The International Youth Library is the largest library of its kind anywhere in the world. Children’s and young people’s literature from around the world is collected in Blutenburg Castle in the west of Munich.
A library could hardly be in a more idyllic location. The International Youth Library is situated in a late medieval castle in the Munich suburb of Obermenzing, where it has been since 1983. Surrounded by a moat and protected by 15th-century walls, the castle contains treasures of a very special kind.
More than half a million books in more than 130 languages are archived in the castle’s storage cellars and around 9,000 volumes are added each year. Alongside the books for children and young people – including a collection of approximately 60,000 historical children’s books – there are also more than 30,000 works of international research literature.
In the International Youth Library’s study library, approximately 250 specialist journals and around 40,000 items of documentation material are also available to experts from Germany and abroad – i.e. specialist essays, newspaper articles, leaflets, but also posters, calendars, manuscripts, hand-written texts, illustrations and children’s drawings. A large part of the collections can be research via the Internet, which also provides a number of bibliographies.
Small, high-quality museums
It is not surprising that with these treasures in store, the library puts on changing exhibitions on a variety of subjects. As well as exhibitions of the works of illustrators and writers, exhibitions are also shown which provide an overview of the books for children and young people in different countries or which deal with contemporary or historical themes in children’s and young people’s literature.
But that is not all. Blutenburg Castle contains four small museums on major German authors and illustrators of books for young people. The literary bequest of Michael Ende is on display on the castle’s top floor. All his books – 30 titles in more than 40 languages – can be seen here, typescripts, drawings, letters and photographs, illustrations of the writer’s illustrated books, a number of Ende’s personal possessions and his working library.
The literary bequest of the writer, James Krüss, are on show in one of the castle’s towers. The James Krüss Tower contains many first editions, drafts, manuscripts and typescripts, such as a typescript of "Mein Urgrossvater und ich” (My Great-Grandfather and I) with many hand-written corrections. There are also diaries as well as Krüss’s extensive correspondence with colleagues, friends and readers.
The Erich Kästner Room in the castle’s gateway tower shows visitors around 500 international first editions of the author’s works, as well as some of his furniture and other possessions. Incidentally, Erich Kästner, the author of best-sellers such as "Pünktchen und Anton" (Pünktchen and Anton), was one of the founding members of the International Youth Library.
An especially precious jewel is the Binette-Schröder Cabinet with a permanent exhibition of the artist’s complete works. It includes her comprehensive illustrative work for which she received numerous awards, her own extensive international collection of picture books, her photographic work and a large range of original collector’s items and objects.
Fostering tolerance and understanding
The International Youth Library was founded in 1949 by Jella Lepman, a German Jew who had emigrated during the Nazi period. To this day, the library’s task continues to be to collect children’s and youth literature from around the world, to document it and to convey it to children and adults alike with a view to fostering the idea of intercultural understanding. Not least, this takes place through a large number of events.
Authors readings, story hours, play and craft activities, shadow theatre and puppet theatre enable readers of all ages to take pleasure in discovering books from around the world. The International Youth Library intensifies its cooperation with other institutions for children’s and young peoples’ literature through holding seminars, symposia and conferences. The Federal Foreign Offices finances research by foreign experts at Blutenburg Castle by providing scholarships.
The International Youth Library also offers something for people who cannot simply visit the book castle. Publications are sent out by post for example, and some are available online. The travelling exhibitions are of special interest. The International Youth Library sends these out anywhere in the world upon request. As well as international books for children and young people, the ready-to-send aluminium boxes contain a variety of accompanying material, such as catalogues and bibliographies, pictures, posters and information boards, appropriate for a wide variety of activities in schools or libraries, for example. The most successful exhibition of this kind is entitled "Guten Tag, lieber Feind (i.e., I greet you, dear enemy)" and it iluminates how books for children and young people approach the topic of peace and tolerance.
The study castle walls in the west of Munich thus surround much more than a storehouse full of books, they surround a stronghold of tolerance and international understanding.