Private library

As a private library refers to a privately owned library, which was compiled by a private individual. Private corporate libraries or the libraries of private schools usually not referred to as private libraries.

Characteristics, specific cases and examples

The phone may also be publicly accessible private libraries with the permission of the owner. A special case are the aristocratic libraries in the private property of noble families. Sometimes there are legal legal claims to be able to use this (almost exclusively by the Fideikommissrecht ).

The best-known private libraries are the libraries of renowned scholar and bibliophile ( book collectors ). If they are not sold or remain in the possession of the heirs, personal libraries often go as a donation or after the death of the holder as a library discount in the library holdings of public libraries over. There they are partly held together as special stock.

Examples of known private libraries, the Bibliotheca Bodmeriana the Swiss bibliophile Martin Bodmer, the library Otto Schäfer of the German industrialist Otto Schäfer in Schweinfurt, the library Adolf Brehm in Bad Arolsen and the library of the Swiss architectural historian Werner Oechslin in Einsiedeln, all four set up as foundations. The Bibliotheca Tiliana of the entrepreneur and hunting scientist Kurt Lindner, however, was distracted by Lindner's death to the winds. Lindner's library contained 12,000 books and manuscripts dating back several centuries, all of which were associated with the hunt, and was thus one of the most comprehensive libraries on this topic.

Another example is the private library of the outstanding German poet and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), which is located with 5,424 titles in 7,000 volumes still in his apartment building on the woman in Weimar. As a contemporary private library include the approx. 50,000 books by the Italian writer and semiotician Umberto Eco ( born 1932 ), which are located together at his principal residence and various side residences.