Open Password – Monday August 16, 2021
#961
City and district library “Anna Seghers” – Sylvia Gramann – Meiningen – Schmalkalden-Meiningen – Educational libraries – Association “Women’s Work” – Meininger Tageblatt – Public library and reading hall – Meiningen Ducal Public Library – Thuringian State Library – Duke Bernhard I – National Socialism – Soviet military administration – Thuringian Latest News – GDR Libraries – Electronic Products – Information Society Training and Awareness Raising – Thuringian Online Library – Library Prize – Syllabus – Machine Intelligence – Airbnb – Berlin – Hubert Oesterle – Superapps – Capital-Driven Development -Katalin Gennburg – Janis Hertel – Carolin Moje – Denis Petri – Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung – Ulises A. Meja – Data colonialism – Citizen movements – Globilization – Neoliberalism – Nationalism, geopolitics – Fragmentation – Ulrich Menzel – Berlin Journal of Sociology – Paradigm shift – Attac – Populists – Long-distance tourism – Financial crisis – Multilateralism – EU – Joe Biden – Pandemic – China – New Silk Road
“Anna Seghers” city and district library in Meiningen
Present wherever users are
A journey through history:
From the public library and reading room to the city and district library
By Sylvia Gramann
Meiningen, a district town with 26,335 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2019) in the Free State of Thuringia, offers a diverse range of cultural offerings. The achievements of cultural history and the safeguarding of cultural performance give the city meaning and reputation. The “Anna Seghers” city and district library in Meiningen (hereinafter “library”) sees itself as a modern media and communication center for the city of Meiningen and is the largest public library in the Schmalkalden-Meiningen district.
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A journey through history – from the public library and reading room
to the city and district library
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At the end of the 19th century, when it became increasingly clear that Germany was far behind other countries with its public education system, the call for so-called “educational libraries” became louder. In Meiningen, it is thanks to the efforts of the “Women’s Work” association, founded in 1827, that the public library and reading hall were established as a registered association. The aim of the association was to give the population access to popular literature and thus make a contribution to popular education. The daily press read: “Every class and profession is invited to get new intellectual nourishment here free of charge; There is only good reading to be found here, anyone who hopes the opposite is mistaken” (Meininger Tageblatt, April 3, 1905).
According to these principles, the public library and reading room was opened on April 2, 1905. Around 2,000 volumes and twenty newspapers and magazines were available to every adult free of charge or for a small reading fee. The public library and reading room underwent a spatial improvement a year later when it moved to another building. The book inventory increased to 5,000 volumes by 1918. The outcome of the First World War, the end of the monarchy in Germany and with it the abdication of Duke Bernhard III. of Saxony-Meiningen in November 1918 also changed social life in Meiningen.
As part of a now necessary reorganization of the libraries, the decision was made in 1927 that the Meiningen Ducal Public Library, a scientific institution, was to be attached to the popular department, i.e. the “educational library”. In 1929 the public library and reading hall were merged with the previously founded educational library of the Thuringian State Library. Under the name “Public Library of the State of Thuringia and the Ducal House in Meiningen”, the library consisted of two areas, the Thuringian State Library (educational library, public library) and the Ducal Public Library.
A note on the history of the Ducal Public Library, a scholarly library: It emerged from the private library of Duke Bernhard I, the founder of the Saxe-Meiningen line, from purchases by Duke Anton Ulrich and from a bequest from court deacon Weinrich. In 1782, Duke George I opened the library to public use as a scientific research library. Famous scholars made the library famous as librarians. Examples include Wilhelm Friedrich Hermann Reinwald, who was born in Wasungen, Friedrich Schiller’s brother-in-law, the fairy tale writer Ludwig Bechstein, Georg Brückner, Rochus Freiherr von Liliencron, Ernst Koch and Ludwig Grobe.
During the global economic crisis, the library was dependent on book donations and financial grants. During National Socialism and the Second World War, the library’s work was to convey National Socialist ideas to all educational levels. By connecting to the Imperial Loan System, it was possible to obtain numerous works for academic researchers from libraries at home and abroad such as Sweden, Romania, Russia and France.
In 1945 the Ducal Public Library fell under the expropriation of the large landowners and, with the exception of a few copies, fell victim to the chaos of war. There are now various reports about the possible whereabouts of individual volumes. The holdings of the Thuringian State Library were purged of fascist and militarist literature based on the order of the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD) of September 15, 1945. Of the 77,000 volumes at the end of the war, 16,000 volumes with aesthetic, popular science and local history content remained. In November 1945, the facility, now known as the “Thüringische Landesbibliothek”, was reopened and the holdings were made available to the public for use.
In 1949, the former Thuringian State Library moved into the half-timbered building at Ernestinerstrasse 38, which was built around 1715, and opened the large entrance gate on November 1st. The first open library for young people in the GDR was opened in the House of Young Pioneers, now Max Inn. As part of the administrative reform in 1952, the state library became the city library. District libraries were created in the newly formed districts. The name “state library” no longer corresponded to the circumstances, as the financing was exclusively municipal. In 1955 there was a structural and, a year later, a spatial unification of the district library office with the city library, henceforth known as the “city and district library”.
At that time, the book inventory was still organized according to book size and had grown to around 24,000 volumes (1955). For each book there was a book card in the catalog at the circulation desk. Using the existing book cards, the librarian recommended the literature to the readers based on his assessment and discretion. This wide return and loan counter was the center of the library for readers. The reading room, which was equipped with newspapers and magazines as well as reference books that could not be borrowed, was always well attended. In the reading room there was a very unique atmosphere, adapted to a reading room, that you couldn’t feel anywhere else in the house.
In the daily press you could read: View into the reading room. It was one stormy late afternoon when an elderly woman from Meiningen called out to a friend in Schlundgasse: “Are you going to the warming room too? We can read the latest newspapers there!” Warming room – I thought, and – read newspapers?! That could only be the case – and then, walking behind the two women, I had reached the ground floor of our public library and entered the comfortably warm, well-lit reading room. Here, older and younger readers were already sitting at the clean tables, completely engrossed in their newspaper, which they had picked up from the long row of daily newspapers hanging on the wall (Thüringer Neueste Nachrichten, March 1, 1953).
In 1960, the dividing counter was removed in libraries and in stores and “free lending” was introduced in 1960. From now on, readers chose the literature they wanted themselves. The newly created atmosphere invited you to linger. The book and magazine inventory was continuously supplemented and expanded to include new media. First there were the records in 1971, since 1974 the music cassettes have completed the sound library and a loan facility for reproductions has been set up. In 1972, the correspondence began with the writer Anna Seghers, whose name the library has borne since 1974.
In November 1983, the green light was given for the renovation and expansion of the library and the house at Ernestinerstrasse 38. A year later, the city council passed the resolution. The renovation of the listed building and the redesign of the interior took almost three years. During this time, the library was located in the annex of the Volkshaus. The reopening on August 21, 1987, including the children’s library, brought about a new period of prosperity for the house, which was built around 1715. The facility became a showcase for the library system in the GDR. Many interested parties, whether from politics or specialist circles, marveled at the new library.
Sylvia Grammann
At the time of reunification, interest in the library fell dramatically and only stabilized again in the mid-1990s. New media determined the future of the library as a communication center and so the collection began to be expanded to include CDs, videos, CD-ROMs and DVDs in the 1990s. In 1998, inventory recording began via computer and in 2002 the data transfer was completed to the point that loan bookings were switched to via computer.
The library was one of seven public libraries in Thuringia selected to participate in the European ISTAR (Information Society Training and Awareness Raising) project. In order to open the door to the information society for users, the library received four Internet workstations as part of this project in 1999. Waiting times for loan transactions have been shortened through access to catalog networks.
In 2000, the library made headlines with additional attractions. The reading yard was opened in August and the facade of the library has been transformed into an Advent calendar every December since then (more under “Fairy Tale and Legend Festival”). Nationwide conferences with international participation attracted attention, such as the library congress, the 51st annual conference of the Association of Librarians and Assistants (VBA) and the conferences of the Anna Seghers Society in 2002, 2007 and 2014. In 2008, the library was founded with nine others the Thuringian Online Library – a platform for borrowing e-media. In 2009, the web catalog was added as an indispensable research portal.
In October 2010, the employees of the Meiningen Library were honored with the Thuringian Library Prize. The prize money was used to transform the children’s library into a place to live, learn and play. In recent years, individual library areas have received improved quality of stay through new furniture.
In 2019, Meiningen grew to include additional districts. Library work in Walldorf benefits from this incorporation. The existing library holdings were updated and partially incorporated into the library software of the Meiningen Library. The optimal location of the Walldorf library in the kindergarten building and the proximity to the elementary school offers new opportunities for educational library work, which both institutions are happy to use. Together with guests from politics and business, partners from other cultural institutions and visitors, the library team celebrated “70 years of the library in the half-timbered building on Ernestinerstrasse” with an open day on November 1, 2019.
Read in the next episode: Explore the children’s library with “Drache KiBi” – The range of events – Reading competitions – The Meiningen Spring Reading – Thuringian Fairy Tale and Legend Festival in Meiningen – The Fairy Tale Symposium, finding out and trying out new things – The Fairy Tale Prize – Books, Livres, books, Reading connects:
The Europe Prize, an award to contemporary European authors
Newly published
Open Password Recommender Co-operation with Syllabus
More quality of life
through machine intelligence! How Airbnb is changing Berlin, data colonialism
Hubert Oesterle, Machine Intelligence – Evolution or Quality of Life, in: Informatik Spektrum, in: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00287-021-01382-8 – Machine intelligence penetrates and changes all areas of life. The integration of digital services into superapps shifts the power from individuals, from conventional companies and from states to Internet giants, which use their resources to further develop digital services in such a way that their capital and power continue to grow. In this way, capital drives socio-technical evolution.
Consumerism, mental illnesses, diseases of affluence, political polarization, power shifts to corporations, etc., negative consequences of purely capital-driven development require control mechanisms in the interests of quality of life. The huge data collections of digital services make it possible to better understand the drivers of quality of life, to make them measurable and thus to guide socio-technical evolution for the benefit of people. This is where the opportunities lie for a discipline of life engineering.
Katalin Gennburg, Jannis Hertel, Carolin Moje, Dennis Petri, Cozy Loft with a View of Displacement – How the rental platform Airbnb is changing Berlin , in: Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, https://www.rosalux.de/en/publication /id/44539/cozy-loft-with-a-view-of-displacement . The many ways in which Airbnb has changed – and is still changing – the city of Berlin. What does it mean to fight for the ‘right to the city’ in a city dominated by rental platforms?
Podcast
Ulises A. Meja, Episode 3 — Data Colonialism and Non-Aligned Technology, in: https://globaldatajustice.org/resist-and-reboot/episode-3/. Discussion often the emerging efforts by concerned viizens and citizen groups to colonize data . Meja is the director of the Institute for Global Engagement at SUNY Oswego . Ulises is the co-founder of the Non-Aligned Technologies Movement and the network Tierra Común .
Outside the box
Globalization and neoliberalism
are losing legitimacy
Nationalism, geopolitics and fragmentation of the world into two, perhaps three blocs
are taking their place
Ulrich Menzel, Corona and chained globalization, in: Berliner Journal für Soziologie, July 2021 – https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11609-021-00437-7 . The “unleashed” globalization of the 1990s is history; “shackled” globalization is on the agenda.
A paradigm shift is currently taking place in the globalization discourse. Globalization is no longer only questioned by established left-wing globalization critics such as Attac and right-wing populists. Rather, the criticism has reached the mainstream of economics and social sciences. This process began before the pandemic, but Corona has completely demystified globalization. Its formerly popular “flagships” such as long-distance tourism by water, land and air have fallen into crisis, as have its service providers and producers, supply chains and logistics centers. On the other hand, regional and local economies gain image. It is difficult to provide information about the advantages of specialization and the international division of labor. The concept of a national political economy is returning and is intended to revive the productive forces that have been lost locally.
While neoliberalism is delegitimized for the foreseeable future, the return of the state to the economy is being pushed. Even the major business associations are calling for the state, as they did in the financial crisis in 2008. While Commerzbank was partially nationalized during the financial crisis, 2020 saw the partial nationalization of Lufthansa. Multilateralism is being weakened in favor of nationalism. This is especially true for the EU, which was an institutional flywheel of globalization for many years.
The Biden administration will not change the structural crisis of globalization. The structural problems in the USA have not disappeared with the pandemic. The new government will also push for burden sharing with Europe, reduce the USA’s international engagement and continue the conflict with China. China will continue to work to strengthen the club of countries willing to be lured by its offers of loans and investments on the New Silk Road. Even if globalization cannot be reversed in all its facets and certainly not completely, there is still a continuation, the duration of which cannot be foreseen. There may even be a division of the world into a sphere dominated by China, a sphere dominated by the USA and a sphere dominated by Western Europe under German leadership. That would also be a fragmentation of the world.
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