On Tuesday afternoon, 10. March 2009, I visited with Herr Eigenbrodt at Humboldt University. Herr Eigenbrodt is the Building Consultant and Public Relations Officer of the Humboldt University Libraries. I was able to talk with him about many things, the most interesting of which is the construction of a new central library that is scheduled to open this coming summer.

In opening this new library, Humboldt will be consolidating its main collection with several of its branch libraries. I was lucky enough to see the exterior of the new structure as well as plans for the interior. The space has been planned very elegantly with group study rooms, computers, and more secluded areas for people looking for quiet.

I had been hearing about the increase in students bringing their own laptops to the library as opposed to using the provided computers. When asked about the amount of computers scheduled to be installed in the new library, Herr Eigenbrodt informed me that the libraries had been keeping close tabs on this situation. The original plans were to have 800 computers available for the students and public. They decided to drop this amount to approximately 600.

Because I had already found out that the FU Philology Library had not planned room for collection expansion, I asked what the plans were for the new Humboldt Library. They are planning for up to 10 years of expansion.

During this visit, I was also given a tour of one of Humboldt’s branch libraries. The Theological Library is located just across the Spree River. As we walked through the reference collection one book caught my eye. It was the German version of ‘Who is Who’.

I also asked about the possibility of job opportunities for Americans in German libraries. It seems that there are some jobs available, though it helps to have a niche that not many others are in. One in particular is contract negotiations between libraries and vendors.

All in all this was a fantastic trip. If you any questions for me, please feel free to email at:
jeremy.shawmunderback@simmons.edu

Thanks,

Jeremy

This morning I ventured back to the Freie Universitaet, this time to the Philology Library to speak with Frau Diecks. Because it is primarily a faculty library, there were slightly different topics discussed as compared to the Main Library.

The library building itself is fairly new and it is an amazing work of architecture. Because of the layout of the campus, when planning began, the architect was told that the library would have to fit into the courtyard. He came up with a dome shape with 5 levels, one below ground. Each floor comes near to the dome but never touches. The edges of each floor are lined by thin tables to maximize the number of students can use the space. The middle of each floor holds the stacks.

This may have you wondering…’What about group study spaces?’ Amazingly, there is only one group study room. It is located on the way out of the library through a basement tunnel. In the mid 90’s, when the library was being planned, group space was not as popular as it is in the present day.

This being said, the library is still one of the most used on campus. Many students prefer it to the main library. This led to some problems during the weeks prior to exams. Because all of the Philology students would be studying, there would not be enough room for others to come in. Although it caused some political challenges, the library decided to close the library to outsiders during these busy weeks in order to better serve their main user group.

The library was planned to only hold the current number of volumes. This, of course, means that when the school wants to develop the collection it must first weed it. There are actually some student volunteers that help the library weed the collection. They then hold a book sale, the profits of which are used to buy books that are of interest of the students. This is a change, because it is usually faculty who shape the direction of the collection development.

I found that the biggest downside to the library was that the shape of the dome accentuates noise levels. Therefore, if you talk on one side, you can be heard nearly everywhere. This makes the library a great place to read or work alone, but any type of collaboration is hard without being disruptive.

More to follow,

Jeremy

I just returned from a meeting with Frau Dr. Rothe and Herr Dr. van Capelleveen of the Main Library of the Free University (FU) of Berlin. We talked at length about the management of the library, intellectual freedom, classification, and more. Read on to see what I learned!

The first thing I questioned was the way intellectual freedom is handled. From prior knowledge, I knew that certain controversial works were given special treatment in the libraries. I asked about works, such as Mein Kampf, and was told that the FU library was on the liberal end of the spectrum here in Germany. At this library, these types of works are held in the rare books collection so that they are accessible to all, but they are not allowed out of the library. This is to prevent them from disappearing, either to people opposed to the work or the Neo-Nazi movement wanting to keep the copy. Not all of the books held in this fashion have to do with the Nazi movement. This treatment is of all controversial works, one example of a recent addition to the collection was about the Armenian Genocide.

The classification system of the library is somewhat different than the US. However, the Universities do use a standard similar to AACR2. Librarians here were considering a more international friendly system, but because AACR2 is already quite old, they have decided to wait until the next system is agreed upon.

The management of the library is very similar to the states. The Director reports to the President and the Chancellor of the University. The President is the person who looks at the political aspects of the system while the Chancellor manages the financial information. The department heads then report to the Director.

Of course the discussion turned also to politics, the economy, and the University system as a whole. Because attending University in Germany is virtually free (fees for students go toward insurance, public transit passes, etc. and usually are not more than 1000E per year), the majority of money the University receives is from taxes. There are also very few grants available, especially when compared to the US. Unfortunately, much like the US, the funding for the library has been continually declining. A joke shared between us was that the only numbers going up were those for Inter-Library Loan statistics.

Amazingly, Inter-Library Loan is quite wide (the University can borrow from any other in Germany) and is free. Because the University is funded by taxes, there is no charge for non-students either. This may change in the future, but the numbers discussed were less than 2E per request.

We also discussed electronic information (journals, databases, etc). The Main Library at FU has about 500 databases and has access to thousands of journals. They also have access to some E-Books, but there is less want for this because the majority are in English. Also, most of the faculty prefer journals for the speed in which they are published.

Anyway, that is all for now…I am off for a little bit of wandering!