Heroes, midwives and brilliant books

10/20/2026

The University Library’s #einzigartig series begins a new run on 23 October 2026. Five free guided tours offer the chance to discover extraordinary and precious original artefacts.

Anyone interested is invited to the University Library for the #einzigartig series. (Image: Lena Kuhn / Universitätsbibliothek Würzburg)

What stories lie hidden in centuries-old books, historical newspapers and rare prints? The #einzigartig event series – Highlights from the Special Collections of the University Library of Würzburg – invites you to delve into these stories. The focus is on selected original items that offer fascinating and sometimes curious insights into past centuries.

An overview of the series

The German-language series kicks off on Friday 23 October 2026 at 7 pm with the guided tour ‘Heroes & Villains – Between Fame and Infamy’. Are there more heroes or more villains in the University Library’s collections? A search through the centuries leads to world-famous and forgotten heroes, impostors, nasty villains and charlatans.

This will be followed on Thursday 12 November 2026 at 6 pm by ‘The Art of Midwifery – Historical Books on Pregnancy and Childbirth’. Historical midwifery books, herbal treatises and medical texts reveal how knowledge and ideas surrounding obstetrics developed. The programme also explores the beginnings of academic obstetrics in Würzburg and the physician Adam Elias von Siebold.

Under the title ‘If you don’t advertise, you’ll go under’, the event on Thursday, 10 December 2026, at 6 pm will focus on advertisements from Würzburg shops of yesteryear. Historical newspapers, address books and theatre programmes illustrate how businesses have promoted their products since the 19th century. An entertaining journey through the early days of city marketing and Würzburg’s diverse business world.

On Thursday, 28 January 2027, at 6 pm, the focus will be on historical directories in the event ‘People, Streets, Houses – Würzburg Address Books: Analogue and Digital’. They document over two centuries of the city’s and its population’s history and reveal far more than just names and addresses. The guided tour also shows how the digitised collections can be used today for historical research and personal genealogical enquiries.

The series concludes on Friday, 26 February 2027, at 6 pm with ‘Irr reloaded – even more strange, amusing & eccentric books’. Following the huge public success of the first edition, the University Library is once again presenting bizarre stories, astonishing printed works and books that play with our notions of what a book actually is.