Book Adoption Campaign

The work on Book Adoption Campaign is also an important area for the Institute. Books, prints or photographs „adopted“ by patrons are conserved. That may entail conservation of individual books or preventive measures for whole groups of holdings.

For example: thanks to the Gutenberg 3000 Initiative the total holdings of incunabulae (8,000) of the Austrian National Library were stored in acid-free envelopes and boxes.

At this point a current example of an individual conservation project sponsored by adopt a book is presented.

Further information

Project: "Collection Glaser", 09/1993 - 12/2017

"Semse" leatherbinding, before conservation

after conservation

before conservation

after conservation

The Collection Glaser belonging to the holdings of the Austrian National Library is one of the most important collections of Arabic manuscripts in the world. It includes 254 codices which were collected by Eduard Glaser, researcher of South Arabia (1855/1908) in Yemen. In the year 1894 Eduard Glaser sold his collection to the royal ministry of education in Vienna. The ministry decided to hand it over to the royal Hofbibliothek, the predecessor of the Austrian National Library.

Until the autumn of 1993, the majority of these manuscripts registered as “Codex Glaser” had neither been made accessible for scientific research, nor had they undergone conservation treatments.

Therefore it had been a special concern at the Austrian National Library to make an overall treatment of the Collection Glaser possible.

Finally, by September 1993 the necessary financial resources could be provided by donations to the Book Adoption Campaign.

Consequently, a first survey was conducted. It showed that a comprehensive survey, followed by the implementation of preventive conservation and restoration measures, would require 25 years.

Thanks to many private donators and some companies who participated in the Book Adoption Campaign with generous donations, the storage situation of the entire collection could be substantially improved by the end of 2013. Furthermore, 212 codices underwent conservation treatments.

The  generous donation by the Opec Fund for International Development – OFID – will make the restoration and conservation of the remaining 38 codices possible.

Thus it is ensured that the conservation and restoration measures on the entire Collection Glaser will be completed by the end of 2017.
last update 12/3/2014