Fortunat Mueller-Maerki Library & Research Center is one of the world's pre-eminent

libraries A library is a collection of Document, materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or electronic media, digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a ...

devoted to

horology Horology (; related to Latin '; ; , interfix ''-o-'', and suffix ''-logy''), . is the study of the measurement of time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, hourglasses, clepsydras, timers, time recorders, marine chronometers, and atomic clo ...

and is located in

Columbia, Pennsylvania Columbia, formerly Wright's Ferry, is a borough (town) in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 10,222. It is southeast of Harrisburg, on the east (left) bank of the Susquehanna River, ac ...

, United States. It is operated by the

National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors The National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors, Inc. (NAWCC) is a nonprofit association of people who share a passion for collecting watches and clocks and studying horology (the art and science of time and timekeeping). The NAWCC's global m ...

, Inc., for the benefit of both the public and the members of the association. It is housed in the same building as the

National Watch and Clock Museum The National Watch and Clock Museum (NWCM), located in Columbia, Pennsylvania, is one of a very few museums in the United States dedicated solely to horology, which is the history, science and art of timekeeping and timekeepers. Like its subsidiar ...

. The library is open to the public, members of whom may use the collection on the premises, and are invited to bring their own watches and clocks if they would like to ask the staff a question for a fee. Books are only lent to members of the NAWCC. The collection is open to researchers, members and the public alike.

The collection

The collection covers material on timekeeping, time and timekeepers in around dozen different languages. In addition to its book collection of about 10,000 titles (some of them dating back to the 16th century), the library has over 1,000 different videos (both

VCR A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other source on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette, and can play back the recording. ...

and

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

formats), a comprehensive collection of horological periodicals (both current and historic) from around the world, many thousands of historic catalogs of watches and clocks, as well as large quantities of archival material chronicling the history of timekeepers, including the research papers of many prominent American horological scholars of the past.

References

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External links

Fortunat Mueller-Maerki Library & Research Center

National Association of Watch & Clocks Collectors
Horological organizations Tourist attractions in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania