Governed by articles 21 to 79 of the local Civil Law Code, which is effective in the Departments of the Bas-Rhin (Lower Rhine), the Haut-Rhin (Upper Rhine) and Moselle through the Law of June 1st 1924 introducing French Civil Legislation, the Society is inscribed in the Associations' Register of the Magistrate's Court in Sélestat. Its statutes have been deposited there since November 13th 1951.

The Association's Headquarters are located at the following address :

Bibliothèque Humaniste
1 rue de la Bibliothèque
67 600 Sélestat

The Society is administered by a Governing Board,
of which the members are :

HISTORY

On the 30th of May 1951, under the direction of Mayor Joseph KLEIN, a very motivated group of people met to "study the feasibility of founding a Society of the Friends of the Humanist Library of which the goal would be to increase the visibility of the said Library, as well as that of the history of Sélestat and its locality".

The constituting General Assembly took place on the 4th of June 1951. The mayor expressed his pleasure to welcome an audience of some 200 people.

The statutes were approved and the decision to publish an Annual every year was ratified by the assembly.

It then proceeded to elect the first Governing Board. The following notables were included:

- Joseph Klein, mayor of Sélestat, president of the Society
- Charles-Louis Marchal, mayor of Châtenois, vice president
- Abbot Paul Adam, librarian, secretary
- Paul Brand, bank director, treasurer
- Bernard Grettner, under-prefect
- Canon Joseph Walter
- Canon Jacques Muller, elder, parish priest
- Ernest Rebert, minister
- Jules Dreyfus, merchant
- Arthur Graff, artist
- Dr Charles Houllion, doctor
- Paul Kieffer, architect
- Ernest Lenhart, professor
- Georges Martin
- Marcel Pons
- René Seltemann

Registered at the Magistrate's Court on the 13th of November 1951, the Society has revised its statutes on several occasions.

In 1987, it was able to obtain by prefectoral decree the status of public interest organization, giving its benefactory members and donors the right to a tax deduction.

Among the most prominent events in the history of the Society, the year 1985 must be mentioned: it was the 500th anniversary of the birth of Beatus Rhenanus, the famous Selestadian humanist. Twenty-five university professors, scholars and historians met on the 19th and 20th of September for an international colloquium of which the goal was to make the most complete inventory possible of what was known of the Alsatian humanist-scholar, of his links with the other scholars of his time and of the history of that period.

On the occasion of its 40th anniversary (1991), the Society published an index of its Annuals, containing in addition a table of the lectures and outings which it had organized. At that time, the Board was comprised of 14 people, of which 2 were ex-officio members :

- Gilbert Estève, mayor, ex-officio member
- Dr Maurice Kubler, president
- Jean Pons, vice-president
- Hubert Meyer, secretary, ex-officio member
- Raymond Sprauel, trésorier
- Alexandra Hild, assistant treasurer
- Robert Guidat, Tharsice Niedhammer, assessors
- Gérard Seltemann, Norbert Reppel, Claude Schirlen,
Jean-Marie Montavon, Marie-Thérèse Sauter, Père René Bornert

The life of the association

The regular General Assembly 2007 of the association took place on Friday, the 16th of November at 6:15 PM, in the Reading Room of the Library, under the direction of its President, Mr. Raymond MULLER. Once the agenda had been exhausted, Dr. François HEIM, former director of the Beatus Rhenanus Latin Institute of Marc Bloch University (Strasbourg) and member of our Governing Board, spoke upon "Constantine in Grand : Constantinian Dreams and Visions"