Munich Libraries
While I was in Munich, I visited 2 libraries. One was part of the Deutsches Museum – perhaps the oldest scientific/technical museum in the Europe. As befits the Museum, the library is devoted to scientific and technical content, in German and English. And it’s open to anyone. However, the guy behind the desk was dubious when I asked if I could visit the library – he kept trying to point me in the direction of the actual museum, across the courtyard.
It was quiet, straightforward and lacking in fascination – not that it didn’t keep me from being fascinated by the library. I actually took pictures, but I ended up dealing them after a while ...
More fascinating was the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek – the state library. It, too, is open to all. There were lockers for people to use, as well as a cloak room (garderobe), but their use were mandatory – no backpacks/briefcases or overcoats were allowed in the reading rooms. Columns, high ceilings ... it was pretty fancy ... and very busy. Being a state library, the focus of the library is on German readers, so there was not much displayed/available in English (it's as though they don't expect tourists or something). The library is located Ludwig Maximilian Universitat, so there was a lot of college students. There was a special exhibit of illuminated and older illustrated books – some religious (hymnals and the like) and others with a geographic/cartographic theme.
But what really caught my eye was the technology – I think I saw some sort of card/barcode or radio tag reader. An older man was walking out of the library with a stack of books – he stopped at a small keypad device, fished out his wallet, waved it around, and then puttered out. I thought about staying to watch what other people did, but I didn’t want to be accused of stalking in a language in which I AM not fluent …
The library had a major reproduction/reprographics area on the first floor, but there weren’t photocopies in or near the reading rooms. Instead, there were – scanners. Book scanners. I was so gob-smacked, I took a couple of photos. It looked as though a library card or copy card was needed to operate the scanner, so I didn’t try it out. What made the scanners even more fascinating (there’s that word again) was something I learned in my European IP class: in German libraries, while users can access digital material (PDFs, music files, etc.), they cannot save or download any of that material onto their own media (if I’m wrong or that explanation is too simplistic, feel free to leave a comment and school me).
There was also something that caught my ear: both libraries were silent. Within the reading rooms, it was deathly quiet. People generally didn’t speak above a whisper – the one exception was when I could easily hear a conversation happening in the men’s room in the general reading room. Ah, acoustics.
But the biggest culture shock: even the libraries in Germany sell beer. In bottles, not on tape, but hey ...
