Fontane’s Reference Library
The collection summarized under the term Fontane’s Reference Library is an institutionally grown one. It describes a 168-volume section of Fontane’s own library, i.e. a collection of books from Theodor Fontane’s possession, which has been preserved and is now kept in the Theodor Fontane Archive. The significance of this excerpt from an author’s library derives first and foremost from its provenance: Fontane himself held the books in his hands and worked with them. In addition, it is part of the ›writers’ workshop‹, irreplaceable because of the numerous marginalia written by Fontane and valuable because of the many dedication copies from friends and colleagues.
Image: Ernst KaczynskiIn fact, the surviving volumes show the most varied traces of reading and use. For example, there are marginalia of various types: Comments, evaluations, text corrections, variants, translations, dedications, and donation notes. In addition, there are annotations, underlinings and crossings out, markings, references, stamps, impressions, dog-eared pages, fingerprints, inserts and glued-in pages. All these testimonies to the processes of reading, working, producing, criticizing, revising, and collecting blur the line between library and archive, between collection and material fundus.
Image: Ernst KaczynskiThe majority of the writing traces can be traced back to Theodor Fontane. There are also handwritten entries from the family (Emilie Fontane, Friedrich Fontane, George Fontane, Otto Fontane, Martha Fontane), from friends, publishers, and colleagues (Otto Pniower, Bernhard von Lepel, Friedrich Wilhelm Holtze). In addition, the various dedications and donation notes provide information about friendly and professional networks (Friedrich Eggers, Th. H. Pantenius, Ludwig Pietsch, Otto Roquette, Johannes Trojan, Friedrich Spielhagen, Georg Friedländer). The marginalia cannot always be clearly assigned. The identification is sometimes made more difficult by faded traces of writing or erasures.
Image: © TFA
Image: TFAFurther reading:
Anna Busch: Fontane als Leser. Zur Visualisierung von Lektürespuren in Fontanes Handbibliothek, in: Fontane Blätter 107 (2019), pp. 104-131.
Wolfgang Rasch: Zeitungstiger, Bücherfresser. Die Bibliothek Theodor Fontanes als Fragment und Aufgabe betrachtet, in: Imprimatur. Ein Jahrbuch für Bücherfreunde. N.F. [Vol.] XIX. Wiesbaden 2005, pp. 103-144.
Joachim Schobeß: Die Bibliothek Theodor Fontanes, in: Fontane Blätter 2 (1973) 8, pp. 537-563.
Research Project »Visualization of Theodor Fontane’s Reference Library«
The preserved 168 volumes of Fontane’s Reference Library have been bibliographically recorded by the Theodor Fontane Archive and each individual page has been digitized. The approx. 64,000 images of this collection serve as the basis for an interactive visualization that is intended to open up new perspectives on this author’s library, making it usable and explorable.
In cooperation with the Urban Complexity Lab of the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences under the direction of Prof. Dr. Marian Dörk, the Theodor Fontane Archive has developed a graphical user interface for the explorative viewing of an author’s library that virtually reconstructs Fontane’s Reference Library - beyond the transfer to classic online catalogs and library systems. The goal is to reveal the traces of reading and use in the volumes and, in the context of the jointly developed prototype, to open up visual access points that break down the material in a completely different way than was previously possible in individual research.
Project Team:
Mark-Jan Bludau (UCLab / FH Potsdam), Viktoria Brüggemann (UCLab / FH Potsdam), Anna Busch (TFA / Universität Potsdam), Marian Dörk (UCLab / FH Potsdam), Kristina Genzel (TFA / Universität Potsdam), Klaus-Peter Möller (TFA / Universität Potsdam), Sabine Seifert (TFA / Universität Potsdam), Peer Trilcke (TFA / Universität Potsdam)
Key Project Data:
Image: UCLab/TFAThe visual approaches to the holdings or to the individual objects can be quite different. Both over- and/or cross-sectional views of the inventory as well as narrative embeddings of individual exhibits including their exploration are possible. The linking of content with a structural level (i.e., of individual objects with a descriptive classification) is just as comprehensible for users as the provision of access points of the same order, which allow them to move through the collection along individual objects and thus to access content step by step. This enables both a quick overview of the entire data stock and a simultaneous presentation of individual phenomena. In addition, connections between the individual books become apparent:
- Which authors did Fontane like to read?
- Which books did Fontane annotate extensively?
- Which volumes have few or no marginalia?
- Which types of marginalia occur more frequently?
- Can a connection between text genre and reading marks be established?
- Does the number of reading traces depend on the type of text?
- Are there certain authors with whom Fontane is more likely to pass judgment/evaluation than with others?
- Did he work particularly intensively on the review copies provided to him?
- Did Fontane work differently with his own books than with those of other authors?
You can explore these and similar questions in our visualization of Fontane’s Reference Library.
Further reading:
Anna Busch, Mark-Jan Bludau, Viktoria Brüggemann, Marian Dörk, Kristina Genzel, Klaus-Peter Möller, Sabine Seifert, Peer Trilcke: Skalierbare Exploration. Prototypenstudie zur Visualisierung einer Autorenbibliothek am Beispiel der ›Handbibliothek Theodor Fontanes‹, in: Konferenzband zur DHd 2019 Frankfurt & Mainz - Digital Humanities: multimedial & multimodal, 2019.
Anna Busch: Fontane als Leser. Zur Visualisierung von Lektürespuren in Fontanes Handbibliothek, in: Fontane Blätter 107 (2019), pp. 104-131.
