The DNB as a partner in research – what is the Scientific Service?

The Scientific Service is the first point of contact at the DNB for researchers and interested parties. Its aim is to make the cultural heritage of the German National Library more visible, accessible, and dynamic. The employees of the Scientific Service support, initiate, and coordinate scientific research projects, identify suitable external funding sources, and expand the DNB's network with research institutions and universities.

Research in the digital age

The digital transformation is changing research – and with it the range of tasks performed by the DNB. The field of digital humanities is growing rapidly. In addition to its core tasks of preserving, structuring, and contextualising information, the DNB is increasingly focusing on actively offering data and collaborating with others. This is making the DNB an increasingly proactive partner in research processes. The Scientific Service supports this development on many levels.

The Scientific Service is one of a wide range of services for science and research. You can find out more about our work as a partner to science in 2024 here:

Connecting Culture & Science

Milestones 2024: New research collaborations

From the outset, the Scientific Service's main objective has been to establish the DNB as an attractive partner for science and to actively support research projects. Eight innovative research projects were identified and launched in the first year alone. These cover a broad spectrum of the humanities and social sciences. A first application for external funding was submitted in 2024.

As the DNB knows its holdings and metadata best, it can not only handle external research requests, but also provide new impetus itself—for example, for academic theses. In this way, it also contributes to the promotion of young academics. In 2024, this led to a collaboration between the Digital Humanities program at the University of Leipzig and two DNB departments: the German Museum of Booksand Writing Museum and the German Music Archive. The resulting theses are supervised by the university and the DNB.

Visibility: On the road at conferences in Germany

In order to raise awareness of the DNB's holdings, the Scientific Service regularly attends conferences. In 2024, for example, it joined forces with the DNBLab to offer a workshop on accessing and analysing the DNB's holdings using digital methods at the “Digital History and Citizen Science 2024” conference. Participants were shown how Jupyter Notebooks can be used to query and analyse the DNB holdings. The Scientific Service also presented the music collection and opportunities for research at the annual conference of the “Gesellschaft für Musikforschuung“ (GfM) in Cologne.

Networking and cooperation: committee work, lunch talks, and new networks

As mediators between science, society, and culture, the employees of the Scientific Service also actively participate in various committees. For example, they are members of the scientific advisory board of the Specialized Information Service for Political Science (Pollux) and part of the supervisory board of the EU-funded MECANO consortium, which consists of five European universities and eight partner institutions.

Cooperations are of central importance for the work of the Scientific Service, which is why expanding and maintaining these relationships is a high priority. In 2024, the Leipzig location succeeded in establishing new partnerships: The DNB became part of the Leipzig “Wissensspur“ joint initiative and participates in events organised by the Leipzig Science Network. Together with the newly acquired partner institutions, the first lectures and tourist events even took place last year.

Networking is very important for the Scientific Service, not only externally but also internally. Cooperation with other organisational units is essential for its work. Colleagues are regularly informed about activities via internal communication channels and are involved in these activities.

Promoting democracy: Virtual exhibition on 75 years Basic Law

In the future, the German National Library will focus even more strongly on becoming visible as a place of democracy, the rule of law, and freedom of opinion. The Scientific Service has consistently supported this goal since 2024 and organised a series of events on the topic, for example, around the 75th anniversary of the Basic Law. The anniversary was the occasion for a virtual exhibition on the Basic Law, in which the Scientific Service was involved. During the planning stage, cooperation talks were also held with various key players in political education, enabling the DNB to further expand its networks.

You can find out more about the diverse events in 2024 here.

Digitisation as a driving force: internal training

In 2024, the Scientific Service also provided a series of internal training courses in digital skills for DNB colleagues, including a training course on the OpenRefine software. It is also developing an innovative concept for teaching data skills.

Subject cataloguing of media works and authority data

In addition to research support, networking, and communication, the Scientific Service staff are also involved in the subject cataloguing of media works. In this way, the Scientific Service contributes to the maintenance of the German National Library's central (research) resources—the catalog and the Integrated Authority File. It is also involved in machine cataloging procedures and quality management.

Outlook and future challenges

After a successful first year, the Scientific Service is looking to the future with optimism. The established collaborations, innovative projects, and strategic networks form a solid basis for further work. What does the future hold? The further development of the digital infrastructure, the opening up of new fields of research, and continuous adaptation to the changing requirements of the scientific community will be particularly challenging in the future.

Making the DNB's rich holdings and metadata available for research and promoting innovative research approaches will remain the central tasks of the Scientific Service in the future. Through its work, it is making a significant contribution to establishing the DNB as an indispensable partner for science, culture, and society.