Frederik Caspar Wieder

• Name — Frederik Casparus Wieder • Born — 23 November 1874 • Birthplace — Mijnsheerenland, Netherlands • Died — 7 January 1943 • Place of death — Noordwijk, Netherlands • Occupation — Antiquarian, cartographer, historian, librarian • Education — University of Amsterdam • Notable Works — De Schriftuurlijke liedekens, de liederen der Nederlandsche hervormden tot op het jaar 1566, thesis 1900, and Monumenta cartographica: reproductions of unique and rare maps, plans and views in the actual size of the originals accompanied by cartographical monographs, 1925–1933.

The son of a Protestant minister, Wieder studied Dutch letters at the University of Amsterdam, where he also won a doctorate cum laude in 1900 on his thesis De Schriftuurlijke liedekens, de liederen der Nederlandsche hervormden tot op het jaar 1566 on Protestant songs from the Dutch Reformation before 1566. Then he turned to working as an antiquarian with Frederik Muller in Amsterdam, from 1902 up to 1912, when he took up the position of assistant librarian at his university. In 1917 he became the librarian of the Rijks Hoogere Land-, Tuin- en Boschbouwschool (the later Wageningen University) to expand the collection there. At the request of the American architect Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes Wieder researched early maps of Manhattan, New Amsterdam and New York, which led to their co-written book The iconography of Manhattan island, 1498-1909 (New York, 1915-1928). To support the Dutch claim to the sovereignty of the Svalbard archipelago, then called Spitsbergen and discovered by Willem Barentsz in 1596, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs commissioned a report by Wieder, which was published in 1919. (Nevertheless, the Svalbard Treaty of 1920 awarded the islands to Norway.) In 1924 he was appointed librarian of Leiden University, where he stayed on until 1938, when he resigned due to an unspecified conflict with the curators. He promoted a "mobile systematic catalogue", with most frequently used books easily accessible in open stacks that would become standard only around 1970 in academic libraries. To facilitate research, he published high-quality facsimiles of historical maps, for instance in his Monumenta cartographica (1925-1933) and, together with and paid for by the Egyptian prince Youssouf Kamal (Yūsuf Kamāl), Monumenta geographica Africae et Aegypti (1926-1953) in sixteen volumes. His last publication was the 1644 map of the discovery of Tasmania by Abel Tasman, the most important historical Dutch map according to Wieder. Wieder was succeeded as Leiden university librarian by Tietse Pieter Sevensma, after a six months interlude with Jan de Vries as acting librarian.

• Wiederbreen on Svalbard. • Wiederfjellet, likewise at Svalbard.