The Staatsbibliothek in Berlin
“I became a ferocious reader”

While studying humanities at university, Harald S. strayed into the Berlin Staatsbibliothek (National Library) in Potsdamer Platz in 1985 – a wrong turn with consequences. Since then, he has been happily burrowing there into the recondite and exploring the useless. 

In the mid-eighties I strolled in here for the first time. The library was emptier; many students came here to study only during exams. About then I began working on my doctoral dissertation; the library furnished a good framework for discipline. Getting in was easy: there was no turnstile, no IDs, no fees. You could simply walk in and use the reading room and reference library. It was only years later that I had a library ID. At the beginning of the nineties, after the opening of the Wall, people were already clustering at the entrance in the morning. There was a big race for a working place. Now it’s more relaxed again.

Main entrance of the Berlin Staatsbibliothek in Potsdamer Straße 33. | Photo (detail): © Susanne Gupta I spend three or four days a week here, without fixed plans, just following my own rhythm: fetching ordered books from the shelf, looking for a place to work. I’m someone who prefers paper and pencil; I like to sit in the small laptop-free area, surrounded mainly by law students and their big red, bound tomes. Then I unpack my manuscripts and lay out my books. I use the computer to read e-mails and newspaper. So it goes until, slowly, I start writing.

A quiet place: Harald S.’s workplace | Photo (detail): © Susanne Gupta For me this isn’t a place to accomplish specific tasks. For me, a notorious library user, this is a form of life, a kind of labyrinth. Even after thirty-two years I can’t get out of here. The library is an archive containing many books and other writings; here I can just drift or go off on unforeseen turns. That’s the charm of the place. It can happen that I meander through a footnote or let myself be seduced by a reference and take out a book. Imagination, dreams – that’s important; less the historical significance of the location.

In the reference library for sociology | Photo (detail): © Susanne Gupta One of my hobbies is Chinese literati painting; here I’ve struck a bonanza and buried myself in their treatises. “Literati”, “erudition” – that sounds histrionic. For me it’s not an end in itself; it’s rather about letting myself be stimulated by questions and nourishing my curiosity.

I’m not a homebody. Flats don't interest me; my own consists of book shelves and a bed. Ideal for me would be to live in a hotel room. But that’s not possible. Here I have the literature I need, although I’ve discovered gaps. You always have that problem. But I don’t fret about reading all the millions of volumes.

The gallery of the Staatsbibliothek | Photo (detail): © Susanne Gupta Digitalization confronts us today with decisions in the library: I prefer the book, but I can also use electronic media. Perhaps it’s a question of age who reads Plato’s Republic or Hegel’s Phenomenology on a screen.
I’m someone who doesn’t necessarily open a book at the beginning but perhaps instead at the end to look at the notes and bibliography. I prize the sense of touch and the appearance of font types; a screen is for me something very flat. It offers no resistance, no roughness, no folds and creases that set thought into motion.

Basement window with a view of the Kulturforum; in the background, the Berlin Philharmonic | Photo (detail): © Susanne Gupta