Warsaw dreamin’ on such a bookless day, or why I like Warsaw University Library (polska wersja poniżej)

That Polish libraries have often very poor collections of academic texts – is a fact well known to anyone using them. In the humanities, this deficit proves particularly painful. Here books are often more important than journal articles, and in general publications age slower than in other fields. Therefore, databases made available in the libraries don’t solve the problem effectively, as the former don’t usually contain books, let alone books published some years ago (say, in the 80.), which in the humanities can remain for decades key for a given discipline. And it’s not only about secondary literature, but also about most basic tools, such as scholarly editions of classic texts. An example: no single Polish library owns the best critical edition of the Vulgate’s Old Testament in eighteen volumes (Roma: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1926–1995).

So, Polish libraries as a whole cannot compete with the Western ones. Still, some of these local institutions put more emphasis on replenishing their collections than others. One of the positive examples here is the University of Warsaw Library (BUW), together with the faculty libraries belonging to it. The search results in the central catalogue of academic libraries in Poland (NUKAT) often show that the only copy (or one of very few) of a given title belongs precisely to BUW.

But BUW is a likeable place for yet another reason: it is very much user-friendly. While still guarding its most valuable resources, the library doesn’t aim at creating the impression of severe resistance against a person visiting it. The interior seems open rather than closed. On entry, each user is registered by placing his library ID on a card reader. He then goes into a large, bright hall, where he can move around freely, not bothered by anyone, and make use of: catalogues, computers, reading rooms with their respective reference collections, as well as large numbers of books accessible directly from shelves. The latter are interspersed with little tables with lamps. A soft fitted carpet covers the floors, so as to stop office-like clicking of heels.

 

Informal atmosphere at BUW

Area with freely accessible books

Emblematic for this reader-friendly organisation of the library is the ‘pouf area’ there. Low seats, resembling giant pillows, lie on the floor, and readers are resting in them with books in their hands while assuming all sorts of informal positions. Poufs appeared in Polish libraries thanks to KPMG company which sponsored them. Not all institutions, however, made use of the gift in a similar way. A pouf placed in the Jagiellonian Library forms an interesting contrast to the lively pouf area in the Warsaw university library. This single seat is hardly ever used by anybody, as it is placed very unfortunately near the entrance and a security post, in direct vicinity of lockers, in which readers leave their bags before moving into neatly guarded reading rooms. Simply – a matter of attitude.

The only pouf in the Jagiellonian Library, Krakow

Wrocław’s libraries and archives – a very short practical introduction (wersja polska poniżej)

Wrocław is super important for my research. University Library’s collection from 19th century onwards was gradually incorporating smaller collections from all over Lower Silesia. It owns more early printed books (from before 1800) than any other library in Poland (!), about 317 000 titles, which were never fully catalogued. There is no single catalogue of these, but rather a couple of them, which differ in scope, precision and method of description. All are digitized, accessible from the library’s website and explained there as well.

But there are more resources available at place, only one has to put in some extra effort in order to find them: firstly, there is a manuscript database of Silesian printers, prepared by Germans before the war and supplemented afterwards. It presents an invaluable source for those studying a specific printing shop (like myself). Secondly, there is a German catalogue of the so-called ‘genealogies’ (genealogie). It consists of cards ordered according to names of people for whom a given work, e.g. an epithalamium or a funeral speech, was composed. Both catalogues are ‘generally’ not to be used by visitors, but it proves doable after all.

The University Library has three separate buildings: at św. Jadwigi street (so-called ‘na Piasku’) – with early printed books, manuscripts and a reading room where they can be accessed (Czytelnia Zbiorów Specjalnych); at Karola Szajnochy street – with more or less all the rest; and finally a new location at Fryderyka Joliot-Curie street, where collections from the two former spots are to be gathered eventually. This reorganisation is in progress right now, which affects the normal working hours of the library, including Czytelnia Zbiorów Specjalnych (the reading room at św. Jadwigi). So, one should definitely CHECK THE CURRENT OPENING HOURS before planning this kind of trip to Wrocław.

It is worth-mentioning that the library is pretty well equipped with the secondary literature on the subject of book history. One can get an idea about this part of its holdings thanks to the catalogue of reference collection at Czytelnia Zbiorów Specjalnych, as well as a digitized catalogue of bibliological collections, which is available here: http://www.bu.uni.wroc.pl/2c/22c/katsys/22c-sys.php?k=biblsys.

Window view of the University Library's courtyard

A five minutes walk from św. Jadwigi street will take one to Ossolineum. The historic library has little to do with Lower Silesia, of course, yet it’s good to know that, already after the war, it incorporated two interesting Silesian collections: that of the Cistercian monastery in Krzeszów and that belonging to the Schaffgotsch family at Warmbrunn (Cieplice). So, Ossolineum is though significant for research in Lower Silesian history, at least more than one would originally think.

It is worth-mentioning that there are some auxiliary catalogues at the Ossolinski Library which prove especially useful to a book historian: the provenance register (in two parts – 16th and 17–18th centuries) and a catalogue of non-polonica organised according to places of publication (again, further separated chronologically). Apart from that, an indexed catalogue of polonica was published in 1997.

Just one more tip – Ossolineum’s address, as stated on the library’s website, is Szewska 37, but entry for visitors can be found at the bank of Odra river (as one learns at entering the door at Szewska).

Again nearby (Szewska 51), the University Archive (Archiwum Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego) is located. The only warning I can give to potential users of this institution is that no part of any master or doctoral thesis can be copied in any form due to copyright regulations. I didn’t use other types of archival documents, though.

Finally: the State Archive (Archiwum Państwowe). There is no need to know in advance what documents exactly we are looking for, as the collection is neatly organised into smaller entities (according to regions of Lower Silesia) and quite precise registers including a concise description of each document are made accessible to users. Deciphering old handwriting will be a challenge to those who had previously little experience with archives. But this is manageable after a little practice. I developed a quick method of improving my skills in paleography – one can namely check a modern edition of a given document where the latter seems illegible. As to this particular archive, such transcripts (also 17th century ones, despite what is suggested by the title) can be found for example in the following publication, available in the institution’s library: Quellenbuch zur Geschichte der Universität Breslau 1702–1811, ed. N. Conrads, M. Müller, C. Rabe, Köln–Weimar–Wien 2003.

In the close vicinity of the Archive, there is a restaurant called ‘Dobra Karma’ which I can highly recommend as a place to spend one’s subsistence budget. You leave the building behind, immediately turn left from Pomorska street and there it is. Even the strangest looking dishes from the menu which changes every day (as, for instance, cold soup made of strawberries, watermelon, rhubarb and feta cheese) taste really delicious. Being so amazed with the quality of food there, I asked a waiter once who is this exceptionally talented cook, and his answer made everything clear: ‘My sister cooks here; actually, we decided to open this restaurant for this very reason’.