Today the library is a mere fragment of one of the largest public German libraries in Moravia. The library was founded in 1892 using financial gifts from the Svitavy native and patron Valentin Oswald Ottendorfer (1826 - 1900)
The library was provided with an endowment for the purchase of books and became a model for other libraries in smaller towns. During the first Czechoslovak Republic the library collection was comprised of 22,000 volumes, including periodicals, professional publications, and works of fiction. Following the Second World War a large portion of the collection was damaged, stolen, and destroyed. As a remnant of German culture the collection was designated as worthless and unnecessary. Museum employees managed to preserve 6,755 volumes.
databáze knih zde
