Franciscan collection catalogued

The University and State Library (HLB) Fulda has catalogued the Franciscana and Fuldensia collection of the Frauenberg monastery. It has been fully searchable in the FILIP online catalogue since June 2024. In addition, digitised copies of important works are already freely accessible globally on FulDig, the HLB's digitisation server. With the cataloguing, the HLB has fulfilled the agreement it made with the German Franciscan Province in 2022.
 

In February 2022, the German Franciscan Province and the Fulda University of Applied Sciences agreed to transfer the valuable book collection remaining on the Frauenberg by means of a deposit agreement. The books were then transferred from the Frauenberg to the HLB premises. Previously, these valuable volumes had remained on the Frauenberg, while others had been sold to an antiquarian bookshop. Of these, around 300 volumes were bought back through a fund (funded by the city, among others). The HLB was convincing in the negotiations with the German Franciscan Province because it was able to guarantee that the collection would be catalogued in a timely manner. All library items have now been catalogued. A total of 11,376 works can be found in the FILIP catalogue, including 205 journals and 146 manuscripts.
 

The head of the HLB, Dr Jana Madlen Schütte, welcomes the speedy project completion and looks forward to future research with this stock. Father Damian Bieger, the provincial responsible for cultural heritage, was particularly impressed that 271 digitised copies of important historical works are already freely accessible at FulDig and can therefore be used globally. Almost simultaneously, in May 2022, a deposit agreement was concluded with the diocese of Fulda for the rare works and incunabula collection, which was already located in the diocesan library at the time. The city of Fulda was also heavily involved in the funding of this cultural heritage through the repurchase of books and the transfer of these to the HLB. Thanks to the joint action of all those involved, a forward-looking solution was found for the preservation and retention of the core holdings of the historical library of Frauenberg Abbey, which was dissolved in 2020.
 

Today, all of the Franciscan stocks passed on to the HLB can be viewed by users in the rooms of the HLB and are therefore accessible for research. Additional works from the collection will be successively digitised and made available online.