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Brüder Grimm holdings: City and University of Kassel sign cooperation agreement and make valuable documents available worldwide
Image: Harry SoremskiThe city of Kassel and the University of Kassel are cooperating even more closely to make valuable holdings from the Grimm brothers' estate more available for research and urban society. To this end, Mayor Bertram Hilgen and the president of the university, Professor Dr. Reiner Finkeldey, signed a contract on Thursday, October 20, for the transfer of extensive Grimm holdings to the university library. This includes the Grimms' correspondence with their publisher, but also drawings, for example. According to this "agreement on cooperation between the University of Kassel and the City of Kassel with the aim of preserving, indexing and further developing media holdings by and about the work and impact of the Brothers Grimm," better public access to these Grimm materials will be ensured in the future by digitizing the most valuable parts and making them available free of charge in the University of Kassel's online archive ORKA. By presenting the digitized items in ORKA and including the bibliographic data in the online catalog KARLA, the precious and important specimens of the Kassel Grimm Collection will be searchable worldwide.
"In keeping with its international significance and taking advantage of modern media, Kassel presents the life and work of the Brothers Grimm on various levels. The Grimm estate itself, the collection and research activities of the University of Kassel, and the GRIMMWELT Kassel, inaugurated by the city of Kassel in 2015, distinguish Kassel as the central Grimm location in Germany. And with the cooperation agreement, another milestone has now been reached in the implementation of the decentralized Kassel Grimm concept, with which the extraordinarily extensive historical heritage left behind by the Brothers Grimm and their families in Kassel can be presented, researched and archived," said Lord Mayor Bertram Hilgen.
The President of the University of Kassel, Prof. Reiner Finkeldey, said, "The agreement and the indexing of the Grimm holdings create an excellent framework for Grimm research and enable and facilitate many new research projects - within the university, but also with external partners. All of this helps us to further strengthen and make visible the field of humanities and cultural studies at the University of Kassel, and it also increases the visibility of our library, in the city society, but also nationally and internationally."
Dorothée Rhiemeier, Head of the Cultural Office of the City of Kassel, said, "When we were thinking about the reorganization on the topic of "Grimm" in Kassel, it was very important to us to also take into account the strengths and competencies that exist in Kassel in the future performance of tasks. The Murhard Library is famous for its outstanding book and autograph collections. Here, there is already a valuable collection by and about the Brothers Grimm, which is looked after by academically trained staff. And its immediate proximity to the GRIMMWELT Kassel also makes it an ideal location. I am therefore very pleased that after many years we have now also created the legal basis with the signing of the cooperation agreement."
Dr. Axel Halle, Head Librarian of the University Library, said of the agreement, "Handling media holdings is part of the core competence of the University Library. I am therefore particularly pleased that the city of Kassel is placing responsibility for its holdings in the hands of Kassel University Library."
The signing of the cooperation agreement took place during a press event in the foyer of the Eulensaal of the Murhard Library, where the digital copy of the small edition of the "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" (Children's and Household Tales) from 1825, illustrated by Ludwig Emil Grimm, was presented as an example. The original has its permanent home in the permanent exhibition of the GRIMMWELT Kassel. It has recently been digitized and, with the signing of the cooperation agreement, will also be accessible via ORKA from Thursday, October 20, as the latest Grimm digitized copy.
Kassel Grimm Collection: Further Expansion and Exhibitions
The City of Kassel and the University of Kassel also aim to further expand the extensive holdings of primary and secondary literature, as well as historical evidence related to the work and impact of the brothers Jacob, Wilhelm and Ludwig Emil Grimm, their family and their environment.
Exhibitions are also envisaged in the cooperation agreement between the city and the university, with the institutions supporting each other in making their holdings available for exhibition purposes in GRIMMWELT Kassel. With regard to requests from other museums for exhibitions on the topic, close coordination has been agreed upon.
Background:
The brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are among the most important intellectual personalities of their time, and their works made a decisive contribution to the emergence of modern German studies as well as folklore. Many of their works, whose significance continues unabated to the present day, originated in Kassel: for example, their collection of "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" (Children's and Household Tales) or the "Deutsches Wörterbuch" (German Dictionary). They lived and worked in Kassel for more than 30 years, they had a great influence on the intellectual life of Kassel at that time, and they are still an important element of Kassel's culture today.
Background to the digitized "Little Edition":
The illustrated small edition of the "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" (KHM) from 1825 was first published after the second edition of the large edition of the KHM (1819). What was new about it was that some of the fairy tales were illustrated by the painter brother, Ludwig Emil Grimm. The Brothers Grimm, who were critical of text illustrations, had found through an illustrated English edition of the KHM that this was quite effective in promoting sales. The illustrated small edition was then very successful, appeared in ten editions until the death of the brothers and thus contributed not insignificantly to the world success of the "Kinder- und Hausmärchen".
Photo of letters from the Grimms (Photo: Harry Soremski) at:
www.uni-kassel.de/uni/fileadmin/datas/uni/presse/anhaenge/2016/Grimm_Dokumente_SOREMSKI.jpg
Digital copy of the so-called "Small Edition" of the Children's and Household Tales:
http://orka.bibliothek.uni-kassel.de/viewer/image/1474536103347/1/
Information on ORKA:
http://orka.bibliothek.uni-kassel.de/viewer/image/1474536103347/1/
GRIMMWELT Kassel - exhibition house on the life and work of the Brothers Grimm:
Contact:
City of Kassel
Press and Public Relations
Press Officer for Culture: Petra Bohnenkamp
Phone + 49 (0)561 787 1231
University of Kassel
Press spokesman: Sebastian Mense
Phone + 49 (0)561 804 1961
E-mail: presse@uni-kassel.de