People in Europe have always been fascinated by foreign cultures. As soon as a new country or even a new continent was discovered and conquered, people began to take artefacts and natural objects from there back home to collect and preserve them in universal cabinets of art and curiosities, cabinets of curiosities and natural objects, archives, museums and libraries.

The Electoral Library in Dresden, which was founded in 1556 and from which today's SLUB emerged, also received written documents from Central America to East Asia and from Scandinavia to North Africa, the oldest of which is over 4000 years old. The SLUB's collection also contains numerous travelogues, descriptions, treatises and plates in which experiences, impressions, research and pictures were recorded.

Some of the rarest and most valuable objects are on display in the exhibition. Against the backdrop of the recent debate about the legality or illegality of acquiring collection items from former colonial countries, it was important to the curators to determine and indicate the origin of the exhibits, i.e. their provenance, as far as possible.

The exhibition is on display until 12 August 2019. Public guided tours: 15 May, 12 June, 10 July, 7 August, 5 p.m. each day

Collecting bequests has a long tradition in Dresden. The first family archives came to the library as early as the 17th century. The manuscript collection currently preserves and catalogues around 500 bequests, mainly from Saxon artists, writers, scientists and musicians, and makes them accessible to researchers.

The Royal Public Library in Dresden was able to acquire the first and for the humanities important estate of the classical philologist Karl August Böttiger (1760-1835), who worked as a chronicler of Goethe's time, as early as 1854. Since 1873, the library has also owned most of the written legacy of the critic and translator August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845), who, together with his brother, the philosopher and writer Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829), the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) and the writers Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853) and Novalis (1772-1801), shaped the Romantic school.

In addition to these bequests, the SLUB's holdings include such notable ones as those of the philosopher Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (1781-1832), the eponym of the so-called Krausismo, which gained importance in 19th century Spain, and the Romanist Victor Klemperer (1881-1960), who is regarded as one of the most important chroniclers of the everyday life of a Jewish intellectual in 20th century Germany.

Traditionally, estates are acquired if the author and/or content are considered historically and scientifically relevant to Saxony's cultural memory.

In the exhibition, the library is showing selected items from the estates of Victor Klemperer, Christian Borchert, Fritz Löffler and Ernst Hassebrauk, among others.

The exhibition is on display until 12 August 2019. Public guided tours of the exhibition: 5 June and 3 July 2019, both at 5 pm

Jakob Hegner (1882-1962) was a multi-talented man. He was a publisher, translator, book designer and typographer - and had a decisive influence on cultural life in the garden city of Hellerau from 1910 until his emigration in 1936.

In terms of its programme, the publishing house was primarily dedicated to authors from the "Renouveau Catholique" circle, whose works Hegner not only translated into German for the first time, but also brought to the stage. Renowned guests such as Stefan Zweig, Gerhart Hauptmann, Else Lasker-Schüler, Oskar Kokoschka and Franz Kafka attended the German premiere of Paul Claudel's "Annunciation" at the Festspielhaus Hellerau on 3 October 1913. The exhibition also shows selected exhibits on typography, for which Hegner was known nationwide. In addition to original matrices that were used in the Hellerau print shop, book covers with newly developed fonts such as the expressionist Mendelssohn typeface are also on display.

The exhibition was opened on 15 March 2019 on the occasion of the Day of Printing Art and was on display in the foyer of the Central Library until 29 March 2019.