Inventory Lists and Acquisition Books of Heidelberg University Library
The Historical Collections of Heidelberg University Library include valuable manuscripts, charters and bequests, as well as incunabula (prints up to 1500), old prints, the Department of Prints and Drawings and other special collections. For the most part, these holdings include handwritten inventory lists and acquisition books, mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries, when they were added to the library and first recorded. The oldest preserved catalogue of the books in the early university library dates back to the 15th century and, like most of the older inventories, is itself part of the historical collections.
Until the introduction of database-supported management of book purchases, the acquisition processes were recorded in handwritten acquisition books, which are now kept in the university archives.
A list of assets kept by the university cash office between 1905 (the year the new building on Plöck was opened) and 1929 is also stored there. It lists all the movable acquisitions for the university library, from carpentry work to equipment to views and portraits, with the respective price or an estimate of the value.
