August Wilmanns (25 March 1833,

Vegesack Vegesack is a northern district of the city of Bremen. Geography ''Vegesack'' is located about north from the centre of Bremen-city at the mouth of the river Lesum, beside the river Weser (). Abutting the district of Vegesack to the northwest is ...

– 27 October 1917,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

) was a German

classical philologist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and ot ...

and

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time ...

. He studied classical philology at the Universities of

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

and

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in three ...

, receiving his doctorate in 1863 with a dissertation on the Roman scholar

Marcus Terentius Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (; 116–27 BC) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Vergil and Cicero). He is sometimes calle ...

. In 1870 he began work as a librarian at the '' Universitätsbibliothek'' in

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

, followed by professorships at the Universities of Innsbruck (1871) and

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...

(1873). In 1874 he was named ''Oberbibliothekar'' (head librarian) at the

University of Königsberg The University of Königsberg (german: Albertus-Universität Königsberg) was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as the world's second Protestant academy (after the University of Marburg) by Duke Albert of Pruss ...

, shortly afterwards, given the same title at the '' Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek'' in

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...

(1875). From 1886 to 1914 he was general director of the '' Königliche Bibliothek'' (Royal Library) in Berlin, where he was successor to Karl Richard Lepsius. During his tenure at Berlin, he was credited with conducting a comprehensive reorganization of the library. In 1895 he established a ''Gesamtkatalog'' (centralized catalog), initially for Prussia, later being extended to include research libraries in all German-speaking countries.

Selected published works

* "De M. Terentii Varronis libris delingua latina", 1863 (dissertation thesis). * "De M. Terenti Varronis libris grammaticis", 1864. * ''Placidus, Papias und andere lateinische Glossare'', 1869 (with Hermann Usener). * ''Verzeichniss der von der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin erworbenen Meermann-Handschriften des Sir Thomas Phillipps'', 1892 – Directory of the Royal Library in Berlin in regards to the acquired Meerman manuscripts of Sir

Thomas Phillipps Sir Thomas Phillipps, 1st Baronet (2 July 1792 – 6 February 1872), was an English antiquary and book collector who amassed the largest collection of manuscript material in the 19th century. He was an illegitimate son of a textile manufacture ...

. * ''Beiträge zur Bücherkunde und Philologie'', 1903 – Contribution to

library science Library science (often termed library studies, bibliothecography, and library economy) is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, an ...

and

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

.OCLC WorldCat
published works

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilmanns, August 1833 births 1917 deaths Writers from Bremen Academic staff of the University of Kiel Academic staff of the University of Innsbruck Academic staff of the University of Königsberg University of Bonn alumni University of Tübingen alumni German classical philologists German librarians