Library of the German Bundestag
| Library of the German Bundestag | |
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 The Bundestag library is located in the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus
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| founding | 1949 |
| Library type | Parliament Library |
| place | Berlin |
| ISIL | DE-281 |
The library of the German Bundestag (often referred to as the Bundestag library for short ) is the parliamentary library of Germany and is one of the largest parliamentary libraries in the world.
history
The library began its activity in 1949. Its basic inventory comprised only a few hundred volumes that it had taken over from the Parliamentary Council . The library was built with a significant contribution from Wilhelm Gülich , director of the library of the Institute for World Economy in Kiel since 1924 and a member of the German Bundestag from 1949 based on the model of the Kiel library.
In view of the rapid growth in the number of books, the library in Bonn was spread over eight different properties (mostly storage rooms) towards the end of the 1980s. A necessary centralization of storage rooms and offices for the employees was originally planned in the so-called Schürmann building to be newly built in Bonn.
With the decision of the Bundestag in 1991 to move parliament and government to Berlin, these plans became obsolete. In Berlin there should then be a new building for the Bundestag library in the structural structure of the Band des Bundes , in order to bring the library, its employees and its holdings together in one place. This plan has been implemented with the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus .
However, the move to this building did not take place until it was fully completed in the spring of 2004, almost four and a half years later than the move of the parliament itself. Until then, the library was spread over locations in Bonn and Berlin . While the management, large parts of the administration and a reading room were already temporarily housed in properties near the Reichstag building, the magazines and the technical book processing remained in Bonn. However, a daily "book shuttle" between Bonn and Berlin ensured - measured by the relatively large distance between the locations - reliable and fast availability of all the literature required.
tasks
The main task is to supply the members of the German Bundestag with information and literature . The inventory comprises over 1.45 million media units. This includes not only scientific and reference literature, but also special collections of parliamentary materials and official printed matter . The Bundestag library obtains the German official printed matter on the basis of mandatory copy regulations from the federal, state and local governments. It is also the depository library for around ten international and supranational organizations.
User group
Since the library is responsible for supplying the members of the German Bundestag with information and literature , the main users are the members of the Bundestag, their employees, parliamentary group employees and members of the Bundestag administration, such as those working in the academic services . The generally authorized group of users also includes the federal and state authorities based in the Berlin area, the employees of the central associations represented in Berlin, the diplomatic missions and journalists from Germany and abroad. Scientists with a special permit can also use it. However, you may only use the library as a reference library and you must apply for use in good time. The corresponding form can be found on the library's homepage.
The Bundestag library is a non-public library. All stocks of the magazine and reading room are only available to the specified group of users. A fundamental opening up to larger external user groups is not possible due to the security regulations of the Bundestag.
Stocks
The holdings document the parliamentary events in the Federal Republic of Germany and represent a unique, historically grown collection of sources, in particular through the large number of publications by national and supranational organizations, parties, associations and other institutions. The library collects and makes accessible the national and international necessary for parliamentary work Literature with a focus on politics, law, public administration, economics, social sciences and modern history. The total stock amounts to over 1.5 million volumes. Every year around 12,000 new media units are added and the library continuously purchases 8,500 periodicals, of which around 5,400 are official and semi-official. The library has been building an electronic library since 2002, which significantly expands the general range of information on the intranet and enables quick access to politically interesting areas of knowledge.
Organization and staff
The Bundestag library currently has 79 permanent positions. The employees are divided into three career groups: higher service (15 employees), upper service (29 employees), middle service (33 employees). In addition, skilled craftsmen and magazines (7 employees) belong to the library staff.
building
The reading room with open access area was inserted in the shape of a cylinder with an outer diameter of 29 m in the southwest corner of the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-House planned by Stefan Braunfels . The rotunda, which is glazed towards the Spree, has a continuous glass front facing west and south. This means that the cylinder behind this glass barrier is hardly visible from the outside.
The external entrance is on the north side of the building; a pedestrian bridge from the Paul-Löbe-Haus was built across the Spree as a connection and access to the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus for the parliamentarians and their employees. A staircase leads from the entrance foyer to the large central hall and from there to the entrance to the library's usage area in the rotunda.
The inner diameter of the double-walled cylinder with the library is 21 m. In the approximately 3.5 m wide space between the inner and outer shell of the cylinder there are escape and connecting stairs, elevators as well as copy and other ancillary rooms.
The library is spread over five floors (second to sixth level) and two basement floors:
- On the lowest level there are advice stations, user workstations and presence files
- The second-lowest level contains information, book issuance and return as well as terminals for researching the online catalog
- On the next higher level, the magazine display and user workstations are housed in a circumferential gallery
- The second highest level offers additional reading and user workplaces
- Book storage areas on wall shelves and standing reading areas can be found on a narrow circumferential gallery on the top level
- The approx. 8000 square meter magazines are located in the two basement floors
The reading room has a collection of approx. 20,000 volumes and offers over 50 reading places.
At a height of over 20 meters, just below the ceiling , the rotunda is adorned by an all-round blue neon installation ("Blue Ring") by the Italian artist Maurizio Nannucci - inspired by a text by Hannah Arendt , Nannucci uses two sentences strung together to point out the tension between the democratic Principles of freedom and equality: "Freedom is conceivable as a possibility of acting among equals / equality is conceivable as a possibility of acting for freedom."
The conceptual idea of setting up public areas in a multi-storey rotunda presents the library with organizational challenges. The five levels on which the employees and users have to move make the distances long and time-consuming. Another problem is the noise nuisance between the open levels, which is exacerbated by the concrete surfaces. The facade, which is completely glazed to the south and west, with a view over the Spree to the exciting panorama of the Reichstag building and the Paul-Löbe-Haus, has the disadvantage that light and solar radiation have a negative effect on the lighting and air conditioning of the room.
- Views of the Bundestag library
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See also
literature
- Robert Klaus Jopp: The library of the German Bundestag in Berlin in the new building. In: BIT online. 7, 2004, No. 4, ISSN 1435-7607 , pp. 287-290.
- Michael Reisser: "A factory for information". The new library of the German Bundestag in the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus. In: BuB. 57, No. 2, 2005, ISSN 0340-0301 , pp. 118-126.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ See report on the establishment of a Bundestag library with the participation of the library of the Institute for World Economy in Kiel, February 8, 1950, in: ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics, call number: C 156698.
- ^ German Bundestag - The library of the German Bundestag. Retrieved May 19, 2019 .
Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 11 " N , 13 ° 22 ′ 43" E