page_title: Provincial and Municipal Public Library in Bydgoszcz
section_title: Municipal Library
hierarchical_section_title: Provincial and Municipal Public Library in Bydgoszcz / Library / History / Municipal Library
caption_attribution_description: English: Municipal library 1910
context_page_description: Bydgoszcz Provincial and City Public Library-"Dr. Witold Bełza" is housed in historical buildings located between the Stary Rynek and Długa street. It is the oldest library in activity in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, registered on the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship Heritage List. Since 2002, it bears the name of Witold Bełza.
context_section_description: City library was established on October 1, 1903: located initially in a building on the corner of Bernardyńska and Jagiellońska streets, it has then been housed from 1904 to 1906 at Gdańska Street 27 (at the plot where stands today Tenement Carl Meinhardt).
  First library resources were offered by German private donators: historian Friedrich Ludwig Georg von Raumer, editor Heinrich Kruse and German scientific societies affiliated to the German Society of Arts and Sciences in Bromberg, mainly Historical Society from Bromberg - Netze District (German: Historische Gesellschaft für den Netzedistrikt zu Bromberg). The first director of the institution was Georg Minde-Pouet, who quickly demonstrated a real ability to acquire the funds needed for the maintenance of the library. He had the building expanded, acquiring a wing on Jana Kazimierza street.
  When the building and its resources moved to the hands of Polish authorities in April 1920, the institution consisted of 75 000 volumes, of which only 300 were in Polish. Witold Bełza, the new director, (1920-1939 and 1945-1952), began to acquire more Polish books, and in 1939 the stock increased to 150 000 volumes, including:
  15th to 18th century manuscripts and books from the former Bernardine Library;
  a collection of nearly 2 700 royal documents, privileges, decrees, manuscripts and autographs;
  the only surviving manuscript of "The Oath" donated by Feliks Nowowiejski;
  a dozen of books from Vladimir Lenin's collection in Poronin, donated by Adam Grzymała-Siedlecki.
  During interwar period, the collections of the Municipal Library in Bydgoszcz were regarded as the richest on Kujawy in terms of literature.
  During the occupation the library has been isolated, forbidden to be consulted. Part of the Polish-language literature was handed over for destruction, even though many books were rescued by Polish citizens working in the warehouse. The historian Michał Nycz moved many royal manuscripts away from the Nazi authorities. Some of the books were hidden in the Municipal museum or in basements of elementary schools in the suburbs of Bydgoszcz, so as not to be evacuated by German occupation forces. During World War II, 20% of the library stock have been lost, including 99 incunables.
  After 1946, predominant trend was to collect scientific and popular works. The most valuable items, gathered in the Department of Special Collections, were isolated from the central database in 1953. It included among others, 1382 volumes from the Bernardine library, 4 900 items related to cartography, 972 manuscripts of artists such as Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Maria Konopnicka, Julian Krzyżanowski, Jan Matejko, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Adam Grzymała-Siedlecki, Leopold Staff, Stanisław Wyspiański and Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński. In 1957, were incorporated into this Department a collection of medals, plaques, stamps, biographical materials of regional activists, and in 1959 a series of small prints.
  From the 1950s to the 1970s, the municipal library established many branches throughout the city: a new building has been planned to be erected, but the project was finally rejected and transformed to a major overhaul of the existing edifice. In the 1980s, repairs to a damaged building required to change the location of part of the stock.
  In 1968, the institution has been granted a scientific department, and in 1975, the library was labelled as provincial library. In 2009, a plaque in memory of Józef Wybicki, a Polish jurist, political and military activist, has been unveiled on a wall of the Municipal Library, recalling its judicial past.
caption: Municipal library 1910
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ACDSee Ultimate 8", "Image DateTime": "2016:11:05 15:07:37", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "EXIF SubSecTime": "505", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1019", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1600"}