The Georg Kaiser Collection at the University of Alberta
The Georg Kaiser Collection, housed at the University of Alberta Archives, was acquired by the Department of Germanic Languages and the University of Alberta Libraries under the guidance of Prof. Ernest Reinhold, University of Alberta, with the assistance of Prof. Armin Arnold, McGill University. In July 1962, the University of Alberta and the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, agreed to establish at the University of Alberta a repository of photocopies or microfilm reproductions of manuscripts and documentary materials currently held in the Georg-Kaiser-Archiv of the Akademie der Künste. A similar agreement with the heirs of the Swiss poet Caesar von Arx, Kaiser’s closest friend, provided for the transfer from Switzerland to the University of Alberta of photocopies and microfilms of manuscripts, letters, and other documents written by or about Georg Kaiser during his life in exile. The Georg Kaiser Collection at the University of Alberta is privileged to possess a uniquely complete collection of the Kaiser fond.
The Collection includes dramatic, epic, lyric, and theoretical works written by Georg Kaiser as well as his correspondence. It further includes documents relating to the life of Georg Kaiser, who is one of the most prolific expressionist playwrights and who remains one of the most frequently-played dramatists from this period. The Collection is enhanced by original photographs of scenes, programs, and posters relating to the various productions of his plays. The primary materials consist mainly of photocopies of manuscripts and correspondence, including several original letters and original radio and stage scripts, whereas the secondary materials include original newspaper clippings and photocopies of the same, posters, photographs, correspondence, organizational materials and sound recordings of the Georg Kaiser 1878-1978 Symposium (1978: Edmonton), in addition to photocopies of theater programs, reviews, research papers, journal articles, as well as photocopies of trial documents. Copies of cards from the card catalogue of the Kaiser archives in Berlin are also included. Part of the collection which consists primarily of materials acquired from Switzerland is on microfilm, however, most microfilmed documents are also available in paper format.
The project
This bibliography is the result of a four month project initiated and directed by Prof. Marianne Henn and funded by the Research Initiatives Fund, Dean of Arts, Director of Libraries, Division of Germanic Languages, Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Studies at the University of Alberta, and private donors. The project was conducted in the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library with professional support provided by John Charles and Jeannine Green.
The goal of the project was to create an electronic database which will make the Georg Kaiser Collection accessible to scholars and researchers not only at the University of Alberta but also at other academic institutions in Canada and the United States. The target audience of the project includes faculty and students in the following disciplines: German literature, comparative literature, drama, and film studies. The material may also be of interest for interdisciplinary studies, studies of literary and theater criticism of a certain historical period, and studies of the influence of political history on literary production and on the reception of a writer and his works.
The Georg Kaiser Database was developed in Pro-Cite 3.2 for Windows. It includes 360 records describing the Georg Kaiser Collection.
The Georg Kaiser Bibliography with a keyword index is generated from the Database and enhanced into a pre-coordinated index in paper format to serve as a guide to the Collection. The Georg Kaiser Database (in Pro-Cite) will be networked and accessible through the LAN of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta.
The bibliography
The records of the Georg Kaiser Collection were received by the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library in two accessions, 96-2 and 96-161 (the number 96 being the code of the Library’s manuscript collections). This Bibliography describes the records of the Kaiser fond in 360 citations, corresponding to the 360 files in the two accessions. It includes primary and secondary materials from 1896 to 1997. Published monographs from the holdings of the University of Alberta Libraries are not included.
The organization of the citations in the Bibliography follows entirely the organization of the accessions 96-2 (i.e. 96-2-1 to 96-2-317) and 96-161 (i.e. 96-161-1 to 96-161-43). This organization was chosen to facilitate physical retrieval of records from the Collection and to make the Keyword index usable in paper format.
The number of each citation in the Bibliography corresponds to the accession number of the described file in the Georg Kaiser Collection, i.e. the citation number is the same as the file number (the last part of each accession number). For example, in the file number 96-2-5, its first part, 96-2-, is the accession number of the manuscript collection, and its last part, 5, is the file number within the collection; 5 is also the number within the appropriate accession in the Bibliography which precedes the corresponding citation.
The Bibliography is divided into two parts corresponding with the two accessions, 96-2 and 96-161. Each part includes two sections, Section 1: Primary materials and Section 2: Secondary materials. In Section 1, the citations are organized alphabetically by document type; within each document type, they are arranged alphabetically by title or by subject of the item or file. In Section 2, the citations are organized in sub-sections by format and document type; within each sub-section, they follow in alphabetical order by the subject of the file.
Since the Bibliography focuses on primary materials, the citations included in Section 1 describe the records on item level. The only exceptions to this rule are the Correspondence and the Poetry sub-sections, where the citations describe the material on the file level. The latter level of description also applies to the secondary materials in Section 2.
The citations do not follow a particular citation style because they describe unpublished manuscripts. The citations for secondary materials, although they include published materials (newspaper clippings, journal articles, parts of books, etc.), provide a file level description.
The format of the citations was developed by the compiler of the Bibliography and represents a combination of cataloguing rules (AACR2r) and principles of archival description. In cases where single issues of periodicals or theater programs are described within particular citations, the description follows the reference list citation type provided in Turabian's Manual for Writers (1987). Each citation includes the following fields: Number, Title, Date, a Note with detailed description, and the Accession number of the file.
The main source of information for the data provided in each citation was the particular item or file that has been described. For the verification of titles, names, and dates, or in cases when the information was incomplete or missing from the main source, the following sources were used: Georg Kaiser Werke (Huder 1971); Georg Kaiser Briefe (Valk 1980); "Bibliographie" in Georg Kaiser (Pausch and Reinhold 1980); Georg Kaiser, Stücke, Erzählungen, Aufsätze, Gedichte (Huder 1966); Georg Kaiser Symposium (Pausch and Reinhold 1980). Any information in the citation that was not taken from the main source of information is enclosed in square brackets.
