I am very happy to be part of the Symposium of It’s a book, … with a talk and open discussion next to Raimar Oestereich, the director of the Hansabibliothek in Berlin and Eveline Wüthrich, director of the library Stiftung Sitterwerk.

Lecture & Talk Maria L. Felixmüller Productive Disorder - Between Books and Bookmarks

Originally conceived as a private collection, the K.B.W. developed into an interdisciplinary research centre during late 19th century. The principle of ‘good neighbourliness’ between books established by Warburg, did not organise books according to traditional library systems, but rather arranged them associatively. As the library became increasingly open to the public, a colour coding system was introduced, which enabled orientation without abandoning the dynamic structure. The move to a new building in 1926 separated the reading room from the stacks, transforming the K. B. W. from a private scholarly library into a knowledge centre. Despite these changes, it remained a laboratory of thought in which disorder was understood as a creative resource.