaus transformation and is considered by some to have been the ...

(1651-1708) to records of the Bad Muskau poet and Pückler-confidant

Leopold Schefer Leopold Schefer (30 July 1784 in Muskau – 13 February 1862 in Muskau), German poet, novelist, and composer, was born in a small town in Upper Lusatia (then under Saxon rule), the only child of a poor country doctor. Biography Leopold Schefer ...

(1784-1862) to the estate of the Görlitz writer and publicist Ludwig Kunz (1890-1976). With the mill archive from the estate of the mill researcher Günter Rapp, the library houses an extensive collection of texts and about 16,000 photographs of mills in

and the former

GDR East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally vie ...

Jakob Böhme

A high priority is given to the collection on the German philosopher,

Christian mystic Christian mysticism is the tradition of mysticism, mystical practices and mystical theology within Christianity which "concerns the preparation f the personfor, the consciousness of, and the effect of ..a direct and transformative pr ...

, and

theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...

Jakob Böhme Jakob Böhme (; ; 24 April 1575 – 17 November 1624) was a German philosopher, Christian mysticism, Christian mystic, and Lutheran Protestant Theology, theologian. He was considered an original thinker by many of his contemporaries within the L ...

. He is undoubtedly the most famous person of

with the most profound influence on later philosophical movements in Europe. Today, an important task of the library is the systematic collection of literature of and about

. The library provides information on Boehme's life and impact for further research from philosophical, theological and philological aspects. With about 1,500 works and essays, the Upper Lusatian Library owns a large collection of the theosophist from

Gallery

13-11-02-olb-by-RalfR-04.jpg, Librarian room OLB-Görlitz-25.JPG, Frontpage of '' Oeconomischen Encyclopädie'' by

Johann Georg Krünitz Johann Georg Krünitz (20 March 1728 – 20 December 1796) was a German encyclopedist who started the 242-volume Oekonomische Encyklopädie and during his lifetime managed to complete its first 72 volumes. Life Krünitz was born in Berlin as th ...

OLB-Görlitz-17.JPG, Library of Milich OLB-Görlitz-12.JPG, A collection of old books

Literature

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References

External links

Website of the Upper Lusatian Library of Sciences

Website of the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences

Record
in the 'Handbook of historic collections' online
Digital Collection
of the Upper Lusatian Library of Sciences {{Authority control Libraries in Germany Upper Lusatia Buildings and structures in Görlitz Tourist attractions in Görlitz Libraries established in 1950