The academic Openbare Bibliotheek der Gemeente Nijmegen (Public Library of the Municipality of Nijmegen), which has its origins in the 16th-century municipal library, was officially opened in 1893. The collection originally included a core of works from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and was expanded in the nineteenth century thanks to important donations by L.Ph.C. van den Bergh, LL.M. (mainly historiography and law) and H.F. Fijnje van Salverda (atlases, hydrology). The library had the character of a scholarly collection made accessible to the general public. In the years that followed, the collection was expanded through purchases and donations, including a lot of medical literature. The collection at the Town Hall was hardly used, and after the Catholic University was established in 1923, the then municipal archivist felt that this collection might be better placed at the university library, then located on the Snijderstraat.
Nijmegen Municipality donates book collection on loan to Radboud University
On the occasion of Radboud University's centenary, the city of Nijmegen is donating a sizeable collection of scholarly books to the University: the more than two thousand titles from the former academic municipal library, transferred to the university library as long-term loans in 1931, will now become property of Radboud University. This collection includes some of the most extraordinary books in the university library, including the Biblia Regia, printed by Plantijn in Antwerp in the years 1568-1572.
On 23 April 1931, the Nijmegen city council decided to transfer an important part of this municipal book collection to the University on a long-term loan. This expanded the university library with a diverse collection of scholarly books from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. In total, some two thousand titles (four thousand volumes) were transferred. In addition to simple publications on ear diseases or plans to reclaim the Waddenzee, this collection also included precious chronicles and the Biblia Regia, the multilingual Bible published from 1568-1572 in eight volumes by the Antwerp printer Plantijn, bound in eight volumes bearing the Nijmegen city arms.
Not all books that were part of the municipal library were loaned to the University in 1931. Books relating to the history of Nijmegen and Gelderland eventually made up the library of the city archive, now the Regionaal Archief Nijmegen (Regional Archive Nijmegen), while some works ended up in the predecessor of the Valkhof Museum.
Study in more detail
Radboud University has accepted the donation of the loan with much gratitude, and sees in it an opportunity to study the former municipal book collection in more detail in the coming years: How was the collection put together, which donors contributed to it, what do the books tell us about scholarship over the centuries, and what do they reveal about the original municipal library? Students and researchers from various disciplines will explore the collection in more detail, and we aim to make the collection more visible, and put it on display both online and in the form of physical exhibitions in the coming years.
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- History, Art & Culture, Radboud then and now