1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ebert, Friedrich Adolf

EBERT, FRIEDRICH ADOLF (1791–1834), German bibliographer, was born at Taucha, near Leipzig, on the 9th of July 1791, the son of a Lutheran pastor. At the age of fifteen he was appointed to a subordinate post in the municipal library of Leipzig. He studied theology for a short time at Leipzig, and afterwards philology at Wittenberg, where he graduated doctor in philosophy in 1812. While still a student he had already published, in 1811, a work on public libraries, and in 1812 another work entitled Hierarchiae in religionem ac literas commoda. In 1813 he was attached to the Leipzig University library, and in 1814 was appointed secretary to the Royal library of Dresden. The same year he published F. Taubmanns Leben und Verdienste, and in 1819 Torquato Tasso, a translation from Pierre Louis Ginguené with annotations. The rich resources open to him in the Dresden library enabled him to undertake the work on which his reputation chiefly rests, the Allgemeines bibliographisches Lexikon, the first volume of which appeared in 1821 and the second in 1830. This was the first work of the kind produced in Germany, and the most scientific published anywhere. From 1823 to 1825 Ebert was librarian to the duke of Brunswick at Wolfenbüttel, but returning to Dresden was made, in 1827, chief librarian of the Dresden Royal library. Among his other works are—Die Bildung des Bibliothekars (1820), Geschichte und Beschreibung der königlichen öffentlichen Bibliothek in Dresden (1822), Zur Handschriftenkunde (1825–1827), and Culturperioden des obersächsischen Mittelalters (1825). Ebert was a contributor to various journals and took part in the editing of Ersch and Gruber’s great encyclopaedia. He died at Dresden on the 13th of November 1834, in consequence of a fall from the ladder in his library.

See the article in Ersch und Grubers Encyclopädie, and that in the Allg. deutsche Biog. by his successor in the post of chief librarian in Dresden, Schnorr von Carolsfeld.