In 1898, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the reign of Franz Joseph I, numerous didactic books and school books from the times of the Habsburg Monarchy were exhibited in the so-called “Jugendhalle” in the Vienna Prater, which was specifically built for this purpose. Selected works from this “Collection Jugendhalle", which is comprised of hundreds of books, can be viewed here.

Collection "Jugendhalle"

The Collection “Jugendhalle” of the Main Library includes more than 364 titles of method and school books from the Habsburg monarchy in the original. In addition, 30 photocopies of works from different provenances have been added to the collection. The majority of them, from the period 1774 to 1854, were presented in the jubilee exhibition on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph I in Vienna (May 7th to October 9th, 1898). They were exhibited in the rotunda, a specific part of the grounds of the 1873 World Exhibition.

The name of the collection derives from the specially built pavilion, the “Jugendhalle”, planned by architect Ludwig Baumann. The holdings were handed over to the Vienna University Library as a permanent loan by the Federal Ministry of Education and Women's Affairs (BMBF) in 2015 and were digitised between 2018 and 2023.

Links:

• Digitised Works of Collection "Jugendhalle"