CERL Annual Seminar 2015

Library History: Why, What, How?

Organized by: CERL, Pierre Delsaerdt, Thomas Theyssens (LIS-programme), Susanna de Schepper (Vlaamse Erfgoed Bibliotheek, or Flanders Heritage Library), Tom Deneire (Antwerp University Library, Special Collections)

Speaker(s): Alessandra Panzanelli,Alexandre Vanautgaerden,Bettina Wagner,Cristina Dondi,Dirk van Hulle,Dirk van Miert,Elmar Mittler,Flavia Bruni,Jolanta Talbierska,Kristian Jensen,Pierre Delsaerdt,Richard Ovenden,Trudi Noordermeer,Ulf Göranson,Yann Sordet

The study of the history of libraries and library collections can produce useful information to support a library’s collection and conservation policies, to better understand its particular features and to strengthen its attraction for a broad public.

Additionally, library history can be considered as a particular form of cultural history: libraries have always been at the heart of intellectual life, and have functioned as nodes within the Republic of Letters. Considered from this double point of view, library history has the potential to bring together librarians and academic historians. Both categories of professionals with a special interest in libraries, however, do not always share the same paradigms. Many a (heritage) librarian will scorn present-day historians with their theoretical approach and lack of connoisseurship. Academic researchers, in their turn, will sometimes label the research output of librarians as too much heritage-oriented and inventory-like, losing itself in details and passion, much to the detriment of critical synthesis.

This CERL seminar on library history brought together both parties. It investigated how these diverging worlds can complement each other and how they can integrate each other’s approaches to further our knowledge of library history. Questions addressed were the following:

WHY? Why should we study library history? Can it fulfill its pretension to strengthen a library’s position, relevance and current management? Can it be acknowledged as an independent subdiscipline within book history and cultural history?

WHAT? What exactly do we mean by library history? What aspects do researchers in library history need to address?

HOW? Which methods can be used in library history? Should we try to match the librarian’s evidence-based, empirical connoisseurship with the theoretically supported, synthetical praxis of the academic researcher? What novel methods can be used to collect, interpret and present the research data? Do the digital humanities provide useful tools in this respect? And what can CERL do to support researchers?

All papers have been published in Quaerendo 46:2-3 (2016).

Programme

– 8.30–9.00: Registration – Coffee
– 9.00–9.15: Trudi Noordermeer (Head Librarian, Antwerp University Library), Ulf Göranson (Chairman, CERL): Opening & Welcome
– 9.15–9.40: Pierre Delsaerdt (University of Antwerp): Introduction to the theme of the CERL seminar

Morning session

MORNING SESSION
Chair: Pierre Delsaerdt (University of Antwerp)

– 9.40–10.10: Cristina Dondi and Alessandra Panzanelli (University of Oxford, 15cBOOKTRADE): Researching the origin of Perugia’s Public Library (1582/1623) before and after Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI)
– 10.10–10.30: Discussion

– 10.30–11.00: Coffee

– 11.00–11.20: Dirk van Miert (University of Utrecht): Thinking classified: the 18th‐century integration of librarianship and the historiography of learning
– 11.20–11.40: Richard Ovenden (Bodleian Library, Oxford): A new history of the Bodleian Library
– 11.40–12.00: Jolanta Talbierska (Warsaw University Library): Researching the library’s historical collections: discover the past and plan the future. The case of Warsaw University Library
– 12.00–12.30: Discussion

– 12.30–13.30: LUNCH

Afternoon session

AFTERNOON SESSION
Chair: Elmar Mittler (Universities of Göttingen & Mainz)

– 13.30–13.50: Flavia Bruni (La Sapienza University, Rome): How to untangle historic libraries: illuminating collections through inventories
– 13.50–14.10: Yann Sordet (Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris): Reconstructing Mazarin’s library/libraries in time and space : sources, tools and hypothesis
– 14.10–14.30: Bettina Wagner (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich): Opening doors into the past. The library of the Nuremberg humanist Hartmann Schedel (1440‐1514) and the modern world
– 14.30–14.50: Dirk Van Hulle (University of Antwerp): Digital Library History: The Virtual Bookcases of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett
– 14.50–15.30: Discussion
– 15.30–16.00: Coffee
– 16.00‐16.15: Alexandre Vanautgaerden (Bibliothèque de Genève): Presentation of the volume on library history ‘Labyrinthes de l’esprit’ (Genève: Droz)
– 16.15–16.45: Kristian Jensen (British Library, London): Should we write library history?
– 16.45–16.55: Discussion
– 16.55–17.00: Ulf Göranson (Chairman, CERL):Conclusion
– 17- Reception: Sponsored by Brepols Publishers, Turnhout, Belgium