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The conversation with Cornel Dora took place online on November 27, 2020. The event was originally envisioned within the framework of the two-day symposium “Finders Keepers” in October 2020, but had to be shifted to the virtual space due to the corona pandemic. We thank Cornel Dora, the librarian of the Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen, for his flexibility and the fascinating exchange. You can find summaries of other conversations conducted in this format under the filter Finders Keepers.
What do libraries do? Or in other words: What can libraries be today? These are the questions with which Cornel Dora started our conversation, and thus directly addressed our concerns with respect to users. Dora also had his answer at the ready, an answer based on the Stiftsbibliothek (Abbey Library) itself, or rather on the Baroque library portal, which was created by Franz Anton Dirr in 1781, with the Greek inscription PSYCHES IATREION. As Dora explained at the beginning, in the original sense, «psyche» means soul or spirit—it was first as a result of the secularization of the Enlightenment that the term took on the current meaning of «psyche» The term thus includes soul and spirit as well as psyche. «Iatreion» means as much as «apothecary.» A library as an «apothecary of the soul»? So to say, books as nourishment for the soul and psyche? We like this formulation!
Books, according to Dora, are more than a store of knowledge: They should help us find our soul. Dora elucidated this guiding idea in a brief presentation.
Reading as a Cultural Technology That Opens up More Than Knowledge
Dora provided an initial derivation based on the history of libraries. A precise choice of words is also important here, since libraries were not established, they came into being. And, indeed, because they were a necessity. To explain this, Dora draws on the Gallusvita, which reports on how Gallus read letters and reports. One of these letters, which reached him in the year 615, made him weep when he learned of the death of Columbanus of Luxeuil. As a result of Dora’s statements, the reading of letters, which, as a cultural technology, is not far removed from the reading of books, thus becomes tangible as a practice that moves us. A second example from the Gallusvita that the abbey librarian presented now has a seemingly more pragmatic basis: In a letter, Gallus is asked to become the Abbot of Luxeuil, but refuses this request. John of Grabs is selected for this position in place of him. John thus comes to Gallus in St.Gallen and is taught by him based on books. The Vita also reports that John incorporated all the knowledge that he obtained from books at this time in his Armarium Cordis—his «treasure of the heart»—which thus brought the speaker back to his initial concept once again: With books, people want to find their soul, or books enrich the soul.
The Library: A Counter with a Bible
What also becomes clear from the Gallusvita and plays a role in connection with the emergence of libraries: Monasteries were the educational institutions of the time, and it was in these surroundings that a West European library culture developed anew in the early middle ages. The Rule of Saint Benedict—a book of precepts that has formed the basis of life in Benedictine monasteries since the early middle ages—also played an important role in this: it was with this book of precepts that the monks were taught to read. They were supposed to read for one to three hours each day. Books were assigned a very important role in the transfer of knowledge, because they are more permanent than oral transmissions. The term «Bibliothek» (library) then also appears in the Rule of Saint Benedict, but with a different meaning than today. «Biblio-Thek»: a «Theke» (counter) with a Bible.
Institutionalization and Increase in Value
Libraries came into being, grew, and increased in value, thus also the Stiftsbibliothek in St.Gallen, which by the year 1000 comprised nearly 400 volumes. At the beginning, it was not taken into consideration that this collection of books would be preserved for centuries, and they were thus also not catalogued. However, due to the parchment and the decades of writing work as well as the valuable book illuminations, the collection of books was incredibly valuable. It was first around 860—roughly two hundred years after Gallus—that a librarian’s post was created. The first librarian, Uto, then introduced a catalogue.
What Dora finds noteworthy is the fact that a librarian’s post was first created with progressive institutionalization. The value of the library also increased with further institutionalization, and it became important for the library to be protected. As of the tenth century, the Hartmut Tower in St.Gallen with its two-meter-thick walls was used for this, and was where the library was safely housed for nearly 600 years. The library thus survived all the city fires and natural catastrophes.
Task of Conservation
The history of the library is so central at this point that it has also shaped Dora’s approach to conservation, which has today also been somewhat corrupted as a result of norms and standards. Dora points out that many monastery libraries, and thus also the Stiftsbibliothek, are housed in historical spaces that are generally suitable for preservation. If the library holdings were to be moved to other spaces, not only would conservation-related problems be generated, the historical context would also be destroyed.
And what about the question of digitization?
With e-codices, the Stiftsbibliothek is working with a leading international program for the digitization of manuscripts. But there are also things that digital reproductions cannot offer: the haptic quality, the weight, the smell, the ability to page through works, the view of two-page spreads, etc. One might almost say that one actually steals the soul of the books. But for whom is this being done? According to Dora, it is also important to ask whether anyone is helped if the books are digitized. Scholarship, naturally, but what scholarship in particular? He laments that spirituality is neglected to a great extent in historical research. The Stiftsbibliothek is a spiritual library—and this should be valued.
The Focuses of Library Work Today
One of the current tasks of the abbey librarian is quite clearly mediation: What and with what objective does one mediate? What is actually concerned? For Dora, it is important to cultivate the library as an icon. «We need elements in our society that show the past.»
He is also dedicated to making the library a place for idealism: we need idealism in our society—an idea of which the abbey librarian is convinced. The Stiftsbibliothek can thus be a wonderful model, since, with its books, it contains numerous witnesses to how idealism emerged in the early middle ages. Dora generally calls for an understanding of the early middle ages that diverges from the common interpretation of their being a bleak, and warlike, epoch: According to Dora, the early middle ages were a surprisingly tolerant time, were much more peaceful than we think. This idealism has a solid basis in the Bible, which particularly shaped people’s belief that what is important first comes after death, that present-day life is only a prelude to what awaits us.
Activating Contents
Does Cornel Dora have a couple of film tips that depict the middle ages as he sees them, namely as an open, idealistic time? With his answer, Dora remains loyal to his profession: “A couple of books are the best film in this area.” He thus recommends Peter Browns books about the origins, Jörg Lauster’s work “Die Verzauberung der Welt,” which is about the cultural history of Christendom, but above all reading the original texts, for instance the still very fascinating works of the church father Augustinus One should try to read the texts with an open mind and from a fresh perspective, hence without thinking about everything that one learned about the middle ages at school or from Hollywood films. One should give texts their freedom, and make observations about what was written can mean on this basis.
This approach reminds us of our first conversation, with the Archiv der Avantgarden: It also approaches the contents of the archive with open eyes and then interrogates them with respect to their significance for today—rather than imposing a current perspective on the contents. This approach is convincing, and makes one want to mediate and activate the contents of a library, an archive, or a collection.
Dora then also provided an apt example for how this can be understood: According to Dora, a labyrinth is an appropriate example for understanding the middle ages. Today we think of a labyrinth as a place out of which we are unable to find our way—a maze, a horrible place. This was different in the middle ages: A labyrinth was not a maze, but rather a complex path, however, one on which it was impossible to do anything wrong—and this is the crucial difference—because one reached one’s destination one way or another. People had a degree of confidence in the guidance of the soul—and it is precisely this guidance of the soul that interests him when we report on libraries and work with libraries. In line with this, we would like to give Dora the final word, with a text that he sent us in the lead up to our conversation:
«Making books, possessing books, finding books, using books. A look at the past shows that, naturally, nothing is new, and that what is changing today also has more to do with form than with substance. A walk through history makes it clear how everything has its time. Collections of books are created and disappear again, are established and developed, their holdings recorded and eagerly used. They are coveted, threatened, and destroyed, with luck preserved, or neglected, assembled anew, or burned with spite. They are deplored, purged, plundered, and dispersed, brought together again, researched, sent abroad, and nationalized, and ultimately honored, digitized, and commercialized. It’s a silly saying: Habent fata sua libelli, ‹books have their destiny,› as if they were people. But it’s true. Books and libraries are part of our life, touch and shape us. Thank goodness.»