Book: 100 Jahre Schweizer Modellbogen

In 2019 the foundation Pädagogischer Verlag der Lehrerinnen und Lehrer Zürich (formerly: Pädagogischer Verlag des Lehrerinnen- und Lehrervereins Zürich) celebrates its 100th anniversary. It all began in 1919 with the primary school teacher and idealist Edwin Morf from Zurich. The foundation started out small and against adverse circumstances; meanwhile it has developed into a large institution that sold, in its heyday, more than 600.000 items per year to Swiss pupils. Until 2013 the publishing company was owned by the Lehrerinnen- und Lehrerverein Zürich. Today it is an independent charitable trust, but now as then the enterprise is committed to the high educational standards of its founder and is managed by teachers who do the work on a honorary and part-time base. The main goal is not profit but just covering the cost, which in turn leads to very reasonable pricing.

This year’s book continues the 2009 book “90 Jahre Schweizer Modellbogen (and its editor is again Dieter Nievergelt); it follows up by illustrating the 10 latest years in the history of the enterprise. It also gives a summary of the complete history that is told in detail in the earlier book. The book offers a complete catalogue of all 213 current and former items published, complete with year of publication, author, bibliographic details as well as printer and printing method. It closes with an index that makes it easy to locate the product descriptions in both books.

In our fast-changing world it is something special in itself that a publishing company lives for 100 years. But having the publisher itself tell its story in a book and in detail, and to give a full and complete list of all its publications, is not just special, it is unique.