The Royal Library in Copenhagen (Danish: Det Kongelige Bibliotek) is the national library of Denmark and the largest and most important library of Scandinavia. It contains many historical treasures; all works that have been printed in Denmark since the 17th century are deposited there. The library was founded around 1648 by King Frederik III who seeded it with a comprehensive collection of European works. It was opened to the public in 1793. In 1989 it was merged with the prestigious University Library. Today it has three sites: one at Fiolstręde specializing in the social sciences, one at Amager specializing in the humanities, and the main library at Slotsholmen covering all subjects.
The old building of the Slotsholmen site was built in 1906 and is a copy of Charlemagne's Palace chapel in the Aachen Cathedral. In 1999, a new building was opened at Slotsholmen, known as the "Black Diamond" (Den sorte diamant). Named for its outside cover of black marble and glass, it houses a concert hall in addition to the library.
Between 1968 and 1978, the library saw one of the largest book thefts ever. Someone had managed to steal some 3200 historical books worth more than $50 million, including manuscripts by Martin Luther and first editions by Immanuel Kant, Thomas More and John Milton. The theft remained undetected until 1975. Between 1998 and 2002, the thief succeeded in selling books worth some $2 million at various auctions. The case was finally solved in September 2003, after a stolen book had surfaced at Christie's auction house in London. The thief, an employee of the library's oriental department named Moeller-Kristensen, had died in February 2003. His family then became careless in selling the remaining books. At a raid of the family's home in November 2003, some 1500 books were recovered. In June 2004, his wife, son, daughter in law and a friend were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 18 months to 3 years. The verdict is being appealed. The friend was found not guilty of all charges and acquitted.
External links
English home page of the library: http://www.kb.dk/index-en.htm
Photos of the Black Diamond: http://www.kb.dk/kultur/diamant/arkitektur/index.htm?arkitektur.htm
Press release regarding the theft: http://www.kb.dk/engl-news/index-en1.htm
The Department of Preservation supervises the physical collections of the RoyalLibrary and is responsible for conservation and preservation of the collections.
The Head of Preservation is responsible for the preservation effort of the RoyalLibrary being performed according to the best international professional standards and practice for this area.
The Head of Preservation is responsible for preservation of the Library's physical collections, including the physical carrier of the electronic content, while the responsibility of preservation of the logical content of the digital collections lies outside the Department of Preservation.
RoyalLibrary is the National Library of Denmark and the University Library for the University of Copenhagen in the fields of Theology, the Humanities, the Social sciences, and Law.
Starting from the library's requirements and the winning architects' main concept and expression of the building there was a long and creative dialogue between the libraries' different representatives in working groups and in the building executive group.
The secretariat has a staff of three and coordinated all the library's building projects, organizes the moving of the collections, the re-allocation of staff, etc. The secretariat also participates in all internal working groups that are concerned with the building activities, and it publishes an internal periodical with news about the building projects.
Feeds |
Contact