In the service of science

The Scientific Service commenced its activities at the German National Library in the third quarter of 2023. Its mission? To act as an interface between the research community and the DNB and to make the cultural heritage of Germany's central archival library more visible, accessible and dynamic. Helene Schlicht (germanist, historian, philospher and infomation scientist), Katrin Heuer (sociologist, psychologist and social education worker), Dr. Linus Hartmann-Enke (musicologist and historian) and Konstantin Freybe (Cultural scientist and cultural analyst) are delighted to be carrying out this important task.

Staff working for the DNB's newly created institution are responsible for supporting and coordinating scientific research projects. They identify suitable external funding bodies and are expanding the DNB's links with universities and research facilities. They are also involved in subject cataloguing and authority data editing activities within the DNB, for which they are assigned to mixed workstations, each with their own areas of expertise. The Scientific Service's organisational structure with shared responsibilities is at variance with the DNB's traditional line structure – and is also designed to function as an element linking all departments and domains at the DNB.

Ulrike Junger, Head of Acquisitions and Cataloguing: "One of the Scientific Service's core tasks is to facilitate use of our collections by researchers. This means paving the way for the treasures we have in our digital and analogue stacks to be recognised by researchers, thus enabling our cultural heritage to bear fruit."

Strengthening research, facilitating cooperation 

The Scientific Service is available to all researchers as a point of contact. It provides support for joint research projects all the way from conception to conclusion. Its commitment not only strengthens research but also fosters cooperation between the DNB and academic institutions, thus creating a broader authoritative knowledge base for society. In its function as an interface, it is also charged with the task of developing and realising scientific communication with an impact on the public. This encompasses both the facilitation of events for a wider public at the DNB and representation at expert conferences.

Citizen science: science by the general public

The research projects encompass all the holdings, collections and metadata preserved at the DNB. Methods employed by citizen science accordingly made it possible to take over the pre-catalogued collection of the Peitz Jazz Workshop, which will be staging a festival at the Leipzig location in September 2024, and make it available to the public. Pilot projects of this kind can be an incentive to draw on the collective intelligence of society in the future. This can help improve access to the DNB's own collections – and thus to the country's cultural heritage. Other project ideas address collections such as the school wall charts, comics and typographic works held by the DNB, the Duden dictionary or analyses of citations in university publications. What all these projects have in common is the goal of increasing the DNB's visibility.

Talk, learn, benefit: the exchange programme in 2023

The proverbial ability to think outside the box: this is exactly what the Berlin State Library (SBB), the Bavarian State Library (BSB) and the German National Library exchange programme encourages. Two exchange meetings took place in 2023. The first was a gathering of staff from the user services and collection preservation areas, while the second was a joint workshop for management staff from the three libraries.

Networking, working together, learning from one another: these are what give the staff exchange programme meaning and purpose. According to one participant, the programme offers a unique opportunity to explore the similarities between the challenges faced by the country's biggest libraries in an atmosphere of trust. The fact that the participating staff from all three libraries come from very different task areas guarantees them a glimpse beyond the horizons of their own roles and tasks. The programme is therefore not only broadening our understanding of the entire library "fabric" but also allowing us to work together on finding solutions to problems..

"A sustainable investment"

The participant adds: "This applies to technical issues just as much as it does to human resource management matters or dealings with internal and external committees. The programme also creates trustful personal ties with other institutions (and one's own) which can later be used for work contacts. In this respect too, it is a sustainable investment."

Another participant who came for the exchange between user service areas reports on the meeting in November 2023. This time, all those involved met at the German National Library, first in Frankfurt am Main and then in Leipzig. This meeting also started by presenting tasks performed in the user areas and the premises they occupy. Afterwards, attention was given to current priorities and cooperation with other organisational units in-house. There was also a presentation of new projects and ideas which are currently being planned or are already under way, e.g. the installation of media boxes for issue purposes and the app for mapping the stacks. 

Breeding ground for further expert dialogue

The participant reports: "This met with great interest from colleagues, who in many cases wanted information on realisation or the opportunity to explore the theme further in smaller working groups." She is delighted that cooperative working relationships have arisen from the exchange meeting and that further virtual formats for expert dialogue are being developed with other institutions – for example in the areas of collection protection, access regulations and visitor counting. "We greatly appreciate these conversations since they often give us ideas for our own work or tips on how to deal with special situations."

Partner in academia

Digital experts are urgently needed in all areas of life – also at the DNB. The increasing digitisation of tasks is creating a great demand for skilled staff. In this situation, it is essential to fly one's flag and draw attention to one's own field of work as early as possible. One way in which the DNB is doing this is through its cooperative partnerships with universities.

Shortages of qualified staff in the library labour market are being driven by the growing need for a mixture of skills: more and more new tasks are arising at the interface of digital, cultural and technical competence and that of memory institutions. However, perfectly tailored offers are only gradually appearing on the education and training market, and this state of affairs will continue unless the job market plays along in terms of job profiles, recruitment criteria and groupings. A chicken-or-egg problem.  

Learning for the future

One recurrent teaching partnership has been established with Philipps-University of Marburg as part of its Master's degree programme in "Cultural Data Studies". This is based at the Marburg Center for Digital Culture and Infrastructure (MCDCI). The institution's own seminar on "Cultural Heritage and Digital Transformation", offered during the winter semester of 2022/23, was followed during the winter semester of 2023/24 by a cooperative partnership at the same location involving the project seminar "Cultural Artefacts and Artificial Intelligence", which incorporated the DNB areas 2D/DNBLab, AEN/KI and DEA/interactive eyewitness interviews.

DNB module at the IBI

As part of its cooperative teaching partnership with the Humboldt University's Master's degree programme in "Information Science", the DNB will be offering its own compulsory elective module on "Cultural Heritage and Digital Transformation" at the Institute for Library and Information Science (IBI) starting in the summer semester of 2024. This will consist of a series of lectures, a practical component and a seminar. The IBI is the only university-level library science institution in Germany. This is a great strategic success. During the first round, the author and Dr. Dennis Mischke from the university library at the Free University of Berlin will be delivering a series of lectures and a practical exercise titled "Library and Digital Humanities", which will involve a larger number of external authorities on the subject. The author will also be cooperating with Dr. Ramon Voges from the DNB's German Museum of Books and Writing to deliver a seminar on "Library and Digital History". Both courses are will be offered throughout the university in the hope of attracting a large audience from a wide range of disciplines.

Expanding funding, establishing a transfer workshop

More good news: during 2023, the DNB was able to secure funding from the BMBF for the joint project "HERMES – Humanities Education in Research, Data, and Methods". The DNB has been working on nine sub-projects in cooperation with eight research institutions in Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate since 15 November 2023 (funding quota: 11 out of 74, total funding: EUR 3.1 million, funding period: 3 years). In the course of its activities, the DNB has acquired a temporary full-time E13 position and considerable material resources. It is dedicating a significant share of these resources to the expansion and further development of the digital humanities fellowships (in cooperation with another HERMES partner, the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG)).

Another area of focus: the establishment and supervision of a series of workshop events known as the "Transfer Workshop", during which a variety of solutions for study curricula, job profiles, collective agreements etc. are being developed in response to the ongoing, digitally driven changes in the GLAM sector. The DNB is tackling this task in cooperation with another HERMES partner, the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe (HI – also a member of the Leibniz Association).

Academic qualification papers, dissertations and theses

Moreover, the German Museum of Books and Writing is assisting students at the University of Leipzig and Leipzig University of Applied Sciences with their dissertations and theses, beginning with the selection of topics relating to holdings or data and introductions to cataloguing and metadata management through to final grading and second assessments. 2023 saw increased investment in vocational training for young people, i.e. in internships, teaching posts, cooperative projects and the Federal voluntary service.

DNB for NFDI: German Newspaper Portal goes Text+

The NFDI's objective is to systematically catalogue and link valuable science and research data stock for the entire German knowledge system while improving its quality and making it available for long-term use. Text+ is one of 27 specialised NFDI consortia funded by the federal and state administrations. 2023 saw it take an important step forward.

More than 30 institutions are working in Text+ with the aim of developing an infrastructure for language and text data – with the DNB playing a leading role in the Collections data domain. In 2023, the DNB reached a milestone in its work in Text+: the integration of the German Newspaper Portal into the Text+ full-text search function (Federated Content Search, short: FCS). The German Newspaper Portal has been facilitating free access to digitised historical newspapers from German cultural and academic institutions since 2021. It is a sub-portal of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (German Digital Library) which brings newspaper archives together, makes them visible online and allows them to be used free of charge.

Central search in numerous sources

The Text+ FCS enables researchers to search dozens of research data sources simultaneously by entering just one central search query. The resources include German and foreign-language dictionaries as well as large text corpora such as the German Text Archive and TextGrid – and now also the German Newspaper Portal. It is also possible to perform complex searches, e.g. to collate material for purposes of linguistic research. The integration of the German Newspaper Portal means that Text+ now has another valuable treasury of sources to offer, particularly for persons carrying out historical research.

New access routes, new contexts

The central search option is significantly more convenient for researchers. Moreover, the combined presentation of search results from various sources also reveals new interrelations and cross-references which would have remained hidden if each resource had been searched separately. The German Newspaper Portal's integration into the FCS has opened up another access route to approx. 20 million historical newspaper pages – a route especially suited to research communities.

This substantial contribution to the infrastructure of Text+ is a major success for the DNB, which is thus fulfilling its role as the leading institution in the Collections data domain and one of its eleven certified data and competence centres. You can find out about the DNB's activities in Text+ and the other three NFDI humanities consortia – such as the provision of the infrastructure for the Integrated Authority File (GND) – in this blog post.

Find more information about the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) and Text+

History of democracy: New home for a new foundation

Rooting the history of democracy in Germany more deeply in remembrance culture: this is the mission of the "Stiftung Orte der Deutschen Demokratiegeschichte" (Foundation for Sites of German Democratic History). Its goal is to have more people explore the development of German democratic history, thus strengthening democratic participation and civil courage in society. The German National Library has been the foundation's home since 2023.

The “Stiftung Orte der Deutschen Demokratiegeschichte” was established in 2023 under the aegis of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media. Many people are unaware that numerous places in Germany played a pivotal role in the development of democracy. Yet these are the places which symbolise democratic tradition in Germany and can communicate the value of free democratic basic order particularly well. It was decided that the foundation would be located in the city of Frankfurt am Main because of the unique role played by the Main metropolis in the history of the German state.

On 18 May 1848, the members of the first German national parliament convened at the Paulskirche (St. Paul's Church) in Frankfurt am Main, where they discussed a liberal constitution with basic rights and the formation of a German nation state. In keeping with its purpose, the foundation supports projects in the field of historico-political education and mediation – thus helping to strengthen democracy and foster an empowered, enlightened civil society.

The German National Library as a place of democracy

Great value has been attached to the ties between the German National Library and the history of democracy ever since the beginning. After all, the German National Library is an institution which fosters a sense of identity and pursues the aim of promoting democracy in keeping with its legal mandate. The German National Library with its German Exile Archive 1933–1945 has itself been designated a place of democracy. It therefore seemed natural not only to give the foundation a home in 2023, but also to actively support it. The German National Library is providing a helping hand in the administrative department, for example by recruiting staff, giving legal advice and offering support in matters relating to budget and organisation.