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Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis. Jaargang 20 (2013)

Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis. Jaargang 20

(2013)– [tijdschrift] Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

Vorige Volgende

Christine Haug, Slávka Rude-Porubská & Wolfgang Schmitz
‘Buchwissenschaft’ in Germany
An Overview

The book as a reflection of social change since the Age of Antiquity and on through the Middle Ages to the 20th and 21st centuries has a long history, but it only became the object of research and teaching at universities at a relatively late date. Buchwissenschaft1 as an academic discipline in Germany is a relative new-comer to the scene, and thus one would have to concede that it has a ‘short university history’.2 The current scholarly research in the field of Buchwissenschaft is marked by a pronounced ‘scientific plurality of methodologies’, the origins of which can only be sketched here briefly. As for example Christine Haug emphasizes, the short history, whether at the institution or university level, is tantamount up to the present day to a ‘remarkable deficit when it comes to a discussion of methods guided by theory’.3

In recent years there has been a more intense discussion both of teaching and research in the field of Buchwissenschaft as individual disciplines as well as of its position with regard to other fields of scholarly research. These discussions about how Buchwissenschaft apprehends itself and what its true agenda is have taken place at numerous scholarly conferences4 and the proceedings have been widely publicized.5 At the same time, though, the process of creating a theoretical model for Buchwissenschaft

in Germany, one which would ensure the ‘subject a legitimate [and stable] place’ in the contemporary family of sciences, has yet to be concluded. The discussion as to the self-image of the field and the status of Buchwissenschaft as a subject? A discipline? An integrated science? An applied science?’6 is set to continue. Likewise a continuing discussion about the relationship between scientific and practice-oriented knowledge in the Buchwissenschaft curricula. In the university research landscape this certainly has to be seen as a deficiency. However, we can concur with Ernst Fischer that the fact that Buchwissenschaft has hitherto been unable to develop a clear identity - something which gives it, as an academic discipline, the character of a ‘project in permanence’ - does have its positive sides.7 In Fischer's view, the world of the book in the modern media world and environment has been transformed into a ‘fascinating laboratory, [it has become] the venue for countless communications experiments’,8 something which has repeatedly prompted Buchwissenschaft to re-define its focus of study and continues to do so. In unison with other specialists in the field, Fischer has called for contemporary Buchwissenschaft to be regarded as an integrated science which he feels is able to master the central challenge in this field, namely to observe in real time the ‘forms of a far-reaching upheaval in human communications relationships and accompany them with a critical analysis’ and all the while devoting its energy to ‘the examination of the historical dimension of the book’ and ‘maintaining interest in the history of the book’.9

The (pre-academic) origins of Buchwissenschaft can be traced back to the 18th century. The two-volume work by Michael Denis, Einleitung in die Bücherkunde, published 1777/1778 and devoted to bibliography and literary history is an early example of a key study in the German language. In its early days, dealing with books from a scholarly point of view was very much focussed on the mainly physical aspects of the book and closely tied especially to fields of research related to the History of the Book such as Buchkunde, Buchwesen, bibliography, Library Science, writing the history of the book trade, study of the classics, editions as well as incunabula research and printing research. Later the perspective shifted from the physical to the medial aspects of the book; currently the media specifics and the position of book in a cross-medial comparism are at the forefront of the research interest.

A further characteristic of the early phases of scholarly book research is that it joined the consensus in the book trade - which was also formulated around the end of the 18th century - that the book had a ‘special economic and legal status’.10 Accordingly, the book was seen both as a commercial object and as cultural property. In the course of the growing interest in contemporary legal, organizational, economic and technical aspects of book production and circulation, researchers reached out to the book trade, its organ-

izations and companies, such as publishing houses, bookstores or else wholesalers. Ursula Rautenberg sees the establishment of an extra-ordinary professorship at the Handelshochschule in Leipzig in 1925 for book trade management skills as being part of this development.11 Thomas Keiderling and Siegfried Lokatis emphasize that the new teaching post in Leipzig marked ‘a new focus or a change of focus in the field of Buchwissenschaft, away from topics pertaining more or less to libraries or the physical aspects of the book and in the direction of problems pertaining to the economics of the book, to the book market or business administration’.12 At present, the economic aspect of the book is also one of the key pillars of the Buchwissenschaft curricula at the University of Leipzig, alongside the history of the book and theory of the book. The unit there has existed since 1994/1995, at which time Dietrich Kerlen was appointed professor, and is part of the communications and media studies department.

Scholars of Buchwissenschaft in Leipzig see this inclusion of Buchwissenschaft in media studies by all means as ‘a pilot project’,13 which attempts to do justice to the fact that it has become increasingly difficult to draw a fine line - as was one time possible - between the mass media and the individual media (such as a book). The media studies approach in Leipzig by no means precludes historical topics. Of importance is the research on publishing history, based on the company archives of the Leipzig-based firms such as Brockhaus or Reclam, as well as publishing history of the Nazi period and the German Democratic Republic (gdr). The scholarly traditions briefly described here also spawned the research programmes and courses taught at a number of other Buchwissenschaft institutions in Mainz (1947/1997), Erlangen (1998), Munich (1987) or Münster (1999), which, while competing with one another in terms of research work and location, have sharpened their profiles by using various theoretical and methodological approaches, be they cultural studies (Mainz), media studies (Erlangen) or the social history of literature (Munich). In addition, the current methodological repertoire of Buchwissenschaft is augmented by various branches of research such as systems theory, semiotics, business administration as well as media and cultural sociology.

Buchwissenschaft has gradually emancipated itself from the study of books (Buchkunde), which tended to focus on objects. A parallel development at German universities saw the establishment of Buchwissenschaft as a subject in its own right in the second half of the twentieth century and a trend toward the book as it exists today and its trans-disciplinary opening. This process has manifested itself in the strategies surrounding the naming of the institutions and hiring policy at the academic locations where Buchwissenschaft is taught. The Johannes-Gutenberg-University at Mainz, for example, which is the oldest university location in Germany where Buchwissenschaft is taught, established a chair for the study of books, types and printing in 1947, a post which was taken up by the acknowledged Gutenberg specialist Aloys Ruppel. It was his field of specialization which left its mark on the original research profile in Mainz. His

main interest was focussed on ‘the materiality of communication and incunabula research.’14 The current focus of research at the Institut für Buchwissenschaft in Mainz (renamed in 1997), which is part of the faculty of Philosophy and Philology and has four full professorships, two honorary professorships and a junior professor post, is on media convergence, digitalization, reader research and popular book cultures. Buchwissenschaft in Mainz is mainly based on the historical cultural studies, which is inspired among other things by the French school of the Annales as well as Cultural Studies from the Anglo-American scholarly community.15 Buchwissenschaft and library and information studies has been a special focus of study at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg since its inception in 1974. A professorship was added in 1983 and the historian Otto Mayer was appointed director. This provided the basis for Buchwissenschaft, which is part of the Department of Media Studies and Art History and acquired its current name in 1998. The Buchwissenschaft programme in Erlangen defines ‘the historical dimensions of topics related to Buchwissenschaft’ as ‘the most significant aspect of its profile in terms of research and teaching.’16

The two full professorships and one honorary professorship devote their time and energy to decidedly current fields such as media sociology, digitisation as well as media and publishing law. The junior professorship is devoted to the field of the economics of the book trade. Thus the approach in Erlangen (while the interest in research related to the history of the book remains strong) reflects the observation postulated by Ursula Rautenberg, namely ‘the current trend in research and teaching toward opening itself up to all facets of communication via the medium book and deep-rooted changes in such media.’17 The changing of the name of the institution in 1999 from Forschungsinstitut für Buchwissenschaft und Bibliographie (Institutum Erasmianum) - which, located at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster since the 1950s, mainly focussed on palaeography and the culture of mediaeval manuscripts - to Institut für Buchwissenschaft und Textforschung - and it must be noted that the English literature scholar, book and library historian Bernhard Fabian in Münster was instrumental in the renaming - can be regarded as an example of the consolidation and at the same time re-orientation of Buchwissenschaft as an academic discipline. The late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period continue to set the time frame in Münster for questions relating to book censorship and the phenomenon of book donations. Research in the field of reader socialisation also encompasses the nineteenth century and the present.18

In addition to these university locations with their established, independent insti-

tutes or departments for Buchwissenschaft, the subject is also taught in various ways in new Bachelor and Master programmes which were created through the Bologna process. One of these is the ma-programme in Angewandte Literaturwissenschaft at the Freie Universität Berlin which specialises in literary business and management. On top of that there are other learning institutions in Germany such as the Fachhochschulen, for example the Hochschule der Medien (ba in Mediapublishing) or the Hochschule für Wirtschaft, Technik und Kultur in Leipzig (ba in Booktrade and Publishing Management and ma in Publishing and Media Trade Management) which combine research into the history of the book with occupational training. The programmes at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig concentrate on book design and typography.19

A relevant aspect of the research and study programmes in Germany in the field of academic Buchwissenschaft is the firm commitment to a practice-oriented approach, that is cooperation with the book trade and the literary market. This has especially high priority within the framework of the Buchwissenschaft curricula at the Institut für Deutsche Philologie of the University of Munich. Credit for this has to be given to Herbert G. Göpfert who took on an honorary professorship of book and publishing history in Munich in 1964. Göpfert, himself an experienced publisher and long-standing editor for the Langen-Müller-Verlag and the Hanser Verlag, made ‘the productive integration of scholarly and practical orientation’ the ‘constitutive feature of Buchwissenschaft in Munich.’20 This principle has been followed up to the present day and the wide variety of job-oriented courses offered is indicative of this. The teaching profile is influenced by a trans-disciplinary understanding of the character of the book and integrates various knowledge components from the fields of business administration, law, technology and history.21 Thus the Buchwissenschaft department co-operates with other departments at the university, as, for example, business and media administration and business information technology. The theoretical foundation of the Munich model of Buchwissenschaft is based mainly on the social history of literature, which is interested in the productive connections between literary and social history.

Buchwissenschaft at the four universities mentioned is also supported by the many special advisory boards, the societies of friends or associations of former teaching staff. Represented in the Verein der Freunde der Buchwissenschaft in Mainz, the Freundeskreis der Erlanger Buchwissenschaft, the Verein der Freunde der Münchner Buchwissenschaft - BuWi Phil. or else the Gesellschaft der Freunde und Förderer der Leipziger Buchwissenschaft are publishers, booksellers, media experts and people from the various trade organisations, among them many alumni. As a sort of intersection

point between theory and practice, these organisations also provide content input. The Verein der Freunde der Buchwissenschaft, for example, is also involved in the annual Mainz colloquium, at which - in January 2012 - eight representatives of the (illustrated) reference book publishing trade discussed the future of this segment of the book market. At the colloquium in January 2013 experts have gathered to discuss the topic of sustainable publishing. The Munich alumni association BuWi Phil. invited scholars in May 2012 to the traditional Network Day, which featured a panel discussion on the opportunities and challenges of the business with e-books. In Erlangen, the society of friends there handles the organisation of the so-called Studientag der Erlanger Buchwissenschaft, at which - for example in May, 2010 - the students, together with trade people, held numerous workshops to discuss the attractiveness of the book trade from the standpoint of the employer.

Another mode of cooperation between the individual Buchwissenschaft institutes on the one hand and businesses and organisations from the book trade on the other is the awarding of prizes and/or stipends for student research projects and theses. In Munich, there is the annual Hugendubel-Preis given for the best final thesis. It is worth 5,000 euros and donated by the renowned Munich-based bookstore of the same name. The Buchwissenschaft department in Leipzig regularly awards the Förderpreis der Medienstiftung der Sparkasse Leipzig, with prize money totalling 2,500 Euros. The prize can also go to students other than those studying in Leipzig. In Mainz, students who base their final theses on the holdings in the Verlagsarchiv in Mainz, the publishing company archives, as for example the Europäische Verlagsanstalt, the Rotbuchverlag and the Syndikat-Verlag or else parts of the archive of Rowohlt Verlag which were donated to the Johannes-Gutenberg-University can receive a grant from the publisher couple Sabine and Kurt Groenewold. The Buchwissenschaft programme in Erlangen awards, together with the book concern Thalia, scholarships to doctoral students dealing in their theses with topics such as market structure, business strategy and consumer behaviour in the book trade. In Erlangen, top-notch graduate theses are awarded a Buwine-Preis (no prize money). Student research is also given recognition in another way. Students have the opportunity to publish their work in the online book series Alles Buch. Studien der Erlanger Buchwissenschaft.22

Research and teaching in the field of Buchwissenschaft at the university level is also dependent on external funding and project grants. With the financial assistance of research associations as well as from public and private foundations, it is especially possible to carry out long-term research projects and financially support the various specialised fields of scholarly endeavour. Such funding is also necessary to stage conferences, symposia or gatherings of specialists. In Munich, for example, they are in the throes of establishing a special focus on children's literature from the perspective of Buchwissenschaft. The undertaking has received the support of the private Waldemar Bonsels-Foundation. The paradigm change in this segment of the book market is continuously tracked through working meetings among scholars and lecture series. In this process, the border between literature for young people and that for a general audience

is dissolved both thematically and formally and at the same time the internet is increasingly marginalising the classic stages of book distribution.23



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Figure 1. A volume from the Alles Buchseries: Rühr, Sandra (ed.), Verliert das Hörbuch seinen Körper? Die Auswirkungen des Downloads auf Bibliotheken, Buchbranche und Nutzer (2010)


The focus of the research project Abenteuer Buch. Konzepte und Strategien der Leseförderung bei Kindern und Jugendlichen which was established in 2006 by the Buchwissenschaft department in Erlangen as part of its media socialisation profile is on a discussion of the various approaches to reading socialisation. The aim is, in cooperation with various partners in the teaching field, to come up with strategies for the promotion of reading and speaking skills at the kindergarten and primary school level. Those promoting this project include, among others, the PwC-Stiftung JugendKultur-Bildung and the Jugendamt Erlangen. Thanks to the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (dfg, The German Research Council) the Buchwissenschaft department at Erlangen is involved in the development of the central Wissenschafts-

portal für die Bibliotheks-, Buch- und Informationswissenschaften b2i,24 an online resource for information in the library, book and information studies.

The Buchwissenschaft programme in Leipzig has received funding from the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaft for the publishing history research project Leipziger Verlagsarchive als Erinnerungsspeicher und Labor. Das Reclam-Archiv. The participation of the Institut für Buchwissenschaft in Mainz in the interdisciplinary research project Media Convergence was made possible through the support of the Johannes-Gutenberg-University. The latter helps fund scholarly gatherings, as for example the international conference on semantics and the media in July 2011, and subsidises the publication of specialised works such as the book series Medienkonvergenz, which has been published by De Gruyter since 2012 and which attempts to analyse the effects of digitisation on the media, on forms of communications, on media markets and media usage.

Department of Buchwissenschaft in Munich and St. Galler Zentrum für das Buch - a productive liaison

The Buchwissenschaft department in Munich maintains very close ties to the Institute for Media and Communications Management (mcm)25 at the University of St. Gallen and there is a regular exchange of information between the two institutions. The cooperation with the University and the St. Galler Zentrum für das Buch, which is situated in the Kantonsbibliothek Vadiana, has to be seen in light of the fact that the Deutsches Bucharchiv, which was founded by Ludwig Delp, moved from Munich to new quarters in St. Gallen in 2006. The re-organisation and re-orientation of the former Deutsche Buchwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft (dbg) resulted from this cooperation. The new institution was renamed Buchwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft in 2007 and then in 2008 the name was changed to Internationale Buchwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft (ibg) in order to take into account the close cooperation with the St. Galler Zentrum für das Buch. The main interests of the ibg include aspects of the contemporary book market, as for example the impact of digitisation on the book business (consequences of the transformation of the media and for copyright to mention only two prominent topics).

What distinguishes the ibg from the other scholarly organisations mentioned earlier is that it makes a special effort to involve and engage trade professionals such as booksellers, publishers, book illustrators and printing experts. The ibg sees as one of its main tasks to position the book as a medium in the media system itself, to grasp and do research into the book in the context of the entire culture of the media.26 Christine Haug and Vincent Kaufmann have edited the journal Kodex. Jahrbuch der Internationalen Buchwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft since 2011.



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Figure 2. Cover of Kodex. Jahrbuch der Internationalen Buchwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft 1 (2011)


Society members receive a complimentary copy of the annual publication, and in the short period of its existence the journal has already made a name for itself in the international community. The ibg thus focuses on the period after 1945 and up to the present day. Thus it only sees itself to a limited extent as a special society for the history of the book and publishing trade. There is common ground, however, when it comes to the transformation processes in the book market in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (in this case at the international level).

Cooperation between non-institutionalised organisations and the Department of Buchwissenschaft in Munich at the trans-national level

As a relatively small department (in comparison with other centres for Buchwissenschaft in Germany), the department in Munich is equally eager to cooperate with organisations which have no institutional base. Munich and the Applied German Studies section at the University of Klagenfurt are partners in the Erasmus student

exchange programme and students from Munich are guests once a year at the Tage der deutschsprachigen Literatur. The cordial hospitality, the pleasant atmosphere and the unpretentious manner with which writers, publishers, jury members and literary agencies socialise with the students make it easy for the latter to strike up a conversation with representatives of the German-language book trade. Because - as was mentioned earlier - Buchwissenschaft is not an established field of study in the curricula at universities in Austria, the department in Munich maintains close ties to individual scholars - and here special mention should be made of Prof. Dr. Murray G. Hall who teaches at the German Department of the University of Vienna - and institutions such as the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus. Common membership in the individual associations, as for example the Gesellschaft für Buchforschung in Österreich, also serves to promote communication among like-minded scholars. The Buchwissenschaft Department in Munich is also planning to co-host seminars in the Buchstadt Horn in the Austrian province of Lower Austria, more specifically in the Centre for Book Restoration, which is run by Dr. Patricia Engel und Prof. Dr. Toni Kurz.

Situated close together in the centre of the city there is the Kunsthaus, the Berger printing press museum, the museums of the City of Horn and the Horn Castle, not to mention the countless libraries, lending libraries and book stores in Horn. In the immediate vicinity there are archives and libraries in Altenburg, Rosenburg and Greillenstein. The Waldviertel region of Lower Austria can rightfully claim to be a major centre for the art of the book and book design. The workshops in Horn comprise a studio for the restoration of books and paper. The studio is renowned for the preservation and restoration of books, prints and other historical originals made out of paper, parchment and leather. Worth mentioning in this connection is the publishing firm Galerie Thurnhof, which was founded in 1975 by the designer, publisher and printer Toni Kurz, who organises book fairs, book exhibitions and literary events both at home and abroad.

One of the main aims of the Buchwissenschaft curriculum in Munich is, on the one hand, to promote a close scholarly exchange with the institutions (some of which not are university-based) and on the other to foster wide-reaching cooperation with fellow specialists in Switzerland, Austria and England. The idea is to expand one's own competence and horizon by working together to be able to offer students of Buchwissenschaft in Munich the best possible scientific and practical training. One example of this is the gradual expansion of the children's literature segment in cooperation with children's book publishers, with the Institut für Jugendbuchforschung in Frankfurt am Main and the working group Arbeitsstelle für Kinder- und Jugendmedienforschung (aleki) in Cologne.

Munich is thus an ideal media location and the close links between scholarship and practical training in the courses offered, job training for ba-students which precedes study and the conscious effort to keep the Buchwissenschaft programme small and manageable have all contributed to a successful model which is now attracting students to Munich from all over Germany as well as from Austria. A responsible education policy - i.e. not allowing the programmes to be overrun - is a guarantee that Munich will continue to offer students the best possible chance to find a job right after they graduate.

Forums for scholarly communication: Publishing companies with a Buchwissenschaft programme

Two publishing companies are important for Buchwissenschaft research - the Harrassowitz Verlag in Wiesbaden and De Gruyter, which has offices in Munich and Berlin. The Buchwissenschaft focus in the Harrassowitz programme comprises a wide range of series devoted to the History of Publishing and Library Science. Another important focus is the publication of the catalogues and book series of individual reference libraries. The Wolfenbütteler Notizen zur Buchgeschichte (since 1976), the Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens (likewise since 1976) - which were conceived in cooperation with the Wolfenbütteler Arbeitskreis für Bibliotheks-, Buch- und Mediengeschichte and are published by the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel - or the Leipziger Jahrbuch zur Buchgeschichte (since 1991), the official publication of the Leipziger Arbeitskreis zur Geschichte des Buchwesens, are all devoted to research in the field of the history of the book. Kodex, the yearbook of the ibg is published annually from 2011 on and concentrates mainly on the current structural changes in the book and media industry.

De Gruyter's Library & Information Science/Buchwissenschaft programme contains sub-sections such as Books and Publishing, Libraries, Information and Documentation as well as Press and Media. De Gruyter also publishes relevant reference books, bibliographies and lexicons. A current major project underway at De Gruyter is the multi-volume History of the German Book Trade in the 19th and 20th Century.27

The Bramann Verlag in Frankfurt focuses on text books for print culture historians with works related to their studies and training. Publications worth mentioning here are the series Edition Buchhandel and the series campusBasics - buch & medien, which was initiated in 2012.

Scholarly research and teaching, communication among peers in the field and scholarly publishing are backed up by various working groups whose main aim it is to expand the network linking the individual locations for Buchwissenschaft and the research centres. These groups also seek to offer young scholars the opportunity to establish themselves in the peer group community and take an active part in innovative research discourses.



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Figure 3. Cover of the Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Bd. 1: Das Kaiserreich 1870-1918. Tl. 2. Frankfurt am Main 2003


Scholarly working groups, their networks and publications

The Wolfenbütteler Arbeitskreis für Geschichte des Buchwesens was founded on 27 May, 1975. The initiator was Herbert G. Göpfert who formulated the aims of the Arbeitskreis as follows: ‘Many questions pertaining to the history of book printing and the book trade, the publishing business and the library, that is: questions emanating from the communications field linking the author and the reader, have to be examined and answered today with a view to new methodological aspects.’28 Members of the board during the founding phase were the literary historians and scholars of Buchwissenschaft Otto Dann, Bernhard Fabian, Herbert G. Göpfert, Rainer Gruenter, Bertold Hack, Hans A. Halbey, Ernst L. Hauswedell, Paul Raabe and Bernhard Zeller.29 The board was also concerned with appointing foreign scholars to posts at German research centres. In order to relieve the board from day-to-day business, it was decided to delegate this activity to a working committee made up of Paul Raabe, Monika

Estermann, Erdmann Weyrauch and Herbert G. Göpfert. The focus of work and interest was on research and the presentation of the latest research findings, in other words the aim was to stimulate innovative research.30

Once a year, the Arbeitskreis holds working meetings on topics which, at that time, had long been neglected and which had scarcely been given in-depth attention. These topics included the book trade in the eighteenth century as well as the book and book design in the Weimar Republic. The meetings were intended to encourage discussion by including young scholars.31 The first such meeting in 1976, prompted by Herbert G. Göpfert, was devoted to the topic Buch und Leser32 (The Book and the Reader).

Although close cooperation between the two working groups - on the one hand for the history of the book, on the other hand for library history - was desirable from the very beginning, the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel proposed in the year 1998 that the two groups merge. One reason was the common interests, the other the organisation and financing of the meetings. In September 1998, the Arbeitskreis für Bibliotheks-, Buch- und Mediengeschichte began its work. In the years since its inception, the Arbeitskreis has succeeded in raising innovative questions, promoting discourse and re-visiting historical issues.33 One important aspect was and still is an interdisciplinary and international approach. Among the topics the Arbeitskreis in Wolfenbüttel has dealt with in recent times are libraries in the Age of Antiquity (2007), the clandestine book trade in the eighteenth century (2010) and more recently the school text book market around 1800. Since the merger of the two working groups, the scope has been expanded to include research on libraries, among other things during the Nazi period. This was, by the way, the subject of a conference held in 2009 by the Wolfenbütteler Arbeitskreis in cooperation with the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek.34 This topic has come in for considerable interest in the scholarly community and will be covered again at a future conference focusing on public lending libraries during the Nazi period. In addition to the above-mentioned book series Wolfenbütteler Schriften zur Geschichte des Buchwesens, which, as a rule, includes the contributions to the individual annual conferences, there is also the semi-annual publication called Wolfenbütteler Notizen, edited by Thomas Stäcker and Andrea Opitz.

The Leipziger Arbeitskreis zur Geschichte des Buchwesens for its part was founded in 1990 at the initiative of the historian of the publishing trade (today he runs a publishing firm in Leipzig) Privatdozent Dr. Mark Lehmstedt in conjunction with the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Leipzig (formerly Deutsche Bücherei Leipzig). Its aim is,

following German reunification, to give the very active book and publishing research community in the former gdr a publication and communication forum on a par with those in the West. The Leipziger Jahrbuch zur Buchgeschichte is published on behalf of the Leipziger Arbeitskreis. The first editors were Mark Lehmstedt and Lothar Poethe. Since 2011, the publication is edited by Thomas Fuchs, Detlev Döring and Christine Haug. In the meantime, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Leipzig is no longer a contract partner, and the Leipziger Jahrbuch zur Buchgeschichte is now affiliated with the Leipzig University Library. The series Schriftenreihe des Leipziger Arbeitskreises zur Geschichte des Buchwesens is published parallel to the Leipziger Jahrbuch zur Buchgeschichte. It contains monographs, collected contributions and conference proceedings. One of the first volumes was devoted to inner-German literary relations, based on the proceedings of a sensational conference entitled ‘Das Loch in der Mauer’ and held at the Haus des Buches in Leipzig.35

The many and varied special associations and societies - and in addition to the Wolfenbütteler Arbeitskreis and the Leipziger Arbeitskreis we could also mention the Gutenberg-Gesellschaft or else the Gesellschaft für Buchforschung in Österreich (Society for Book Research in Austria) - focus their research on various topics and periods. After all, the main interest is in offering as wide a spectrum as possible of research into the history of the book, of no matter what period. This is not to foster competition in the search for research topics or to publish findings or recruit members. On the contrary, the lists of members of the various associations reveal that there are quite a few double and triple memberships.

Establishment of a network for a young generation of students of Buchwissenschaft and publishing people - ibg Young Scholars as a new scholar network of the Internationale Buchwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft

What is special about the various institutions in the German-speaking countries offering studies in Buchwissenschaft is the fact that - whereas there is only a relatively small number of university locations - they are incredibly active, work closely with the publishing trade and train junior scholars for the book trade as well as academic careers. What has hitherto been lacking is the networking of young scholars and young people working in the book business. It must be said that countless junior scholars receive their qualifications through courses of study in other faculties, as for example Business Administration, Business Information Science or else Market and Advertising Psychology, to name but a few. In Austria and Switzerland - where Buchwissenschaft

per se is not part of any university curriculum - many young scholars carry out research within the framework of externally funded projects and are outside the scholarly communication loop. One of the main goals of the ibg has been to bring together young scholars and young employees in publishing companies at the international level and to create a junior scholar network with communications structures organised by the participants themselves. For exactly that reason, a Young Scholars Forum was established within the ibg in 2011 which offers young students a network and an exchange forum reaching beyond an individual university or one particular field of study and provides them with the opportunity to discuss their own projects with others.36 The forum was launched in April 2011 at the Department of Buchwissenschaft in Munich. During the two-day meeting, some 30 participants sat down to report on their individual research topics and their further planned activity and project ideas. In addition, the organisers invited experts from abroad to take part in in-depth discussions of methodological questions with the young scholars. Among those attending the first forum were Dr. Bill Bell, director of the Centre for the History of the Book at the University of Edinburgh, the Bourdieu specialist Prof. Dr. Joseph Jurt (Freiburg) as well as Prof. Dr. Georg Jäger, the book historian in Munich. A substantial grant from a special junior scholar promotion programme at the University of Munich made it possible to stage the working meeting. The ibg Young Scholars Forum has been meeting every year since 2011. The two-day gatherings consist of smaller workshops and discussions. Students present their research projects and final theses, and external speakers are also invited. In 2012, the ibg Young Scholar Forum was held in Klagenfurt at the invitation of the Applied German Studies section of the German Department. The hosts were Mag. Constanze Drumm, Dr. Doris Moser and Dr. Arno Rußegger. Prof. Dr. Murray G. Hall from the University of Vienna and Prof. Dr. Stefan Neuhaus from the University of Innsbruck were the guest speakers. After the forum, the hosts invited all the participants to take part in the literature festival known as the Tage der deutschsprachigen Literatur. In 2013, the ibg Young Scholars Forum will take place at the Institut für Buchwissenschaft in Erlangen.

Research on the history of the book done by research librarians in Germany

The relationship between the book and the librarian has undergone major changes over the course of time.37 The librarian of the late nineteenth century was seen as a learned authority on the book, nowadays not many would likely see themselves as such. That in turn would seem to mirror the change which has taken place among librarians.

In the eighteenth century a good deal of thought was given to the profession of the librarian. The view taken by the university librarian Johann Matthias Gesner in

Göttingen is famous.38 According to Gesner, in order to compile a good catalogue, the librarian needed - in the case of manuscripts - special knowledge of the subject, in the case of prints a knowledge of the history of printing and so on. After all, that was the time when intensive efforts were being made to examine incunabula. During the period of secularisation the picture changed. The ideal was no longer the expert on the history of knowledge, but instead the librarian who could fall back on a comprehensive education, had practical training on the job and was familiar with the ins and outs of running a library and knew about the working processes. The same applies to Martin Schrettinger's Handbuch der Bibliothek-Wissenschaft39 published in 1807, and Friedrich Adolf Ebert's Die Bildung des Bibliothekars,40 as diverse as the individual emphases may be.41

Knowledge of the history of the book is necessary as is that of the history of libraries in order to define the history of the library. To what extent knowledge of the history of the book was, in Ebert's view, one of the tools of the trade for a librarian is evidenced by the fact that he described his work on palaeography as the second volume of his Die Bildung des Bibliothekars. He also collected material for a major history of the art of book printing, for which his article about the Coster-Gutenberg question (1823) was a precursor.

The dispute over what constitutes ‘true’ library science has accompanied the development of the image of the modern librarian until the present day. The various book history and library history disciplines have come to be recognised as of the essence within the field of Buchwissenschaft.

It was in these two disciplines that the libraries in the nineteenth century (e.g. the contribution made by Andreas Schmeller at the Court Library in Munich) and especially at the end of the century could point to a wealth of significant results. One only need recall the progress made in the field of incunabula research, such as the establishment of Haebler's Method which involved compiling a list of types used by each printer and making it easier to distinguish one from another with considerable accuracy. But this development is also characterised by research into print history with an eye to individual locations, the book trade and the compilation of noted catalogues of manuscripts (as e.g. the excellent manuscript catalogues compiled for the Royal Library in Berlin by Valentine Rose) and the index of old prints (see for example the complete catalogue of incunabula).

Thus we stumble upon an odd discrepancy, namely that the daily chores of the libraries were determined even back then by the library administration, and the image the librarians had of themselves as library scientists was defined in the main by the his-

torical disciplines. This ambivalence became even more entrenched because the scholarliness of their profession - in light of the growing number of administrative tasks which the overwhelming majority of librarians were faced with - was of utmost importance to them. In the end no really satisfying solution was found to the theoretical question as to whether the various practice-oriented disciplines of library science should be combined with the historical-philological subjects to come up with a uniform library science.42 Until, that is, a novel definition of the term library science emerged under foreign influence. The consequences for people dealing with books were clear, no matter whether new approaches from the communications sciences were brought into play (Klutz) or else the new focus of interest was on library management. In 1970 a highly-touted colloquium on library science was held in Cologne. As it turns out, it pushed the historical-philological school of thought which had dominated scholarly interest up until then to the periphery:

Naturally, research into the history of libraries will remain a legitimate task in future as well. Research into the history of the book is linked to that task in a natural way. The methods which are applied here come from the fields of historical, art-historical and philological studies. However, the history of the book and the history of libraries which, in earlier days, usually stood alone as the epitome of scholarliness will in future no longer be the focal point of library science.43

Paul Aegean's approach to library science as a special form of information science which he used as the basis for the curriculum of his chair in Cologne did, of course, include the historical disciplines and the various forms of publication past and present.44

The search went out for a new approach to scholarliness which no longer concentrated on the book and its history, but instead on making day-to-day library practice into a kind of science in its own right. The new ideal was the reference library.45 This principle gradually found its way into the curriculum of library training schools such as the Bibliothekar-Lehrinstitut (bli) in Cologne and the institutes in Munich and Frankfurt and for a while in Hamburg.

A wealth of different historically oriented questions about the book and the library were posed for a long time to come at the final written exams in the tradition of the Berlin training programme at the bli in Cologne and its successors (works from the bli

Cologne).46 The historically-oriented questions, including those having to do with the printed book, came - in light of the demands posed by library practice - into increasingly close touch with the theoretical superstructure of library science. If and when the book as a physical object evokes the special interest of the librarian, then it is especially from the point of view of management - as for instance when someone is confronted with the urgent problem of preserving holdings as part of an alliance to preserve printed books.47

Nevertheless, research on the history of the book is still carried out today - mainly in the rare book departments of the major libraries. We can only mention a few of the projects here: the main focus is on cataloguing. One is the multi-volume Handbuch der historischen Buchbestände, which is published by the Olms Verlag and to which no small number of libraries contributed. It lists the holdings in publicly accessible collections which appeared prior to the year 1900 and classifies them according to subject. The comprehensive indices make it easy to find the information being sought.48 Whereas in this case we are looking at entire subjects, traditionally the cataloguing work at libraries focuses on individual titles. Accordingly, the Staatsbibliothek Berlin has had its own comprehensive catalogue of incunabula since 1904. It is a complete index spanning libraries around the globe, is a ‘work in progress’, and in the meantime the whole index is online.49 The indices of sixteenth-century prints (vd 16), seventeenth-century prints (vd 17) and eighteenth-century prints (vd 18) are of special interest to researchers in the German-speaking countries. The project is a cooperative venture among libraries and is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (dfg).

Cataloguing of individual collections (manuscripts, incunabula, prints) continues at individual libraries. One example is the catalogue of incunabula at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,50 which has the world's largest such collection. Such indices of individual works in the above-mentioned comprehensive catalogues make note of variations from the original, that is provenances, hand-written notations and additions, bindings etc.

Increasing attention has been devoted in recent years in particular to provenance research. The aim is to trace the ownership of manuscripts and prints and, if possible, to identify these persons and thus deal with questions pertaining to book ownership, reception and the reconstruction of old libraries.51 Useful in this connection are the traces of reader usage.52

Another thing which interests librarians are the book bindings. A number of librarians have published books on their most important book bindings. In addition, infor-

mation on the cataloguing of bindings is stored both in a local and a central book binding data base located at the Staatsbibliothek Berlin.53 Aside from projects at the state libraries, a special major focus is on many joint projects involving for example the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, the Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach.54

Concluding remarks

Similar to libraries which tend to focus their attention on current issues involving the book trade, the teaching, study and research in the field of Buchwissenschaft in Germany has been increasingly devoting time and energy to the contemporary book as a medium in its manifold medial environment, its choice in publishing, manufacturing and distribution including electronic formats and E-books. Of key importance is the topic or paradigm of change, which is not solely regarded as a fast-paced technological structural upheaval in the book market. The implications of the socio-demographic changes for the book trade and the formats of age-dependent and generation-specific book usage are becoming increasingly important focuses in teaching and research. Aspects of a sustainable commercial trade in books by various participants in the book trade as well as the ecological and climate-neutral production of books and media products are fast becoming part of the Buchwissenschaft research agenda. However, the study of the history of the book in libraries and similar scientific institutions has by no means come to a halt, indeed corresponding courses are still being taught and students and graduates continue to write their doctoral theses and Habilitationsschriften. Having said that, the increased focus on a practical profession for the graduates demands a greater emphasis on practical preparation for jobs in the publishing industry and book trade.


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