English Summary


Gutenberg Society

The International Gutenberg Society, founded one hundred years ago, now has more than 1300 members in 35 countries around the world.

The Society commenced its work on 23 June 1901, the day of the inauguration of the newly founded Gutenberg Museum in Mainz. Its aims were, and have been ever since, to promote research into the history of printing and of the book, as well as to give moral and financial support to the Gutenberg Museum.

In this age of new media, it is important to preserve the memory of one of the greatest inventions of mankind - printing from movable type and the printing press - which marked the transition from the Middle Ages to the new age and which, for more than 600 years, was the motor and carrier of our cultural and intellectual development. Even now, Gutenberg's heritage is the basis and focus of the many developments which have led to our modern information society.

After the unparalleled, triumphant progress of audiovisual media, such as the telephone, radio, and television, written communication - including email and internet - has a renewed importance. There is a growing interest in type and typography, an area in which Gutenberg set the technical and aesthetic standards 600 years ago.

The Gutenberg Society is a non-profit organisation, funded through its members' annual fees and supported by the city of Mainz, the Ministry of Sciences, Research and Culture of Rhineland-Palatinate, and private donations.

The President is the Major of the city of Mainz, assisted by a Vice-President and a Board of Directors, whose members are either elected by the Annual General Meeting or are members ex officio, representing the government of Rhineland-Palatinate, Mainz City Council, Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, the University's Gutenberg Institute for the History of the Book, and the Gutenberg Museum.

The Board of Directors also bestows the honour of a “Senator of the Gutenberg Society” on meritorious members.

There is a list of all names of the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, the Council of Senators, and the honorary members.


Membership

We cordially invite you to become a member of the Gutenberg Society. The annual membership fee of Euro 60 (Euro 30 for students) also includes a free copy of the Gutenberg Yearbook, appearing at the end of June every year. All membership fees and donations to the Gutenberg Society are tax deductible.

If you want to subscribe to membership of the Gutenberg Society, please fill in the application form and send it to the office:

Gutenberg-Gesellschaft e.V.
Liebfrauenplatz 5
D-55116 Mainz
Phone: ++49 (0) 6131 22 64 20
Telefax: ++49 (0) 6131 23 35 30
email: info@gutenberg-gesellschaft.de


Gutenberg Yearbook

The “Gutenberg Jahrbuch”, published since 1926 by the Gutenberg Society and founded by the late Aloys Ruppel, has become the leading scientific yearbook worldwide in the fields of Gutenberg research and research into the history of the art of printing and of the book in general.

Apart from research on Gutenberg and the early history of printing, the main focus of this yearbook which usually contains some thirty contributions by an international range of authors in German, English, French, Italian, and Spanish, is printing history from the beginning to the present, including the history of paper, the library, the book trade and publishing, type design, modern typesetting and printing processes, developments in typography and the new media as well as book illustration, bookbinding, newspaper and the press, etc.

Editor-in-chief

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Stephan Füssel
Editorial Office: Institut für Buchwissenschaft
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität
D-55099 Mainz
Phone:  0049 6131 392 25 80
Telefax: 0049 6131 392 54 87
e-mail: fuessel@mail.uni-mainz.de

Guidelines for submitted manuscripts

In addition to the Gutenberg Yearbook more than 130 monographs and “Kleine Drucke” have appeared since the foundation of the Gutenberg Society. If you want to place an order, please contact the office or fill in the order form.


Gutenberg Award

Together with the City of Mainz, the Gutenberg Society presents the Gutenberg Award, established in 1968 and bestowed for an outstanding artistic, technical or scientific attainment in the domain of the art of printing.

The prize winners

1968 Giovanni Mardersteig, Verona/Italy († 1977)
printer, type and book designer
1971 Henri Friedlaender, Jerusalem/Israel († 1996)
type designer and typographer
1974 Hermann Zapf, Darmstadt/Germany
type and book designer
1977 Rudolf Hell, Kiel/Germany
inventor and technologist
1980 Hellmuth Lehmann-Haupt, Columbia, MO/USA († 1992)
book historian and university professor
1983 Gerrit Willem Ovink, Amsterdam/Netherlands († 1984)
Professor of History and Aesthetics of the Art of Printing
1986 Adrian Frutiger, Bremgarten-Bern/Switzerland:
type designer
1989 Lotte Hellinga-Querido, London/Great Britain
scholar and incunabula specialist
1992 Ricardo José Vicent Museros, Valencia/Spain
printer and publisher, founder of the first Spanish Museum of Printing
1994 Paul Brainerd, Seattle, WA/USA
inventor of the desktop publishing technology
1996 John G. Dreyfus, London/Great Britain
bibliographer, typographer and printing historian
1998 Henri-Jean Martin, Paris/France
book historian
2000 Joseph M. Jacobson, Cambridge, MA/USA
inventor and technologist
2002 Otto Rohse, Hamburg/Germany
typographer, book designer
2004 Robert Darnton, Princeton, NJ/USA
book historian and university professor
2006 Hubert Wolf, Muenster/Germany
university professor and censorship researcher