2004

AP -- Archives, Libraries, and Museums

Nachlässe und Sammlungen, Verbands- und Vereins-, Familien- und Firmenarchive im Stadtarchiv Köln: eine Übersicht [Estate Papers and Collections, Association, Society, Family, and Company Archives in the Cologne Municipal Archives: An Overview]. Köln: Historisches Archiv. 24 cm. (Mitteilungen aus dem Stadtarchiv von Köln). (Historisches Archiv, Postfach 10 35 64, D-50475 Köln, fax [49 221] 221 22480, e-mail: hastk@netcologne.de) [04-1-037]

Vol. 2. 1963-2002. Everhard Kleinertz. 2003. 509 p. ISBN 3-928907-13-1: EUR 44

This second installment covers accessions to the collection in the 40 years since the first volume was published in 1963. The materials in both volumes are arranged in the following groups: (1) estate papers, (2) family archives, (3) association and society papers, (4) political party archives, (5) papers of firms and cooperatives, (6) collections, (7) miscellaneous archival materials, and (8) supplements. The main changes in this new volume are not only the great increase in the number of entries in each of the categories, but also the expansion of the collecting criteria so that the nature of the collection has changed from that of an administrative archive to a cultural archive. This resulted from a decision by the Cologne Municipal Council to establish a “documentation of Cologne’s cultural life after 1945.” Despite an insufficient level of staff personnel from the city of Cologne over the years to match the increase in the scope of the collection, the archive has managed to provide very good access to its materials. In the descriptions of the collections in this volume one sees that there are finding guides or at least lists of the items for a large percentage of the collections. The volume also contains extensive indexes of persons, places, general subjects, and special aspects related to the city of Cologne. [sh/jc]

Beutekunst: Bibliographie des internationalen Schrifttums über das Schicksal des im Zweiten Weltkrieg von der Roten Armee in Deutschland erbeuteten Kulturgutes (Museums-, Archiv- und Bibliotheksbestände) = Trofeinoe iskusstvo = Trophy art [Subtitle: Bibliography of International Publications Concerning the Fate of Cultural Property Looted by the Red Army in Germany during the Second World War (Museum, Archive, and Library Holdings)]. Peter Bruhn. 4th completely rev. ed. 2 vols. München: Sagner, 2003. 494, 294 p. 28 cm. (Literaturnachweise zu aktuellen Rußland-Themen, 4; Veröffentlichungen d er Osteuropaabteilung, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 30). ISBN 3-87690-835-3: EUR 62 [04-1-039]

The topic of trophy art is clearly of growing interest even in countries outside of Germany and Russia, as manifested by the greatly increased number of titles listed in this 4th revised edition. The third edition, published in 2000 (see RREA 6:48), listed 3,507 entries for 1990 to 1999, while the current section covering this period has grown by a third to 4,747 entries, with another 1,728 entries for the years 2000-2002. The structure has not changed: the entries are organized into three sections: (1) monographs (alphabetically by author), (2) journal articles (alphabetically by journal), and (3) newspaper articles (by date). Russian titles are in Cyrillic with added transliterations. Especially valuable are the occasionally extensive annotations and the addition of a number of new indexes. [sh/hsb]

La Bibliothèque nationale de France: collections, services, publics [The National Library of France: Collections, Services, Users]. Ed. Daniel Renoult and Jacqueline Melet-Sanson. Paris: Éditions du Cercle de la Librarie, 2001. 238 p. ill. 24 cm. (Collection bibliothèques). ISBN 2-7654-0820-3: EUR 35 [04-1-044]

This is the first detailed overview of the collections, services, and user groups of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). The BnF was created in 1994 with the fusion of the former Bibliothèque nationale, located in the rue Richelieu, with the Bibliothè que de France. In 1996, the doors opened at its new main site for all printed books (officially, the Site François Mitterand, after the French president who announced planning for the library in 1988), in the Tolbiac neighborhood of Paris, although it was not fully operational until 1998. The new building and its program sparked much controversy, which is not addressed here: for an insider’s look, readers should consult former director François Stasse’s La véritable histoire de la grande bibliotheque (Paris, 2002).

This book, aimed primarily at librarians, opens with a description of the transformation of the Bibliothèque nationale into the BnF, and tells how the old library, extremely short on space, elitist, and technologically backward, renewed itself as a modern, democratically oriented institution for the broadest possible public.

The book describes the new organizational plan of the library, its new classification system (and also the one it replaced, which dated back to the late 17th century), the new arrangement of reading rooms and the means by which books are delivered to readers, current collecting emphases, the complex system governing mandatory copyright deposits, and the library’s computer infrastructure.

Readers also should pay a visit to the BnF—if only virtually, at http://www.bnf.fr, where the widely touted user-friendliness of the library is on display. Among other things, they will find the online version (supplanting both the paper and cd-rom editions) of the Bibliographie nationale française; the digital library Gallica, which presents 70,000 titles, many of them rare; and samples from the library’s exhibition program.

With a deft mixture of text and graphics, the book is readable and thorough. Despite the lack of an index (and the presence of many misprints), this is a very informative, wellbalanced presentation of its subject, and belongs in every research library. [bo/dss]

Lexikon deutscher wissenschaftlicher Bibliothekare[Directory of German Academic Librarians]. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann. 25 cm. (Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie: Sonderhefte, …). [04-2-419]

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