English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

This article examines changing views on “systematic” or classified shelf-arrangement in German library science from Kayser’s 1790 work  Ueber die Manipulation bey der Einrichtung einer Bibliothek  to the 1914  Versammlung deutscher Bibliothekare  in Leipzig, at which Georg Leyh delivered the seminal paper, “Systematische oder mechanische Aufstellung?” Systematic arrangement was, with few exceptions, held up as an ideal throughout the nineteenth century; but by 1914 it could be agreed to belong to a past era in which, in the words of Leyh, libraries ran as a “Kleinbetrieb” [small business] (Leyh 1913, 100, “Das Dogma von der systematischen Aufstellung II-IV.”  Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen  30:97–135). In particular, this article seeks to explore how changing views on the ideal of systematic shelf-arrangement in German library science during this period reflected evolving conceptions of librarianship. For nineteenth-century writers such as Ebert, Molbech, and Petzholdt, systematic classification and arrangement had meaning against the backdrop of an encyclopedic tradition within which libraries and librarians played an important role in organizing and presenting a rational overview of the universe of knowledge – an overview that was to be both physical and intellectual. The waning of the ideal of systematic arrangement at the turn of the twentieth century was associated with a sense of loss, as an intellectual or “scholarly” tradition of librarianship was seen to give way to more utilitarian and “bureaucratic” expectations. The changing fortunes of the ideal of systematic arrangement in German library science between 1790 and 1914 may be seen to illustrate how progress and loss are often inextricably linked in the history of libraries and librarianship.

Systematic or Mechanical Arrangement? Revisiting a Debate in German Library Science, 1790–1914