Early history: Public Libraries in Vienna until 1936 While the large cities of England,
Scandinavia and Germany had started to establish public libraries from around 1900, the ''Worker's Library of Vienna'' was not founded until 1936. In this year the city of Vienna adopted the already existing public libraries as organising institutions, which were run by private
organisations until then. These public libraries were for instance built by the
Wiener Volksbildungsverein (Viennese association for public education) which was founded in 1887. By 1914 they had already established 27 branches (e.g. a library in the adult education centre
Volksheim Ottakring) with over 2 million annual borrowings. The
Verein Zentralbibliothek (Central Library Association) which was founded by Eduard Reyer in 1897 was also of importance. It ran the central library and 24 branches with overall 3.5 million annual borrowings in 1911, charged fees and was staffed by paid librarians. Those two library organisations which, according to themselves, made an effort to provide "neutral" public education and enlightenment were opposed by organisations who represented a religious ideology. To do so, Ignaz Stich founded the
Volkslesehalle (people's library) in 1899. Additionally, the
Katholischer Bibliotheks- und Leseverein (Catholic Association for Libraries and Reading) was founded in 1909. The most important part of the Libraries in Vienna before the founding of the public libraries was the network of libraries built by the viennese
Labour movement. At first it was their education organisations who sought to provide books and libraries to the masses and later on were assisted by unions and political parties. In 1908 the
Zentralstelle für das Bildungswesen (Centre for Education) was founded, with
Robert Danneberg as secretary. Numerous libraries with quality standards and standard guidelines were established, as well as a library committee with Josef Luitpold Stern at its head. Many of these libraries were residing in the
Gemeindebau-buildings which were built during the
Red Vienna period. There were 2,36 loans in the workers libraries in 1932. Since 2010, digital media (
E-books, E-audios and
E-paper) were also offered online in form of
downloads. Around 17,200 such pieces of digital media were part of the libraries' repertoire by the end of 2012, and there were around 155,000 loans of digital media in the same year. Media Vienna (former state picture office) has been part of the Libraries in Vienna since 2011 and offers numerous pieces of media to be borrowed, including movies, theme boxes and
CD-ROMs. In 2012, 1.524 million pieces of media, 39 branching libraries, 5.7 million borrowings and 210,937 users were counted. On the 11 June 2019, the Libraries in Vienna realised that they had been the target of a
hacker attack. Data of 713,000 users was copied from a database that partly contained
personal data. These pieces of information were then made public online. Christian Jahl, who was the head of the main library at the "Gürtel" until that point, took over leadership of the Libraries in Vienna in August 2020. A new library branch was opened in the seaside town Aspern in September 2021. However, in exchange for this new library, two smaller ones at the "Siegesplatz" and in the "Erzherzog-Karl-Straße" of the 22nd district were closed down. In February 2022, Bernhard Pöckl (born 1981) replaced his predecessor Christian Jahl as the head of the Libraries in Vienna. ==See also==