Central specialist libraries

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The central specialist libraries are three specialist libraries in Germany that serve the supraregional supply of literature and information for the highly specialized needs of science and research. They collect the publications in Germany and abroad as completely as possible, including the so-called gray literature on their subject. They develop these and make them available via interlibrary loan and electronic document delivery service.

There are currently three central specialist libraries in Germany:

They have been forming Goports - Leibniz Library Network Research Information (Goportis) since 2009 .

The former German Central Library for Agricultural Science (ZBL) in Bonn for agriculture , nutritional , household and food sciences , biotechnology and genetic engineering as well as environmental sciences has been affiliated with the ZB MED as a departmental library since January 1, 2001 and spatially and organizationally with the departmental library for medicine , Natural sciences and agriculture of the University and State Library Bonn.

Classification in the library system

The central specialist libraries are among the special libraries , as they look after a certain, extensive collection area. However, they form a special group within the special libraries. They do not serve a single institution, but the supraregional supply of literature and information. For this reason, they are included in the library planning and structure paper Libraries '93 at the fourth and highest functional level, the “highly specialized requirement”.

Establishment of the central specialist libraries

After the Second World War, the need of business and industry, but also of research and science, increased for fast, up-to-date and reliable information, especially in the applied sciences. It became increasingly important to take note of national and international gray literature and foreign trade journals. This special position of scientific and technical subject areas for the progress of the industrialized countries was shown internationally and was also widely discussed in relation to the supply of literature in these areas.

The existing libraries - again a largely analogous phenomenon in the "developed countries" - could not satisfy this need: the large state libraries as well as the university libraries collected in principle universally, but their focus was on the humanities. The solution was seen in a certain independence of the supply of literature for the scientific-technical subject areas: institutionalized either as relatively independent departments of a national library (which later often completely split off; National Library of Medicine and National Agricultural Library , both USA) or as an independent national headquarters Specialized libraries.

In Germany, a system of central specialist libraries was developed on the initiative and with the support of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Only the Technical Information Library (TIB) is a new establishment (1959), which, however, was also connected to an existing university library - that of today's Leibniz University of Hanover . The other central specialist libraries previously existed as a library - albeit on a more modest scale - as a department of a university library (Bonn, Cologne) or as an institute / special library of a university (Kiel), before they were given the function of central specialist library for their area ( ZBL 1962, ZBW 1966, ZB MED 1969). In the first few years, the funds for building up the stock were largely made available by the German Research Foundation.

tasks

“The central specialist libraries collect the national and foreign literature of their subjects as completely as possible ...” (cf. Hacker, Rupert: Bibliothekarisches Grundwissen. 7th edition, 2000, p. 28) and make them available for supraregional literature supply. They thus contribute to fulfilling the national library task in accordance with the concept of the distributed national library.

As members of the Leibniz Association , they operate the Leibniz Research Information Library Association (Goportis) , which was founded in March 2009 .

use

Since the holdings of the central specialist libraries are important for all users in Germany and also for those from abroad, the literature is hardly intended for reference use, as is often the case with conventional specialist libraries. Loans and document delivery in particular play a major role. Here, the central specialist libraries had a special position right from the start because the users could contact the respective library directly. The libraries operate the Goportis Internet portal for comprehensive inventory research with a document delivery service in the specialist portals of the partners: EconBiz (economics), TIB portal (technical sciences), MEDPILOT (medicine and health), GREENPILOT (agricultural and environmental sciences).

Acquisition policy

The acquisition is related to the national acquisition program and is technically coordinated with the distribution plan of the special collection areas . The collection of highly specialized, hard-to-find, foreign-language literature in the respective subject is significant. Magazines and non-conventional literature published outside the book trade play a major role as forms of publication. The so-called gray literature includes publications from authorities, organizations, government agencies (e.g. official publications, budgets, annual reports, statistics), from research institutions (e.g. reports, conference reports), from universities (dissertations, teaching materials) and from companies, banks, Associations, parties (e.g. annual reports, minutes, balance sheets). In order to get these materials, there is the possibility of exchanging scientific papers, for example dissertations. Memberships in institutions and the associated direct purchase of publications as well as personal contacts of library staff with positions in Germany and abroad also help in acquiring literature that cannot be obtained in bookshops.

Development

The literature is made accessible through special information services and information media. It depends on the specifics of the subject, according to which principles and how detailed a subject catalog is maintained. Evidence of translations of texts that are linguistically difficult to access is also an important aid. In addition, the indexing of congress reports as well as articles / essays from magazines and other series plays a major role.

Support and funding

In 1975 the “Framework Agreement between the Federal Government and the Länder on the Joint Funding of Research in accordance with Article 91b of the Basic Law ” was drawn up, which is also referred to as the “Framework Agreement for Research Funding ”. It includes not only research institutions themselves, but also those with a service function for research. In 1988, the Science Council stated in its "Statement on the Central Specialized Libraries": "The activities of the Central Specialized Libraries are of supraregional importance and of great national scientific and political interest in terms of the criteria for joint funding by the federal and state governments." Central specialist libraries jointly funded by the federal and state governments from funds that are available for supraregional, national tasks. The ratio is 30:70 (federal: state). These jointly financed institutions - the so-called institutions of the Leibniz Association , also known as “Blue List institutions” - are evaluated (rated) at regular intervals by the Science Council or the Senate of the Leibniz Association. Then it is decided whether they are still eligible for funding or not. This evaluation was negative, for example, at the German Central Library for Agricultural Sciences in Bonn (1998), so that there are now only three instead of the previous four central specialist libraries.

Current developments

Litigation with publishers

Due to copyright problems and sample lawsuits by publishers, the central specialist libraries can currently only offer some of their services to a limited extent: Document deliveries to non-German-speaking countries had to be stopped for the time being. It was triggered by a lawsuit from several large publishers who feared that the libraries' copy deliveries would result in significant sales losses.

Open Access

Because new journals keep appearing, but at the same time the rate of price increases is extremely high, libraries have to cancel more and more subscriptions (see magazine crisis ). The resulting disadvantages for the supply of information are to be compensated by Open Access .

The major scientific organizations therefore signed the " Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Scientific Knowledge" in 2004 .

With various projects, the libraries give scientists the opportunity to publish their research results "open access" and make them freely available to the general public. For example the German Central Library for Medicine with its German Medical Science project .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Busse, Ernestus, Plassmann, Seefeldt: The library system of the Federal Republic of Germany. 1999, 3rd edition, p. 36.
  2. ↑ (see AGMB 2005, Issue 1) (PDF; 1.2 MB)

literature

  • Gisela von Busse: Structure and organization of the academic library system in the Federal Republic of Germany. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1977. ISBN 3-447-01878-X .
  • German Library Institute (Ed.): Libraries '93. Berlin, 1994. ISBN 3-87068-445-3 .
  • Rupert Hacker: Basic librarianship. 7., rework. Edition Munich: Saur, 2000. ISBN 3-598-11394-3 .
  • Engelbert Plassmann u. Jürgen Seefeldt: The library system of the Federal Republic of Germany. 3rd edition Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999. ISBN 3-447-03706-7 .

Web links

See also: Virtual specialist library