The Robert Walser Center is a center of excellence dedicated to the lives and works of Robert Walser and Carl Seelig. In addition to a research library and a temporary exhibition space, the Center includes the Robert Walser Archive, which maintains the protection, inventory, research and mediation of access to the Center’s collection. The Center furthermore develops exhibitions, events, publications and special editions, both in collaboration with its partners as well as under its own direction.
The Robert Walser Archive
The Robert Walser Archive, which is used extensively by national and international visitors, holds a unique collection of manuscripts, biographical materials and scholarly literature. Since 1973, it has collected, catalogued and published Walser’s work. The valuable and sensitive manuscripts are held at the Swiss Literary Archives (SLA) of the Swiss National Library in Bern; however, users can access this material in digital form in the premises of the Robert Walser Center. In exceptional and duly justified cases, original material held at the SLA may be consulted (applications should be sent directly to the Robert Walser Archive).
The Robert Walser Archive’s medium and long-term projects include the listing, cataloguing, digitization and conservation of its collection; the support for the edition of a complete works, which is currently being prepared at the Robert Walser Center; the acquisition of important manuscripts that are still part of private collections; as well as contributing to the study and dissemination of Robert Walser’s work in the form of exhibitions, conferences and publications.
The Robert Walser Library
The Robert Walser Center maintains the world’s leading Walser library, which collects everything written by and about Robert Walser, including translations, periodicals and unpublished academic theses and dissertations. The library’s catalogue can be accessed and searched via the Center’s database; temporary workstations are available to aid in the consultation of the collection. The borrowing of books is not permitted.
The Robert Walser Exhibition
The Robert Walser Center stages thematically alternating exhibitions of books, manuscripts, photographs and informative literature about Robert Walser, his environment and influence.