Austrian National Library - Vienna, Austria
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Metro2
N 48° 12.385 E 016° 22.030
33U E 601576 N 5340146
Construction of this Austrian National Library building began in 1722.
Waymark Code: WMM5K7
Location: Wien, Austria
Date Posted: 07/25/2014
Views: 11
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"The Austrian National Library ... is the largest library in Austria, with 7.4 million items in its various collections. The library is located in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. Since 2005, some of the collections have been relocated within the baroque structure of the Palais Mollard-Clary. Founded by the Habsburgs, the library was originally called the Hof-Bibliothek ("Imperial Library"); the change to the current name occurred in 1920. The library complex includes four museums, as well as multiple special collections and archives...
In 1722, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor authorized the construction of a permanent home for the library in the Hofburg palace, after the plans of Leopold I. The wing was begun by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and started accommodating the library in the 18th century.
The most valuable addition at that time was the extensive collection of Prince Eugene of Savoy, whose 15,000 volumes included valuable books from France and Italy. The State Hall of the library had housed about 200,000 books at this point.
During the reorganization, for the first time, criticism arose to the fact that the library served mainly as representation rather than for search of knowledge. Doctor Gerard van Swieten, physician to Maria Theresia and his son Gottfried van Swieten, supplemented the collection with numerous scientific works. Thus the library became significant also for scientific work. A success by Gottfried van Swieten was the introduction of the card index. This facilitated the continuous updating of the inventory."