20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

The Klapka Library – the first lending library in the Habsburg Empire 133several volumes in order to be served if some books had been already lentwhile the children and students in the public or private institutions couldborrow books only with the permission of the parents, tutors, educators orlibrarians.The catalogue of the Klapka library was printed in 1816. The TimisCounty Library is the holder of the catalogue printed in 1830 and thehistorian Ioan Hategan and the philologist Gabriel Zanescu are studying it.The catalogue had been printed in the form of a volume which gave us theright to consider that on the date of its release it was sold to the public. The235 pages contain 3 552 volumes, almost 1 900 titles of books or periodicals.The books were marked and that is an indication that they were ranged onformats in the library. It contained works of the Greek and Latin classics,some poets and prose writers, travel descriptions, history, biographies,geography, statistics, topography, philosophy and morals, natural sciencesand medicine works but also books on trade and manufactures, agriculture,technology, household or law sciences, finance and police. The books wereprinted in famous European printing houses between 1669 and 1816, mostof them in the 19 th century. A great number of them were in the Germanlanguage but the library also contained books in Latin and some in Frenchand Hungarian. Only one book was printed in Timisoara in 1803 and itstitle is in Latin. The documentary value of the catalogue is undeniable and,among other things, it offers an image on the reading preferences of theTimisoara inhabitants some centuries ago.