HISTORICAL CITY LIBRARY - THE FORMER CITY LIBRARY OF COLOGNE
After the unification of the council library with the grammar school library, it was the responsibility of those in charge to expand the new city library. Until 1887, the city archivist was responsible for this. It was not until 1888 that Adolf Keysser (1850-1932) was hired as the first full-time city librarian and appointed director of the library in 1900. The budget situation had been rather meagre until about 1880, and the first library director will have been particularly pleased in the coming years with the donations of private book collections such as Becker (1885), Hittorff (1898), Mevissen (1899) and Fastenrath (1908). In addition, there was also the library of the hymnologist Wilhelm Bäumker and other donations.
Until 1878, the library held just 35,000 volumes, which grew to 170,000 volumes during Keysser's tenure. At the end of the century, financial support improved and the library director laid the foundation for the Rhenish Department, a collection that the USB maintains, digitises and constantly expands to this day.
LACK OF SPACE AND THE DIVISION OF LARGE COLLECTIONS
The explosion in stock meant that the library needed a new building. In 1897, the new building at the Gereonskloster was completed, into which the municipal library and municipal archive moved. Although space had been created for 300,000 volumes, the room capacity was soon no longer sufficient for both institutions.
MOVE TO THE PORTALSGASSE
The city library returned to the vicinity of the town hall and moved into its new home in Portalsgasse. When the previously independent institutions of archive and library finally separated, the decision was made to keep the manuscripts in the city archive. This meant that the book-historical parts of large collections such as those of Wallraf and Mevissen were torn apart.
THREE LIBRARY LOCATIONS FOR UNIVERSITY LITERATURE SUPPLY
When the University and City Library was founded in 1920 as the central library of the university, the city library collections were primarily intended to serve the research and teaching of the Faculty of Arts. With the unification of the new USB, which was spread over three locations, in the main building of the university, an almost untenable situation was brought to an end in 1934. However, the city library's odyssey did not end until 1968, when it moved into the newly constructed USB building.
For research purposes, the holdings of the City Library can be consulted in the reading room Historical Collections.