Mountain worlds

The central library of the Swiss Alpine Club

The central library of the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC) at the Zentralbibliothek Zürich houses Switzerland’s largest collection of mountain and expedition literature and is among the leading Alpine association libraries internationally. This extensive and fascinating collection, also comprising beautiful panoramic pictures, is being put on display for the first time in 2013 to mark the 150th anniversary of the SAC’s foundation.

As they make their way through the exhibition, visitors can trace the evolution of mountain guidebooks, the changing landscape and our evolving perception of the Alps. The route features numerous “vantage points” with information on the history of the SAC’s central library and presentations of Text+Mountain, a project by the University of Zurich’s Institute for Computational Linguistics. There is also a separate section devoted to the first ever academic research into the estate of mountaineer and topographer Marcel Kurz.