Year of Capital of Culture 2025

2022 (completed project)
University Library

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Magic Book

Within the project of the University Library jointly with the Professorship of Production Systems and Processes, a haptic book was fed with changing virtual database contents. Thanks to OCR-technology they are automatically allocated to the opened page and as if by magic, the respective text appears in on-going letters. The Magic Book, also optically well shaped by manufacture of custom-fit furnishings, was opened to the public on June 20, 2023 and is since then accessible for all visitors of the University Library at the exhibition space on the 1st level. At first, it is fed with contents regarding the history of the library building (Alte Aktienspinnerei) and its users.

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Contact:
Stephan Luther, University Archives
0371 / 531 …
stephan.luther@…

2025
University Library

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Movement and standstill. The last year of study in the GDR

The six university archives in Chemnitz, Halle, Jena, Leipzig, Magdeburg and Weimar are planning to organise an exhibition on the last year of study in the GDR in 2024. A total of 35 exhibition panels are to be shown as a travelling exhibition at all six university locations. All facets of student life during the last year of study in the GDR are to be presented. This ranges from admission and enrolment, study plans and organisation, lecture halls, laboratories and libraries, leisure and culture, political indoctrination within and by the SED, FDJ, GST, military training and civil defence, internationalisation and the placement of graduates - the exhibition is designed as a travelling exhibition, will open in Magdeburg in October 2024 and will be shown in Chemnitz from 3 June 2025. A joint event with the Institute for European Studies and History, where a major project on the history of the student body in the GDR era is underway, is planned for the vernissage in the Capital of Culture year.

Project website: Movement and standstill. The last year of study in the GDR

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Contact:
Stephan Luther, University Archives
0371 / 531 …
stephan.luther@…

2024
University Library

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A quarter of a century of reading European Capitals of Culture - special collection of the University Library

From 2000-2025 more than 50 cities located in 32 countries were European Capitals of Culture. Some of them counted already to the Big Names before (such as Prague, Brussels, Marseilles, Istanbul etc.), many of them, in contrast, were rather less known since then. For this reason, on the occasion of the year of Chemnitz as European Capital of Culture the Library will present a special collection providing a forum and appropriate attention also to these cities – with Chemnitz as great closing. The special collection may be visited from autumn 2024 on at the shelves around the reading hall at the 2nd level of the Library building Straße der Nationen 33. The presented books are of course also for borrowing.

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Contact:
Dr. Wolfgang Lambrecht, University Library
0371 / 531 …
wolfgang.lambrecht@…

2025
University Library

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Art Objects on Campus – Indexing and digitization

The University Archives capture systematically jointly with the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering art objects elaborated by and at our university. In the end, not only a normal online-catalog will be established but the art objects are also recorded digitally and being provided in a virtual library. Whenever possible, the digitized art objects shall be integrated in the digital campus model as well. The University Archives are particularly engaged in this project by searching for and providing (background) information regarding the art objects.

Project-website: Art Objects on Campus – Indexing and digitization

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Contact:
Stephan Luther, University Archives
0371 / 531 …
stephan.luther@…

2025
University Library

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Strings of remembrance – Stories of the Spinning Mill

As the determination Old Spinning Mill suggests, the building of the University Library was originally constructed as an industrial building but used by the spinning company just until the beginning of the 20^th century. In the following times, it served for a variety of purposes: leased to other industrial companies, used as forced labor camp during the 2^nd World War. Subsequently it accommodated i.a. the City Library, the Wismut department store Glück auf and the Municipal Puppet Stage as well as after the Fall of the Berlin Wall the New Saxon Gallery before it became very quiet in the building until it was finally reconstructed for the University Library. The projects intends to deal with that history – but not in the traditional manner of browsing through documents but in the way of interviews with witnesses of the time periods whose individual souvenirs and stories shall be recorded in a multimedia manner, professionally processed and finally being provided and presented to the public on a website of the University Library in order to turn the history of the building tangible and perceptible also for future generations.

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Contact:
Angela Malz, University Library
0371 / 531 …
angela.malz@…

2025
University Library

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Wismut-Network Chemnitz 2025

In this special network varied institutions have connected which are linked to the Wismut in the one and the other way: The Wismut-Foundation gGmbH, the Saxon State Archives, the Archives for the Files of the GDR State Security, the Saxon Archeological Museum, the Education and Memorial Site Kaßberg-Prison e.V. as well as the City Guide Ms. Höfer but also the University Library as in former times the Old Spinning Mill Building accommodated the Wismut department store Glück auf, whose neon sign may still be visited at the Industrial Museum. By a series of events, awareness shall be raised for the crucial importance of the Wismut for the city and the region, i.a. by the premiere of performance of the novel Rummelplatz by the Karl Marx Stadt author Werner Bräunig as opera, accompanied by a conference at the University Library dealing with the topic as well as by a touring exhibition Faces of the Wismut which may be visited at the University Library in September/ October 2025. The kickoff event for the series will happen at the IdeenReich of the University Library on March 12, 2025.

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Contact:
Stephan Luther, University Archives
0371 / 531 …
stephan.luther@…