Die Deutsche Bibliothek, its functions and services and its particular position within the libraries of Germany
Ute SCHWENS(1)
Permanent Deputy Director, Die Deutsche Bibliothek Leipzig / Frankfurt / Berlin(1) DDB: Die Deutsche Bibliothek, Deutsche Bibliothek Frankfurt am Main, Adickesallee 1, 60 322 Frasnkfurt/M. Germany. Fax: +49 69 15 25 10 10; E-Mail: schwens@dbf.ddb.de The paper was delivered at the University of Tokyo Library on Friday October 22nd, and at the Kyoto University Library on Monday October 25th, 1999.
Introduction
How are these tasks organized in Germany?
How are the tasks of Die Deutsche Bibliothek defined and established?
Who is doing all the other things in Germany related to the functions of national libraries?
Die Deutsche Bibliothek
What are we doing in detail?
Collecting and Archiving
Cataloguing and Indexing
Services to the Readers
'Digital Library' program of Die Deutsche Bibliothek
National Bibliographic Services of Die Deutsche Bibliothek
Who is asking for the national bibliographic services and for which purposes?
Our Challenges for the FutureThe title of my lecture is "Die Deutsche Bibliothek (The German Library) - its functions and services and its particular position within the libraries of Germany". I hope that the title in itself makes you understand that there is no national library in the traditional sense in Germany. Due to the "memory of the country" the structure is slightly different from the usual one.
In 1958 one of the worlds biggest cultural institutions - the UNESCO - defined the tasks and functions of national libraries as follows:
National libraries are libraries which, irrespective of their title, are responsible for acquiring and conserving copies of all significant publications published in the country and functioning as a deposit library, either by law or under other arrangements.
They will also normally perform some of the following functions:
On the base of this definition IFLA 1973 provided several additional tasks of a national library:
How are these tasks organized in Germany?
Political circumstances in Germany prevented the founding of a library responsible for a national literature collection for many centuries.
As you may know Germany consists of 16 single states - called laender. These states have their historical origin in former kingdoms or dukedoms. Each of which had their own state library / royal library etc.
A result of this historical background is that the laender nowadays have still their own autonomy, especially in social and cultural affairs. Respecting to libraries this autonomy means that the regional state libraries still exist. They are the regional depository libraries for the land they are representing.
In 1912 only the German publishers initiated the funding of a national library for Germany as a whole, the Deutsche Buecherei in Leipzig. 1946 - after World War II and the division of Germany - they did the same again for the Deutsche Bibliothek in Frankfurt.
This young library is fulfilling special but not all tasks of a national library within the libraries' community in Germany, always in cooperation and direct discussion with the other libraries of the laender.
How are the tasks of Die Deutsche Bibliothek defined and established?
There is a legal deposit law. The law regarding Die Deutsche Bibliothek of March 31st, 1969 specifies the functions and duties of Die Deutsche Bibliothek, defining it as the central archival library for Germany. The law has since been augmented by the law regarding the Unification Treaty of September 23rd, 1990, which provides for the establishment of the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany with locations in Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig.
(I am sure you know that this Unification Treaty was one of the results of the reunification of the two parts of Germany: the former GDR - German Demokratic Republic - with the FRG - Federal Republic of Germany -. Because of the partition of the country two functionable libraries were existing and fulfilling the tasks of a national library, in the Eastern part the Deutsche Buecherei in Leipzig, in the Western the Deutsche Bibliothek in Frankfurt. With the Unification Treaty both institutions were unified to one - that is now Die Deutsche Bibliothek.)
Responsibility for printed and recorded music is assigned to the Deutsches Musikarchiv Berlin, which is a department of the Deutsche Bibliothek Frankfurt.
Looking at UNESCO's and IFLA's definition of a national library and comparing it with the law regarding Die Deutsche Bibliothek shows that Die Deutsche Bibliothek fulfills the following tasks assigned by the law:
Who is doing all the other things in Germany related to the functions of national libraries?
As you heard before the Deutsche Bibliothek was founded in 1912. It was not asked to collect retrospective literature but started with the collection and archiving of German publications in 1913. The collection and archiving of publications before this date is related to five large libraries within the project "Collection of German printing" (Sammlung Deutscher Drucke). These five libraries are:
The collection and archiving of foreign literature is related to central subject libraries, special libraries and special subject collection libraries which are working together in a library system coordinating acquisition, cataloguing and indexing of this material.
Special tasks like e.g. the creation of union catalogues (one for monographs, one for periodicals), the coordination of interlibrary loan and electronic document delivery were related to the German Libraries Institute (Deutsches Bibliotheksinstitut) in Berlin during the last years. Unfortunately this institute will be closing down at the end of this year, staff members will move to other institutions till 2003. Tasks have to be done by Die Deutsche Bibliothek, the Prussian State Library or the Bavarian State Library in the future. Actually we are discussing who could take over additional responsibilities. A lot of tasks cannot be carried on.
So far, I wanted to give you an idea of the splitting of tasks and functions of libraries in Germany.
Now I want to draw your attention on Die Deutsche Bibliothek itself. As I can show you here we have three locations - Leipzig, Frankfurt and Berlin. Please forgive me that I tell you once again some historical facts. The oldest part of the library is Leipzig which after the World War II was part of East Germany. In the Western part Frankfurt was founded with a special department in Berlin for printed and recorded music. After the reunification of Germany the three houses were linked together.
We are working together very closely, collecting two copies of each publication in Germany now (one in Leipzig, one in Frankfurt) but sharing the processing of the books. Additionally each house has its own special tasks to fulfill.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek is strongly concerned with both the long-term preservation of the cultural heritage and the development of up-to-date technologies. So, over and above the teamwork in book processing that incorporates all locations, specific points of focus are assigned separately, based upon the respective historical strengths of each library centre. Thus each location retains a unique character of its own.
The Deutsche Buecherei in Leipzig is responsible for all aspects of preservation and conservation. Its German Book Museum (Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum) is currently undergoing expansion as a documentation centre for the culture of books.
The Anne-Frank-Shoah-Bibliothek is an international research library on the documentation of the persecution and annihilation of the Jews.
Frankfurt has assumed responsibility for developing the communication and information infrastructure, for the production, marketing and distribution of the national bibliographic services and for the operating of the German Exil Archive (Deutsches Exilarchiv) 1933-1945.
The processing of all printed music and recorded music takes place in the Deutsches Musikarchiv in Berlin.
The principal tasks of Die Deutsche Bibliothek can be divided into three sections.
The first one refers to collecting and archiving.
The primary responsibilities specified by law are the collection and preservation of
In order to fulfill this Die Deutsche Bibliothek relies on its legal deposit mandate for the Federal Republic of Germany, which obliges all commercial and non-commercial publishers to submit two copies of each new publication to the library, to include not only traditional publications on paper but also microforms, recordings, visual materials and physically distributed electronic publications.
German-language publications issued abroad, translations from German and Germanica are acquired as complimentary copies or by means of exchange or purchase.
Music publishers and producers of recorded music provide two legal deposit copies of all new products issued in Germany to the Deutsches Musikarchiv Berlin.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek is dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage. Leipzig assumes all responsibilities with respect to the preservation and conservation of the total collections:
A special department of Leipzig has been working on an industrial scale since the initial operation of a large mass-deacidification facility and the mechanical paper-splitting machine in summer 1994.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek was the first institution in the world with two effective preservation processes and matching technical facilities at its disposal.
I have to say 'was' because last year the special department in Leipzig responsible for all these tasks was outsourced. It is no longer part of Die Deutsche Bibliothek but was altered into a commercial company.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek now buys services from this company according to contracts negotiated annually.
The second section of tasks refers to cataloguing and indexing.
All publications undergo descriptive and subject cataloguing:
descriptive according to the German rules for alphabetical cataloguing (RAK Regeln fuer die alphabetische Katalogisierung),
indexing according to the German rules for subject catalogues (RSWK Regeln fuer den Schlagwortkatalog).For the achievement and development of these codes Die Deutsche Bibliothek is in close cooperation with other libraries. To standardize and harmonize tools for cataloguing and indexing in Germany and German-speaking countries three authority files were built up:
Die Deutsche Bibliothek manages the libraries' cooperation referring to this standardization efforts and offers the technical platform for the files.
Additionally to subject cataloguing all publications are classified according to special classification schemes - in fact to the Dutch Basic Classification. Because of the increasing importance of international adaptation we are working hard at the moment to change to DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification) in due course.
The centralised processing tool for cataloguing and indexing within Die Deutsche Bibliothek is the integrated information system for literature, sound recordings and printed music (ILTIS) - including also electronic and audio-visual material (but this does not fit into the German abbreviation, sorry). ILTIS is the basis for the national bibliography and all bibliographic services of Die Deutsche Bibliothek.
Last but not least, Die Deutsche Bibliothek is an active partner in the international cooperation for the usage and propagation of the ISSN, the Intenational Standard Serial Number. The national ISSN centre for Germany is located in Frankfurt.
The last one of the three sections of principal tasks contains the large area of services the library offers to the readers either on-site or by remote access, and to other libraries.
Speaking of these services means: We are offering large reading rooms both in Frankfurt and Leipzig - for conventional, but also for electronic and audio-visual materials - with a large scale of possibilities for research. You can either read books - as it is usually thought of in a library - or use electronic media or the internet for current, necessary information. This is of great interest for professionals as well as for employees of commercial or public companies or for students to prepare or write their thesis or dissertation. A large number of reference books in the reading rooms support working.
Librarians always help users to search for literature in the electronic catalogue or to find information on a CD-ROM or via the internet. They also do the search for literature or information for the users, if it is wanted.
People also can use the electronic catalogue from home via the internet. They can look for interesting books or other materials and order them for usage in the reading rooms in Frankfurt or Leipzig on the next or any day of their choice. They also can ask for copies of articles from journals, book chapters or newspaper reports. You can imagine that for copyright restrictions complete journals or books will not be copied this way.
In a way Die Deutsche Bibliothek takes part in the German national interlibrary loan program. Due to its special obligation to preserve the library collection book loans can only be granted when the literature in question cannot be found in regional or inter-regional state library catalogues.
At this point I should say that most of the services I described here are not free of charge. The library is charging a general usage fee, either annual or weekly, there is a fee for using the internet and each copy, no matter if electronical or mechanical, has to be paid. There are also a fixed rates for information services done by library staff members.
Only because of this charging system the library is able to offer its services and to improve them.
'Digital Library' program of Die Deutsche Bibliothek
One of the service improvements of the last years was the installation of the 'Digital Library'program of Die Deutsche Bibliothek.
The concept of this program comprises the acquisition, archiving, preservation and availability of digital documents, to include both original electronic publications and those converted through digitisation.
Within the "Digital Library" Die Deutsche Bibliothek in some cases is generating its own electronic publications using digitisation and electronic archiving techniques - as an example you can see here the website of our project "digitisation of exile periodicals".
The digitisation applies especially to traditional publications that have become brittle due to age and measures have to be taken with urgency to safeguard their long-term preservation. Digitisation, subject indexing and subsequent presentation in the internet are a possibility to preserve publications and facilitate access to them for the public - taking into account applicable copyright regulations and cooperation with involved publishers.
However, our services are not related to readers or so-called end users only. The CIP Service (CIP = Cataloguing in Publication) is based upon the publishersﾔ practice of releasing data regarding forthcoming books and periodicals prior to the actual publication date.
The information thus provided is used by Die Deutsche Bibliothek to prepare title entries that are then on the one hand imprinted by publishers in their books, on the other hand included into the information system ILTIS.
This way, Die Deutsche Bibliothek informs users, booktraders and other libraries about forthcoming new publications in a good time, thus providing helpful orientation prior to purchase and facilitating cataloguing work at the same time.
National Bibliographic Services of Die Deutsche Bibliothek
To facilitate acquisition and cataloguing work is also an aim of the national bibliographic services of Die Deutsche Bibliothek.
The bibliographic entries and authority data created in the information system ILTIS form the basis for the national bibliography (Deutsche Nationalbibliographie) and at the same time for a wide range of centralised services provided for outside users.
The range of available products is designed to meet the actual requirements of the users.
The data comprised by the national bibliography are provided on a variety of different data media and systems, including title-cards, floppy discs, magnetic or DAT tapes, CD-ROMs, data transfer from the FTP server and online access to the database directly.
The data format for the machine-readable services is MAB (machine-readable exchange format for libraries = Maschinelles Austauschformat fuer Bibliotheken) or UNIMARC or - in recent months - also USMARC.
Who is asking for the national bibliographic services and for which purposes?
Services are used by subscribers - I listed the main institutions - for acquisition, processing and information purposes. The use of data for local cataloguing is of particular economic significance, as it relieves libraries and others of the burden of performing work intensive bibliographic processing on their own.
That is the reason why libraries within Germany mostly do not catalogue the German books themselves but use the bibliographic entries of Die Deutsche Bibliothek which they get either via their regional service centres or automatically.
This kind of cooperation makes it necessary to agree on common standards and rules. I think you are able to understand now the importance of Die Deutsche Bibliothek being integrated in harmonisation activities as strong as it is.
Over the last years Die Deutsche Bibliotheks range of subscribers was widened by entries from national bibliographic centres abroad, eg. Maruzen in Japan, and included international as well as national standards in its services (e.g. DDC, USMARC).
As German national library and as an international and national service centre Die Deutsche Bibliothek cooperates closely with international library institutions and organisations. The names mentioned on the screen - CENL, IFLA or ECPA - are only a few examples. Within this context Die Deutsche Bibliothek is an active partner in a variety of projects, in some of which it has assumed a leadership role.
Once again I want to point out the major areas of cooperation:
Apart from the examples given on the screen Die Deutsche Bibliothek is also involved in the work of the
As source of information about the cooperation between European national libraries the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL) created a common information server of all national libraries some years ago.
It was named Gabriel = Gateway (bridge) to Europe's Libraries.
Gabriel is located at the Royal Library in The Hague and mirrored at the British Library in London and Die Deutsche Bibliothek in Frankfurt.
Information on individual national libraries can now be obtained under a single address (e.g. http://www.ddb.de/gabriel), and there is a direct access to the online services offered by the national libraries.
Thus Gabriel is indeed the first step to a virtual European library.
Now, let me say some final words on our challenges for the future:
Electronic publications cause new discussions on legal deposit, copyright, cataloguing descriptions, metadata, and services.
Libraries have to cooperate with publishers on archiving and access respecting this material, and on the use of metadata created by the publisher or the authors of the electronic documents to include them in their own cataloguing descriptions.
Financial restrictions of the government call for new models of sharing functions and tasks within the library community in Germany.
Libraries or library institutions will close down, their tasks have to be taken over by others, either on a functional or technical basis or both (as I mentioned before in my lecture this happens at the moment with the German Libraries Institute in Berlin).
Looking at the collection and long-term storage of electronic documents it has to be discussed whether it makes sense to divide this material on several institutions or to concentrate it in one institution and offer access to a legitimated number of parties.
The need of archiving audio-visual materials, discs, CD-ROMs and DVDs requires new technical research and developments in this field - long-term storage of these materials needs totally different strategies and actions than the archiving of printed books.
In all these fields Die Deutsche Bibliothek is in contact with the government, publishers, other libraries, commercial companies and research institutes. Together we try to come to practical, useful, but also sensible solutions.
Ladies and gentlemen, this has been a brief view on Die Deutsche Bibliothek, its functions and services and its particular position within the libraries of Germany.
I hope I was able to give you an idea of the set-up and have not been to detailed - as librarians often tend to be.
Finally I want to invite you to "look in on us" - the website of Die Deutsche Bibliothek always offers current information on projects and ongoing activities, so it is a good idea to call on a regular basis (http://www.ddb.de).
Top
■