Source Inventory of Émigré Writers’ Libraries at the German Literary Archive Marbach: Siegfried Kracauer

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Sandra Richter
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: from 2018 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 397808495

With the online “Source Inventory of Émigré Writers’ Libraries”, the German Literary Archive Marbach (DLA) has set up a digital information system for data on the private libraries and works of writers, who had to flee from Nazi Germany. The projected cataloguing of the private library and publications of the Frankfurt cultural philosopher, sociologist and publicist Siegfried Kracauer (1889–1966) represents a major expansion of the inventory. The aim of the project is a digital catalogue of Kracauer’s library, supplemented by a digital bibliography of his publications and the secondary literature up to 1971. In order to achieve this, the DFG-funded bibliography component in the DLA’s Kallías library system will be used. Kracauer’s library holds some 3.700 volumes and, aside from copies of his own works, contains German literature, including presentation copies from Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Gottfried Benn, Joseph Roth et al., as well as works of world literature and a wide range of books in the areas of philosophy, history, cultural and social sciences, and music, art and film history. Among these are numerous notebooks, brochures and offprints. In the course of cataloguing, unique copy-specific information, such as provenance marks, annotations and inserted materials, will be recorded. The autobibliographical collection of newspaper clippings with Kracauer's journalistic texts will be digitized in-house and linked to the personal bibliography. Digital reproductions and the personal bibliography will be accessible on the DLA website. All the books from Kracauer’s library will be retrievable worldwide through the SWB online catalogue and WorldCat. In this way, the “Source Inventory of Émigré Writers’ Libraries” will provide an unrivalled informational resource for interdisciplinary research on this influential émigré writer.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)