Lending library
In a broader sense, any library that lends books, a lending library, in the narrower sense is economic establishments which provide a book for a defined period of time for a specified fee. It is no longer a common form of commercial rental books.
The lending library was established as the reading societies during the Enlightenment, to overcome the discrepancy between purchasing power and interest in reading. She had an important function for the provision of literature, because it was used by almost all social layers. After inventory, size and audience, different types were out. Dominant was pure Leihanstalt that was most often rare out of a bookstore, along with a reading circle, the main operation. Stocks fluctuated between a few hundred books, " Winkelleihbibliotheken " up to tens of thousands in large institutions. As new forms of organization developed in the second half of the 19th century, the " novelties - reading circle " and the " literary institution". In the " novelties - reading circle " the books were brand new in circulation, were sold second-hand after the first signs of wear and were not marked as library books. In the German Empire became " Fritz Borstells reading circle " that the Nicolaische bookstore in Berlin 1864/65 established a dominant position in Austria, the "Literature Institute Ludwig & Albert load " in Vienna and in the UK in 1842 by Charles Edward Mudie in London founded " Mudie 's Select library", which already comprised over seven million volumes end of the 19th century.
Blank lending libraries in many cases their stocks initially encyclopedic, so also the larger stores after 1815 increasingly to popular fiction. Before the advent of the newspaper novel and even decades after the public library was a condition of a wide Roman literature. Novels were largely produced for lending libraries in small quantities and at high prices. The " bread products " of the Leihbibliothekars were the genres of popular literature in the age of Goethe thus the family, ghosts, robbers and romances of chivalry. In addition to the success of the authors then set the tone as the novelists valued today at home and abroad were quite fully represented. The fashion waves in the popular literature can be seen in their portfolios.
The number of circulating libraries in Germany amounted to 1865 617 and climbed to 1880 on 1056. Late 19th century, there was a crisis of Leihbuchhandels that resulted from a bunch of factors. Skip to main competitors, the press, the increasingly first published in the feuilleton on the French model was fiction. Since the paperback classics ribbons ( Meyer, Reclam ) was good literature also affordable for everyone; Roman newspapers, cheap novel series, trashy novels and stitching made the purchase from popular fiction in all possible layers. Propaganda for the "good book" and polemic against the Leihlesen accompanied the development of the public library system in the course of the reading hall movement since the late 19th century.
In the last years of the Weimar Republic, the "modern" or " mortgage -free " spread from lending libraries. In 1932 there were 10000-18000 book distributors; the industry was overstaffed, the competition pushed the rental fees. For advocacy and regulation of the industry to 1932/33, its own institutions formed out: the " kingdom of the Association of German Public libraries ", the " Association of interested in the Leihbibliothekswesen publisher " - led by Wilhelm Goldmann with his detective stories - as well as the Section " The German Leihbüchereigewerbe " within the booksellers guild, the representation of the distributor. With the classification in the cultural policy of the Third Reich was an appreciation and restoration of the trade, which was due to its broad impact for the National Socialists of interest associated. The incorporation of circulating libraries in the Reich Chamber brought a restriction of farms and the setting of minimum lending fees. Under National Socialism as under Allied occupation, inventories were ' cleaned '. As the Association of German Book Trade to Leihbuchhändlern conceded no full membership, the Commercial (1960 approximately 28,000 rental locations ) concluded after the Second World War in a separate organization together, the "German Leihbuchhändler Association " ( 1960-1973 ).
The fall began with the spread of television and the advent of the paperback one after the mid-1950s. However, the number of farms for a long time remained high because wholesale lenders masse rentals einrichteten in inter-industry transactions. In addition to books from normal book industry - a cross-section through the offering of the book clubs - led the circulating libraries in the Federal Republic of Germany, especially the production of special Leihbuchverlage. The main part of the collection consisted of "women's novels " (love, nobility and Castle, medical and homeland novels, etc.); to the "Men novels " included thrillers, science fiction novels and westerns. In the GDR, the private sector lending libraries were regulated and suppressed from the 1950s. In contrast to the 18th and 19th centuries was the literary communication process that the circulating libraries in the 20th century organized, largely cut off from the literary-critical public.
Modern lending libraries often work with Leihezwang.