Cecilia Cleve

Cecilia Cleve, née Dahlin (died 8 February 1819), was Swedish pioneer librarian. She can be regarded as the first librarian of her sex in Sweden.

Cecilia Cleve was the sister of the fashionable furniture maker and designer Nils Dahlin. She married Freidrich August Cleve from Magdeburg in Germany, who was active as a printer and in 1787 opened what is sometime referred to as the first lending library in Stockholm. When she became a widow in 1796, Cecilia Cleve renounced the guild printer privilege she was entitled to after her late spouse, but kept his right to keep a public lending library, and managed it until her death. She did this despite having a widow pension which were sufficient to support herself, and her foster children. She introduced the innovation to catalog the books in alphabetic order, which was at the time an innovation, quarterly subscriptions and advertises in the country papers. She managed the library with success and it reportedly contained 8.000 volumes. By 1800, five other lending libraries had bee founded in Stockholm, but she remained the only female librarian until Eva Unander opened hers at Södermalmstorg in 1816.

References

• Du Rietz, Anita, Kvinnors entreprenörskap: under 400 år, 1. uppl., Dialogos, Stockholm, 2013