Monk, rebel, librarian

A headstrong monk

On 2. January, 1793, Schrettinger’s father suspected that he had deserted the monastery. Nine years later, Schrettinger did leave the monastery against his father’s as well as the prelate’s will. Most of the friars at Weißenohe supported Schrettinger’s decision. Schrettinger regarded his prelate Maurus Hermann an unpleasant figure of authority. Their relationship was uncongenial relationship. On 27. October 1795, the prelate refused him the usual financial support of a prospective priest. On 25 February 1798 the prelate accused Schrettinger of heresy because they differed in their views on religious fasting.

Rebellion and enlightenment

Rejecting a purely theological education, Schrettinger devoted himself to writings of the Enlightenment and developed sympathies for the scientific reform movement. On 28. May 1794, he happily welcomed the development of a sickroom at the monastery instead of a prison as a “harbinger of the Enlightenment”. Schrettinger’s devotion to the Enlightenment went far beyond his monasteric duties concerning care for the sick. On 29 June 1796, he excitedly wrote about the death of Abbot Joseph Maria of Oberaltaich: “One less enemy of the Enlightenment!!!!! [sic!]”. This attitude led to tensions within the monastery: On 31 October 1796, Schrettinger noted in his diary that the prior and prelate had forbidden him to attend an in-house physics lecture. Instead, he was ordered to limit himself to studying Christian morality only.

Clerical rebuke

On 7. March 1798, Schrettinger was once more reprimanded by the prelate. Again he was told to stop reading works by authors such as Kant or Weißhaupt and to dedicate himself to “ascetic writings” only. Schrettinger decidedly defended himself against the prelate’s criticism.

Schrettinger observed worldly events with great interest. On 12. August 1796, he excitedly wrote about the arrival of the French paramilitary volunteer units and dragoons during the Rhine campaign of the first coalition war. His detailed description of secular events sharply contrasts with his depiction of theological questions. In his diary he never depicts his actual theological work in the monastery with passion.

A student of the Enlightenment

In 1800 – seven years after taking his religious vows – Schrettinger wrote an educational article in the bavarian weekly paper (Baierisches Wochenblatt), which was addressed to rural farmers: “Fruit growing at Weissenohe monastery in Upper Platinate”. Two years later he translated “The art of pleasing” by Philip Chesterfield, another author of the Enlightenment. He and seven of their religious brothers demanded the dissolution of his monastery. In September 1802 Schrettinger took off his religious habit and left the monastery for good.

Schrettingers agricultural handbook

Martin Schrettinger first analysed the farmers’ problems: their agricultural methods were inefficient and they were in a weak bargaining position when it came to selling their produce.

Using simple language, he explained basic natural phenomena to the farmers, as an example the daytime variation of shadows.

Schrettinger departs

Tensions in the monastery were ever growing. On 12 May 1800, Schrettinger needed to be forced to perform sermons. On 10 September, 1802, his father reacted to his desertion from the monastery with an “angry letter”. As can be seen in the diary entry of 24. October 1803, Schrettinger had distanced himself from his old life as a monk. Signs of deterioration and damage to the monastery building were largely unimportant to him and are mentioned only in passing.
Maurus Hermann of Schwandorf (in office 1758-1803) was the last abbot of Weißenohe before its secularization.

Weißenohe today

Today – more than 200 years after secularization – Weißenohe monastery is only partially preserved. In 1850 a fire destroyed the east and south wings of the monastery. Only the prelate building, the brewery and the church of St. Boniface exist today. After the secularization in 1803 the cloister was privatized. The prelate building however was transferred to private ownership in 1827. There has never been a clear plan of use for the prelate building which resulted in its poorly preserved state today. The Chorzentrum Kloster Weißenohe plans on restoring the prelate building as a choir academy and musical research center. For this purpose, various regional organisations have collected 11 million Euros in donations through the Förderverein Chorakademie e.V.

Secularization meant that the collection of the Hofbibliothek faced an unprecedented growth: Suddenly, with 500 000 volumes, it had become the second-largest library of Europe, but the employees were unable to cope with this growth, neither in terms of organization nor space.

Another try to create order

Since Aretin as Library Director was unable to cope with this situation, the librarian Julius Wilhelm Hamberger was set to his side as second Library Director in 1808. Hamberger was supposed to re-arrange the books by using a detailed subject classification which was already in use at the university of Göttingen. Wrangling over responsibilities was not the only consequence: Hamberger became a workaholic, then an alcoholic, and suffered a breakdown in 1812 – he literally collapsed in face of the unordered mass of books. Brought into a sanatorium, he died one year later. Schrettinger, until then supporter of his ideas, recognised that an arrangement only based on the book‘s subject was unsuitable for a collection of this size. The catalogue, until then considered hardly important, was to play a significant role from now on.

Revolution by catalogue and shelf marks

When Joseph Scherer (1776‒1829) became Library Director in 1812, Schrettinger seized the opportunity to convince him of his own new method. For two years, he visited Scherer daily and explained to him what was revolutionary about this method: The key principle to find a book was a catalogue, arranged in alphabetical order by author. Each book should get a shelf mark, which told the librarian where the book was shelved. In this way, the book could be found quickly – a principle that is valid until today.
As a compromise, books were still grouped by subject, but a detailed classification was no longer necessary. Schrettinger‘s method was approved in 1814 and meant a break-through: within four years, all books were shelved in order, and an alphabetical catalogue as well as a shelf list were completed.

The Alphabetical Classified Catalogue

Shortly after the work on the author catalogue and the shelf list had been finished, Schrettinger began the next project: a catalogue which allowed users to find books and articles by subject without them needing to learn a complicated classification. For this purpose, Schrettinger assigned one or several subject headings to each work, which could be looked up. From 1819 on, he spent every spare minute on this work. At his death in 1851, 84 000 volumes had been catalogued this way, which was only a small part of the collection. His „Alphabetischer Realkatalog“ remained unfinished forever, but it was the first alphabetical subject catalogue of the world.

The flood of users

The flood of books was soon followed by a „flood of users“, who wanted to use the big collection: the figures of circulation were rising, additional staff was necessary, and the reading room with only 24 desks was continuously full of people. Therefore, in 1826, Schrettinger wrote down his ideas on new regulations, which essentially came down to limiting strongly the usage of the library. As an exception, his ideas were not crowned by success ultimately, as the traditional liberal usage continued to be in place.

But listen to his proposals yourself (audio only available in German).

English translation:
“The Royal Court and Central Library‘s only purpose is to support as much as possible any kind of scientific research; – therefore it is
I. not an institute of entertainment,
II. not an institute of education,
III. not a lending library.
These principles have to be observed always when writing regulations; and this results especially in the question:
A. Who may use the library?
The certain anwer:
Only scientifically educated men.
Thus are excluded from using the library:
a) all persons who only look for entertainment reading only
b) all studying young men, who were not recommended exceptionally by their professors as true scholars (...)“

(Text from: Materialien und Vorschläge zu einem neuen Bibliothek-Reglement für das Publikum, welche die k. Hof- und Central-Bibliothek benützen will. Entworfen am 15ten November 1826 vom Bibliothekar Schrettinger. A-Reg. A 21, Nr. 8. Printed in Kaltwasser, Franz Georg: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Wechselndes Rollenverständnis im Lauf der Jahrhunderte. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006. Anhang: Dokument 13)

Book ornamentation

Schrettinger spared neither expense nor effort in the production of his publication projects. In particular, he had the dedicatory copies expensive bound which he gave to the Wittelsbach family, his clients, companions and colleagues. The wooden cover binding was covered with gold-embossed red leather. In addition, the inner boards were lined with light blue silk. The front and back pages were made of the same material.

Publication of library textbooks

The first three parts of Schrettinger's textbook appeared between 1808 and 1810. In 1829 the fourth volume was published. In terms of content, Schrettinger dealed with the functioning of the library: the ability to find books quickly was as an idea in the foreground – and with it all areas of the library that are connected to it.
Various catalog forms and types of placements were discussed for their suitability. The separation of catalog and type of presentation was already groundbreaking for library science in the 20th century.
Schrettinger himself has fluctuated over the years with regard to the most suitable type of catalog between the systematic and alphabetical catalog. After all, he preferred the alphabetical one.

Handbuch der Bibliothekswissenschaft

After his academic textbooks, the “Handbuch der Bibliothekswissenschaft” (handbook of library science) was published in 1834. The content is a bundling of the previous textbooks – presented in a concise and understandable manner. The idea of the book was to be a practical guidance and to be affordable for everyone, in order to prevent barriers for a potential readership. The handbook represented a synthesis of professional standards and conveyance of content for individuals.
The concept was a success: the handbook was very much appreciated even among contemporaries. Schrettinger was then attributed the foundation of library science by specialist colleagues. He even received a personal letter of praise from King Ludwig I of Bavaria.

Significance of the writings for contemporaries and posterity

Schrettinger's writings polarized at the time: colleagues rated them from sceptical to brilliant. The publications were the product and attempted solution to the flood of books that arose at the court library in Munich as a result of secularization.
For posterity Schrettinger's work became interesting again at the end of the 19th century: From this point onwards, all large libraries were faced with the constant problem of lack of space, which was intensified by the increasing book production.
Schrettinger's principles gained general validity through practical application in other libraries. In addition, areas such as library construction and security in libraries became more important and are still relevant today.

Friedrich Adolf Ebert

Just like Martin Schrettinger, Friedrich Adolf Ebert (1791-1834) is considered one of the founders of the German library system. Even before his doctorate in 1812, he wrote his book “Ueber öffentliche Bibliotheken” (About Public Libraries) at the age of 20. He reformed the catalogues both at the Leipzig University Library and at the Royal Library in Dresden. In 1820, Ebert published his most famous work, „Die Bildung des Bibliothekars“ (The Education of the Librarian). From 1823 on, he was director of the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel. In 1825, he returned to Dresden and took over the leading position in 1827.

Ending up in dispute

In the course of their exchange it became more and more apparent that Ebert and Schrettinger disagreed on some central points. For example, Ebert remained an advocate of a strictly systematic shelving system, whereas Schrettinger rejected it. Soon there was not much left to say to each other. Ebert wrote to Munich in vain in 1816 and 1818.

In 1821, Ebert published an almost damning review of Schrettinger's "Textbook of Library Science". Schrettinger reacted by publishing an offensive counter-statement as “Nothwendige Beylage” in the “Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung”.

Thus, the exchange between the two librarians, who probably never met in person, ended as it began.

How is it done today?

Shelving according to a sequential number, as Schrettinger demanded, still is in practice today and for the same reasons, that is to be able to manage large stocks quickly and in a space-saving manner. As a "numerus currens" system, it is used in many libraries, in particular for stock collections.

Collections kept in publicly accessible reading rooms are usually shelved systematically, i.e. the books are shelved according to subjects, topics and author names to make it easier for users to what they need.

The Bavarian State Library uses its own individual systems for its holdings. In the general reading room, for example, the "Hirschberger system" (named after its founder) is used.