In 2014 the library of the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration was in the fortunate position to receive the estates of the two great Austrian economists Kurt W. Rothschild and Josef Steindl from the former owners of the estates, Prof. Dr. Wilfried Altzinger and WIFO economic researcher Mag. Alois Guger. The bequests include letters, manuscripts, typescripts, notebooks, life documents, special journal prints, newspaper clippings and the private libraries of the two economists.
With the support of the ‘jubiläumsfonds’ of the Austrian National Bank, the WU library has been able to develop and digitise these materials in an extensive project. A large part of the estate material is publicly accessible, including, for example, review drafts by Kurt W. Rothschild or the correspondence between Michal Kalecki and Josef Steindl that has been preserved.
A special feature of the digital archive is the opportunity for interested users to participate. With the help of a crowdsourcing module, manuscripts can be transcribed, annotations made and contents commented on.
The digitised estates of Rothschild and Steindl were officially opened on 29.10.2018. A gleaning (in german language) for all those who could not be present can be found here:
- Greeting message from Gouverneur Prof. Ewald Nowotny (OeNB)
- Eulogy from Prof. Gunther Tichy (WIFO): Theorie, Politik und Wirtschaftsforschung – zum Werk von Kurt W. Rothschild und Josef Steindl
- ao.Univ. Prof. Wilfried Altzinger (Department Economics and INEQ; Vienna University of Economics and Business): Konzentration und Macht in den Arbeiten von Kurt W. Rothschild
A photographic documentation of the opening ceremonies can be found here.
