Strengthening Modern Greek Collections

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The Benaki Museum

Ifigenia Dionissiadu
Head, Documentation and Systems Department,
Benaki Museum

The Library of the Benaki Museum was founded in 1931, the same year that the Benaki Museum opened for the public. The core of the collection has been the private collection of books of the founder, Antonis Benakis. Since then it it has been further enriched with important donations, purchases and exchanges. Today the Library contains more than 45.000 volumes of books and periodicals.

The context of the Library is generally related to the museum collections: art history books, with emphasis on modern Greek culture from the period of the Ottoman rule onwards. Modern Greek everyday life, economic conditions, literature and religion are some of the subjects which are covered with ample documentation. The Library of the Benaki Museum contains a valuable section of old and rare documents and books, comprising accounts by 17th to 19th century travellers, early printed books, old and rare editions and rare or unique copies of 15th to 19th century books. This prominent section defines the special character of the library, placing it among the specialized and not lending libraries.

In the Library of the Benaki Museum the scholar may find very interesting treasures: old editions, such as the "Great Etymological Dictionary", published in Venice in 1499; not cited in bibliographies and very rare editions, like the work of Agapius Landos "Book called Geoponikon", published in Venice in around 1680 and the book of Dimitrios Tagias "Portolanus", published again in Venice in 1729; the valuable album of Louis Dupre "Voyage a Athenes et a Constantinople, Paris 1825" and the album of Baron Otto Magnus von Stackelberg " La Grece, vues pittoresques et topographiques, Paris 1834". Monumental editions about art history, such as in the four-volumed edition about the Byzantine textiles of Julius Lessing "Die Gewebe-Sammlung des Koniglichen Kunstgewerbe-Museums, Berlin, 1913" and the monographic series of Arthur Pope about the Persian art "A survey of Persian art from prehistoric times to the present, London 1938-1939" are probably unique copies for Greek libraries. Another unique copy is the "Il Menologio do Basilio II, Turin 1907" (two volumes), a collection of vitae arranged according to the date of each saint's celebration in the church, which scholars from all over come to consult.

The library's profile is completed by the section of Byzantine and Post-byzantine manuscripts, which derived from three different sources: the purchases of Antonis Benakis, the permanent loans of the Exchangable Fund of Refugees and the donation of Damianos Kyriazis. Most of the manuscripts are in Greek language, however some are of karamanlidika script - that is, the transliteration of the Turkish language into Greek lettering - and some others are in Arabic. Their context is variant: Godspel books, lectionaries, nomokanones - compilations of secular lows - texts and sermons of the Fathers of the Church, epistoles and scripts of ecclesiastical music.

The Library of the Benaki Museum is being continually enriched mainly by the various important donations of the friends and supporters of the Benaki Museum. One major recent donation is the personal library of a most distinctive modern Greek painter, Nikos Chadjikyriakos-Ghikas (1906-1994), which formed an annexe of the main library, situated in the building, which houses the permanent exhibition of his work. Other sources of books are new purchases and exchanges with libraries in Greece and abroad. The Library of the Benaki Museum has established long and close relationships with most of the major Greek libraries, among which are the Gennadious Library, the National Library of Greece, the University Libraries of Thessaloniki, Krete, Ioannina and Larissa, the Library of the Parliament and the Library of the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archives. It also exchanges books with libraries abroad, such as the Princeton University Library, the Dumbarton Oaks Center, The Birmingham University Library and the libraries of the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Since 1990 the Library of the Benaki Museum is using automated library system for its inventory. Today over 90% of the books are electronically recorded and the electronic indexing of the articles is being on the way. The first automated system to be used had been the ISIS system, distributed by UNESCO. Recently the Library moved on to a new software package, called ADVANCE Integrated Library Automation System, produced by the Canadian company GEAC and supported by Elidoc-Greece. The ADVANCE system is being already successfully used by other libraries in Greece, Canada, England and the US. It is a relational database, running on UNIX platform. The internal structure of bibliographic and authorities data base is in MARK format. It supports exchange of data in all other MARK formats, automatic loading of bibliographic records from CD-ROMs and the use of digitised images. An important advantage of the ADVANCE system is the capability to incorporate the records of the Department of Archives of the Benaki Museum under the same database.

The staff of the Library consists of two librarians supervised by the chief librarian Mrs Pitsa Tsakona. The Library has been recently moved to its renovated space, composed by spacious repository areas furnished with sliding bookshelves and a pleasant and peaceful reading-room equipped with electronic security system. Immediate conservation needs of the Library include cleaning, repairing and rebinding of the books when necessary. The old and precious books need to be microfilmed, in order to prevent continual use by the readers. Digitisation of the illustrations of rare books is also under consideration.

Several manuscripts and rare books of the Benaki Museum have been published. The main publications are:

Eyridice Lappa Zizika and Matoula Rizou Kouroupou, "Katalogos hellenikon cheirographon tou Mouseiou Benake: 10s-160s aionas" [Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts of the Benaki Museum: 10th-16th centuries], Benaki Museum: Athens 1991.

Pitsa Tsakona, "Palaia entypa tes Vivliothekes" [Old Printed Material of the Library of the Benaki Museum], Benaki Museum: Athens, 1985

Pitsa Tsakona, "Chatzekyriakos-Gikas. Ergographia-Vivliographia (1923-1996)" [Í. Chadjikyriakos-Ghikas. Inventory of Works & Bibliography(1923-1996),
Athens, Benaki Museum: 1997