Citation
Goldschmitt, R. (2001), "VISIONS and PORTALS: The Big Meeting of the Wisdom-Advisors", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 18 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2001.23918fac.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2001, MCB UP Limited
VISIONS and PORTALS: The Big Meeting of the Wisdom-Advisors
Regina Goldschmitt
Every year a conference takes place in Germany that offers librarians from public and research libraries[1] the opportunity to explore new fields and expand their professional expertise. The Bielefeld University Library under the supervision of the library director Dr Karl-Wilhelm Neubauer excellently organized this year's conference, the 91st German Conference of Librarians. The sponsors were the two major German associations, VDB (Verein Deutscher Bibliothekare e.V. Association of German Librarians) and BIB (Berufsverband Information Bibliothek e.V. Professional Association of Library Information) The Librarians Conference also hosted the annual meeting of the DBV (Deutschen Bibliotheksverbandes e.V. German Library Association), enabling standing committees, commissions, and working committees of all associations to meet and the annual membership meeting to take place. The conference was held under the auspices of the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia Wolfgang Clement.
The sponsors gave this year's event an attractive motto: "Libraries Portals to Global Knowledge." The word "portal" is meant to refer to both the entrance of a library and the virtual entry into the world of information. In the figurative sense, the word also conjures images of the "open library" and the "open world of libraries." Nothing is demanded more from our profession today than to be open to the application of new technologies, new ideas, and new structures, because the Internet has greatly altered the traditional processes of communication and publication throughout the entire world. These global changes are by no means completed; we are in the middle of a major transformation. Many new electronic forms are emerging and competing with one another for the publication, dissemination, and transmission of information and knowledge. Our practical, daily library work is affected by this change, is subject to its demands, and must integrate these new forms by way of innovative know-how, flexible use of manpower, and cross-sectional functions. In this context it is to mention that one of the speakers visualized the librarian as a "wisdom-advisor".
The 91st German Conference of Librarians was dedicated to this complex theme. In the more than 200 meetings on 16 general topics that took place during these four early spring days, participants addressed issues concerning the creation and operation of informational portals, the cooperative use of electronic resources, the newest developments in archival servers and electronic journals, managerial and legal aspects, user training, basic and advanced training for librarians, the special characteristics of public libraries, research libraries and one-person libraries. In this report, the most important contributions will be presented on the following topics:
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portal and digital libraries;
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user training;
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electronic journals;
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synergy effects through integrated access to networked resources;
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Preservation and old books.
In addition to talks and project presentations followed by open discussion, there were also company and product presentations, workshops, various application meetings, and as a special highlight, the Biblio-Visions. Attending the conference were more than 2,300 people from 18 countries, and 110 exhibitors, who crowded into the arena and the wings of the conference center.
Portals and Digital Libraries
The conference motto set the stage and was referred to time and again in the various talks and presentations for the duration of the conference, thus enabling each participant to get a good look at portals. Worldwide, libraries are offering their own electronic and electronically supported services on the Internet, although they use technical standards that differ from one another, such as HTML, XML, http and Z39.50. Organization and structure are often dictated by national developments, whereas commercial firms in the information market develop and sell new functions and products. Each digital library must decide for itself which of these different services it wishes to make available to its users and customers through its portal. Portal sites can compile specialized databases, OPACs, union catalogues, full-text data, public-domain Internet search engines, document delivery services, online bookstores, and other electronic sources into a uniform framework of information by using only one, homogeneous user interface. It makes no difference whether the resources being made available are local or global, public domain or licensed ones. All types of media can also be integrated (monographs, journal articles, preprints, audiovisual media, and other documents).
The variety and amount of available information often make portals appear confusing; therefore they require a very good structure. If universal entry structures exist, then the portals are called horizontal portals.
Vertically structured portals, however, are arranged according to topic or product, such as Die virtuelle Fachbibliothek[2] (The virtual library) a project sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG German Research Foundation)[3]. Sven Meyenburg from the TIB Hannover explained that the infrastructure of research libraries is to be adapted with the help of the project Die Virtuelle Fachbibliothek to electronic forms of information and communication. In order to integrate all information and documentation relevant to a subject, it must first be possible from a central location to make decentralized resources accessible and recherché interdisciplinary. Two other examples of vertical portals presented were the Internetportal Medizin[4] (Internet Portal Medicine) and the Internetportal Wirtschaft[5] (Internet Portal Economics). Participating in the latter of these are the database providers GBI, the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA), the German National Library for Economics of the Kiel Institute of World Economics (ZBW), and the Institute for Economic Research Munich (ifo).
A further distinction is made between company or institutional portals and personal portals that are created for specific customers or individuals. The structure of a portal determines whether a metasearch is possible, that is a recherché running parallel throughout the entire database pool, or whether the user can select certain types of databases or conduct a specific search using the proprietary data interface of the provider. The optimal situation is when all three options are open to the user. Especially with this in mind, three examples are presented here: the Digitale Bibliothek NRW (Digital Library NRW), the portal of the Bielefeld University Library, and the Regionale Datenbanken Information (ReDI Regional Database Information). In Germany, it is generally library networks that operate and centrally administer digital libraries. For example, the HBZ-Verbund (HBZ-Network) operates the Digitale Bibliothek NRW (Digital Library NRW), the Bibliotheksverund Bayern (Library Network of Bavaria) has the Gateway Bayern (Gateway Bavaria), and the Südwest-Verbund (Southwest Network) features the Digitale Bibliothek Baden-Württemberg (Digital Library of Baden-Württemberg). The participating libraries each have their own schema, into which they integrate their specific databases.
The Digitale Bibliothek NRW (hereafter: digibib)[6] was opened in June 1999. Currently, more that 30 libraries participate, thereby linking about 120 various databases (OPAC, union catalogues, technical databases, electronic full-text data, document delivery services, etc.). Dr Peter Kostädt, who was extensively involved in setting up digibib, presented user statistics in order to demonstrate how very successful particularly the concept has been in conducting parallel searches in specialized databases that are compiled according to specific schemas, such as medicine, chemistry, and mathematics. Friedrich Summann, who is responsible for integrating digibib into the portal of the Bielefeld University Library, explained that in the Bielefeld portal[7] it is just as possible to conduct a metasearch as it is a search in the specific schemas of digibib, without the user noticing the transition. As in many external databases (Ovid, Silverplatter, etc.) it remains possible to conduct a metasearch parallel to an individual one in most of the local databases (OPAC, JADE, JASON). This dual approach definitely makes sense, because there are advantages and disadvantages to both types of search with regard to search- and display-functionality, additional functions, availability checks, and performance.
A metasearch is not possible, however, in ReDI (Regional Database Information), the portal to information from the Digital Library of Baden-Württemberg. Instead, 130 specialized and factual databases are available, whose different structures and specific thesauri make parallel searches appear to be rather pointless, let alone that this would be extremely difficult to perform technically, says Hans-Adolf Ruppert from the Freiburg University Library. ReDI coordinates and consolidates the purchase of hardware and software, the licensing of databases, and the operation and support of the 40 participating institutions. An important element of ReDI is the decentralized process of authentication, which can evaluate the databases of each library. Portals enable authentication, authorization, recherché, proof of availability, access to full-text and much more. Everywhere, efforts are being made to improve the existing system and to establish new forms of functionality. Some of the most recently developed features of digibib include:
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a database profile editor, which helps users create their own database profiles (personalization when logging in);
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a display of the results from search fields, which are not supported in the search (to explain why no hits were made here);
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the downloading of search results in the form of short titles or individual formats; and
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user-defined profile services.
Currently, digibib is testing a Web-tunnel that should enable users to probe outside the campus systems and thereby have access to the licensed services of the library. The user inquiry is being changed in the Web-tunnel of the digibib so that the IP of the digibib is given, not the user's, when the data provider conducts an IP-check. Unfortunately, users can see this process of authentication taking place insofar as an embedded link appears in their browsers instead of the original URL. Naturally, libraries and data providers or publishers must negotiate this issue beforehand.
Soon it should be possible to take out books, even to make inter-library loans, through the portal of the digibib, thanks to the help of a central inter-library loan module. The module will be able to process orders from registered users, to direct the order to the appropriate institution, and finally to record the processed order in the local library system. Since orders will be posted in a central database, users will be able to check on the status of their orders whenever they wish. Computer programmers from the Bielefeld university library, the HBZ, and the company Sisis are working to develop this system.
In addition, the digibib search engine is soon to obtain a search-history and status manager.
Plans are in the making to link ReDI more closely with the Digital Library of Baden-Württemberg in the future by way of:
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context-dependent help;
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an expanded user guidance in the form of a virtual master control system;
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integrating additional reference sources; and
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a cooperative information system with clearinghouse.
In addition, full-text data in the form of articles are to be made available at the ReDI through the Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek Regensburg (EZB Regensburg Library for Electronic Journals). The EZB is a gateway to electronic scientific publications that is run in cooperation with currently 140 libraries. Document delivery services and long-distance loans are then also to be integrated into ReDI.
Martin Hackemann from the FIZ Karlsruhe presented a talk on the legal problems and traps involved in creating and operating portals because market practices long established in the print publishing business cannot simply be applied to portals and digital libraries without any adaptation. Legal frameworks need to keep up with technical developments. The EU recognizes that the Internet is a growth market and is working on establishing appropriate policy and directives. In this context, a "portal" is understood to be an entryway to information, services, and products. Libraries offer to conduct searches in catalogues and databases, to process document orders, to deliver documents by fax, post, or electronic means, and to offer access to third-party providers. The responsibilities shouldered by a German portal provider and Web master are based on the general laws of the EU and Germany (German Civil Code, laws against unfair competition, proprietary rights and trademark law, telecommunications law (TKG) and telephone services law (TDG)). Service providers are responsible for the content of their own services and only partially responsible for the content of third-party providers. The responsibility of a Web master depends on the type of link involved:
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links to the homepage of a provider;
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inline-links or frames that integrate external services; or
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deep links that enter well into the information pools of third parties, bypassing their homepage and advertising.
Generally, it is permitted to set links; legally it is considered a to be an electronic footnote. Linking to outside Websites is mediating access in the sense of §5 (3) TDG. However, it is possible to be free of liability if the links are software-driven or the homepage in question acts like a marketplace and only contains references to other offers. A Web master cannot be held liable for individually placed links.
A third party does not have to tolerate being linked; it is possible to defend against links. Copyright protects link collections and portals if they can be interpreted as databases that are the product of personal creation (through the selection and classification of the elements). Naturally, various elements of a database (particularly text, images, film, music, software, etc.) are subject to copyright. The basic legal stipulations also always apply if contracts are signed through library portals. In this case, the user's contractual partner is no longer the library but the third-party provider, as soon as it is clear to the user who this is.
User Training
Although presentations on introducing the (technical) library services and on conveying Internet competency were part of the program, the general topic of user training did not address such difficult technical material because the central focus here was user orientation. Stephan Stieglitzki reported on the broad spectrum of training opportunities for beginners and advanced learners at the Internet Center of the Hamburger Öffentlichen Bücherhallen (Hamburg Public Book Halls). Birgit Denner from the Stadtbibliothek Köln (Cologne City Library) presented methodological and didactic considerations on planning Internet courses. Particularly important, in her opinion, were client concerns and practical aspects, as well as the principle of "learning by doing." Didactic and methodological skills have also been incorporated into the completely revamped overall training concept at the Medizinisch-wissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Mannheim (Mannheim Medical Research Library) and these were then demonstrated in the training session on "Electronic Journals for Doctors and Internet Usage in the Medical Field." In the subsequent sessions it also became obvious how important user-oriented training, practical learning, suitable training facilities with presentation and visualization capacities, and a well developed overall concept are. Dr Fabian Franke from the Würzburg University Library summarized the topic into a single imperative: switch from traditional, product-oriented "classroom" teaching to a participant-oriented form of moderating under the motto "don't teach, let learn." Irmgard Lankenau gave the last presentation on this general subject from the University Library of Koblenz-Landau. She turned the audience's attention to America in an effort to offer practical tips to learning. Unlike in Germany, information literacy in the USA has long become an integral element of university training. Librarians play an important role in this process, not only in setting up tutorial and teaching units, but also in taking on the campus-wide responsibility of offering beginning and advanced training to students and university faculty. American library organizations have been involved for years in this area and have implemented numerous activities that range from setting quality standards to evaluating the training offered.
Biblio-Visions
The morning of the second conference day was reserved for a single event, the Biblio-Visions. Over 1,000 conference members visited the largest movie theater of the Bielefeld Cinemaxx in order to let "Emotions, Actions, Lectures" the subtitle of the multimedia show entice them into librarians' visions. The host, Dr Karl-Wilhelm Neubauer, promised a trip through time that would be influenced by divine inspiration and prophetic abilities so as to develop visions for the future. Just as the changes in the world of information and publication have forced librarians out of their traditional niche, so were those attending the conference to venture down new, multimedia paths of presentation. Upon their arrival, the visitors were sent through a slalom course of flat screens and partitions on a trip through an array of lights, sounds, and projected images, all of which depicted how the world of information has developed from cuneiform script to the Internet.
Derk Haank, CEO of Elsevier Science, said he has enjoyed being one of the pioneers in the future of electronic publishing. He complained that conventional forms of publication have lost sight of the purpose of publishing because price increases have restricted access to only a very few and narrowed the range of content. As a result, an inadequate system of document delivery services, inter-library loans, and copying has arisen. In the future, however, everyone will have access to every type of content, be it a full-text or a database. The libraries should continue to pay Elsevier a considerable amount of money, Haank continued, so that the company can create a large system with even more access. The price is based on the amount of "usage" the customer-institution needs. Germany, one of the wealthiest countries in Europe, lags behind global developments because, in Haank's estimation, there is always too much griping about the costs involved.
Arnould de Kemp from Springer-Verlag described the historical development of the personal computer and made it clear that he thinks the Internet will soon be as commonplace as the telephone and television in our daily lives. Today there are already a billion pages in the Internet, but search engines can only reach about 35 percent of them. Studies show that little is retained from what is read on the screen. Consequently, one can already observe the shift from bound paper printed on both sides to unbound paper printed only on one side. De Kemp envisions text itself becoming a multimedia. He demonstrated CrossRef[8], a platform belonging to several publishers (including Springer Verlag) in which bibliographic quotes found in scientific publications can be networked electronically. On the metadata level, it is also possible to spring to full-text data, as long as licensing has already been obtained, of course. "The immediate future is more, more, more!" The immediate future includes:
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more information providers;
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more technical diversity in producing, using, and processing information, for example, in the form of preprints, updates, and dynamics;
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more visualization and enhanced information with multimedia;
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more content, for example, metadata, texts, images, video, sound, simulation, references and linkages;
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more access in the form of links, abstracts, indices, search engines, and information portals.
Wolf-Dieter Heß from Siemens Business Services sees the librarian of the future as an "organizer and inventor of the world's cultural memory." Berndt Dugall from the City and University Library of Frankfurt am Main calls the librarian of the future a "complexity scout" or a "wisdom advisor." According to Dugall, library networks need to expand into new markets (e.g. to recruit the public libraries as new customers) and offer new expertise and services (e.g. syndicated activities). They should strategically make these new tools available. With the world's largest library network in mind, namely the OCLC, Dugall pointed out that it would also be necessary in Germany to move away from library-oriented models of cooperatives and toward an end-user-oriented network with information harvesting and strategic alliances.
A video clip portrayed the library of the future as remaining a personal and people-oriented place despite the technical wonders thanks, to users and librarians.
With élan and enthusiasm, Dr Horst Neißer from the Cologne City Library outlined the new role of public libraries in the information society. Public libraries have long become much more than places merely for loaning out books. Instead, they are now centers of information and communication whose job it is to provide everyone access to information. In presenting his vision, Neißer asked whether a library could exist without media, for example if the client-server-model makes its way into our private lives and streaming technology is introduced into the libraries, enabling servers to request books, videos, or music and to read or play them on location. Neißer appealed to librarians to try out as many of the new opportunities as possible in order to keep pace with change. He referred to the pilot project on e-books in selected public libraries in Berlin, Dortmund, Hamburg and Cologne. His conclusion: "Libraries will play an important role in this change or they will cease to exist!"
In the final presentation of the Biblio-Visions, Dr Beate Tröger from the Deutsches Institute für Internationale Pädagogische Forschung (German Institute for International Pedagogical Research) demonstrated new ways to make the Internet and data more accessible. Existing knowledge and the search for information need to be brought together better in the future.
The Biblio-Visions were publicized as being a multimedia event, and the presenters did indeed make an effort to include colorful power points, short video clips, sound effects or musical backgrounds. A three-dimensional laser show, various short films, a charming moderator, and the two knowledge-hungry Roman time-travelers Marcus and Flavius livened up the series of presentations. Despite this variety and an intermission, during which everyone gathered in the foyer around tables decorated with flowers and hard disks, the attention span and patience of the audience was strained considerably by the five-hour duration of the entire multimedia show, during which the audience was expected to sit passively. It was unfortunate that the audience was not given the opportunity to participate or discuss. The keyword "interaction" could have been applied here just as well as in user training! Still, the concept of presenting talks in another form and with more variety was successful.
Electronic Journals
Many of the presentations on the topic of electronic journals dealt with business management or legal aspects. Alice Keller gave one of the best presentations, which will be discussed here extensively, from the Bibliothek der Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule Zürich (ETH-Library of the Swiss Technical University of Zürich). She presented her highly interesting dissertation on the future development of the (electronic) journal. She chose the Delphi Study for the basis of her research, an anonymous survey of experts over several sessions of questioning. The 45 experts from libraries, publishing houses, teaching and research institutions, subscription agencies, and consultant firms most of which were located in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the UK, the USA and The Netherlands were asked to evaluate certain aspects of electronic journals regarding content and the degree to which they were interdisciplinary and international. The results of the study show that it is impossible to clearly distinguish between electronic and print journals. In this regard, the findings of the Delphi Study are relevant for the future, not only of electronic journals, but of conventional ones as well in other words, for journals as a whole.
It was discovered that the electronic journal does not (yet) exist as an autonomous medium. There are various forms of electronic journals, with or without peer-review-process and in different layouts, but most are modeled closely after the print journal. Such "digital doubles" are considered by the experts to reflect a transitional phase in the development toward "truly" electronic journals, in which technical possibilities are fully exhausted in order to expand their functionality. Many highly specialized, peripheral journals will appear in an altered form or disappear altogether during the course of this transition. For each journal, numerous forms will be offered, and these enhanced features will increase both the value and naturally also the cost of the journal. In the future, users will place an increased premium on convenience, especially when it comes to file format and speed.
Experts found it hard to predict just how electronic journals will look in the future. They envisioned several scenarios, which could also exist simultaneously:
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There will be individually tailored collections of articles based on the personal profile of the user.
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The journal as a packaged product will disappear.
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Articles will be replaced by dynamic information objects.
The as yet unfinished transition in the world of scientific information and publication highlights both the advantages and disadvantages of commercial journals: journals are too slow in communicating and disseminating knowledge, and they reach too few readers. The strengths of the journal lie clearly in the quality controls and quality standards, yet these are the reasons why they are neither fast nor inexpensive. Eventually, two media or two publication methods will result from this paradox. Preprint archives are already today the greatest competitors of journals. CERN announced not long ago that it was introducing a review process of its preprints in order to enhance their quality. However, scholars still prefer journals with regard to quotability and prestige. In the opinion of the experts, digital doubles do not offer a solution to the much-cited crisis in journal publishing. New technologies, however, could in part contribute to a solution to the problem, for example with "pay-per-use" access, alternative price models and syndicate creations.
Archiving continues to pose a problem. Probably by the middle of this decade, libraries will stop keeping file copies, for this is a national task or a task to be tackled through cooperation between major international associations and commercial providers, but it is not one for the authors. The experts believe that libraries will cease to file print copies of journals around 2007, because by then print media will only represent a small, ever dwindling sector of interactive and multimedia communication.
As far as journal subscriptions are concerned, the experts estimate that the journals most important to a library will be subscribed to through licensing contracts and the rest through subscriptions on a "pay-per-use" basis. Possibly, this development will subject publishing to even stricter criteria of business management. The experts agree that there will be many ways a library can subscribe, pay, and access a broad spectrum of media. It will be the job of each library to find the model best suited to it.
Synergy Effects through Integrated Access to Networked Resources
Dr Inka Tappenberg from the City and University Library of Göttingen presented an excellent review of metadata. In the changing world of information, new forms of describing and administering scientific resources have become imperative. Standards have already been established to help characterize and search for digital resources in a uniform fashion. One such example is the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set[9], an interdisciplinary, interoperable schema of categories established in 1995. In addition to document description and retrieval, legal issues are becoming increasingly important. To meet this need, new projects and initiatives like Digital Object Identifier System (DOI)[10] and Interoperability of data in e-commerce systems (Indecs)[11] are attempting to administer personal, production, and sales rights over metadata. This is made difficult particularly by the dynamic nature of many a document, such as a change in the ownership of rights or an alteration of the access path. With regard to the unsolved problem of archiving electronic documents over a long period of time, metadata can also be used to formally describe archival structures and their transformation as part of the migration and emulation of electronic objects. In the course of this development, the functions assumed by metadata within the context of supplying information become all the more complex and demanding. This means that in the future no institution will be in a position to compile and update by itself all the metadata necessary for administrating a document. Therefore, cooperation between producers, processors, and distributors of scientific information is inevitable.
Many libraries, universities, professional associations, and research institutions operate their own document servers. All of these electronic archives contain metadata and most of them use the Dublin Core Metadata as their standard. However, until now, most of these institutions have compiled, accessed, and kept these metadata for themselves alone. It had not been possible to exchange metadata between servers or to collect automatically specific data to integrate into one's own server, so-called "harvesting." Precisely this problem is solved by the Open Archive Initiative (OAI)[12], which was enthusiastically presented by Hans-Joachim Wätjen from the Oldenburg Library and Information Center. The initiative, founded in 1999 by Paul Ginsparg, Rich Luce, and Herbert Van de Sompel, introduced the Protocol for Metadata Harvesting onto the market in January 2001. The OAMH-protocol is a low-barrier interoperability specification for the current exchange of metadata between systems. In addition to technical standards, it also offers an organizational framework. About 20 data providers are currently taking part in the initiative; in Germany, the participating institutions are the library of the Humboldt University of Berlin and the Oldenburg Library and Information Center. Wätjen appealed to the audience to join the initiative. His advice to those hesitating: "Do not wait for perfection!"
Another aspect of this general topic was an extensive presentation given on the project CARMEN, which creates cross-concordances between controlled indexing languages applicable to the field of social sciences, making it possible to conduct an integrated search for topical aspects in various data inventories, each with it own specific thesaurus.
Preservation and Old Books
Most of the presentations connected with the topic of preservation dealt with various cooperative projects on the national and international levels. Dr Wilhelm R. Schmidt from the City and University Library of Frankfurt am Main pointed out the synergy effects resulting from cooperation in microfilming and (retrospectively) digitizing. He talked about cooperation, for example, in the demarcation of responsibility and the material to be processed, as well as the potential and expandability of server solutions and www-presentation. Dr Rainer Hofmann presented the threefold concept of preservation practiced at the Federal Archives in Koblenz: deacidification of paper using the water-based "Bückeburg Process," microfilming, and a manual treatment of conservation.
Dr Thomas Stäcker from the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel (Herzog August Library, Wolfenbüttel) attracted a great deal of attention when he explained ways to make old printed material accessible on the Internet. Digitalization offers "old books" a bright, new future. Through digitalization and the posting of images over the Internet, carefully preserved and often rarely available inventories become more accessible. At the same time, there is hope that by offering digital surrogates, a greater degree of preservation can be attained. Stäcker elaborated on the various ways to access these books, ways that both do justice to the special features of old books and justify the expense of digitizing. One question answered in great detail pertained to whether digitized old prints, which usually are available as images, could and should be made available over the Internet to a greater degree than they are currently through the bibliographical access over the RAK, the German standard classification system for alphabetical cataloguing. Particularly important, on one side, are the standard Internet languages and structures (HTML, XML, etc.) and, on the other, the standardization of subject matter, such as classification by generic type (misc. writings, emblem books, festival description, astronomical calendars, pamphlets, etc.) and their formalization in document-type definitions.
Additional talks in this series introduced projects on the presentation of historical maps on the Internet; on provenance indexing in cooperative databases, and the on digitalization of German-language exile literature.
Hans Liegmann from The German Library Frankfurt spoke on the long-term accessibility of digital publications. Particularly problematic is that data carriers usually last longer than the system environment that is necessary to reproduce the stored data. Data migration, emulation, and functional concepts play an important role in the solution of this problem. Liegmann reiterated shortly the current international debate and referred to the European project NEDLIB[13]. The purpose of NEDLIB, as the networked European deposit library of the national libraries, will be to ensure the serviceableness of electronic publications in the future.
Innovation Award
What would a major conference be without an attractive entertainment program and impressive award ceremony? The former comprised many receptions, small and large, that were sponsored or organized by participating companies. One reception deserving particular mention was the birthday party hosted by Swets on the evening of the third conference day to celebrate the firm's centennial celebration. Dining on a lavish Asian buffet and entertained by belly dancing and a lottery, everyone there enjoyed themselves well into the night.
The third B.I.T.online Innovation Award was presented this year for outstanding university theses in library science. As part of the Innovation Forum 2001 put on by the BIB Commission on Education and Advanced Training, Christoph-Hubert Schütte, the editor of the professional journal for librarians B.I.T.online, presented the awards to the three prize winners, who were selected from a large pool of applicants. The selection criteria were, above all, based on applicability of the findings in the practices of the library profession and documentation. In his thesis, Markus Felder examined the options of self-employment open to librarians; Margarete Polok excellently compiled the strategies and concepts on long-range storage of digital publications in libraries; and Anja Große described examples and tips for online-marketing of public libraries. All three works will be published in a special edition of B.I.T.online.
Summary
So ends the rather inadequate attempt to summarize this year's German Conference of Librarians, for such a summary is doomed to fail in light of the broad spectrum of topics covered and the multitude of events held, many of them simultaneously. Everyone at the conference was faced with this problem of choosing between topics, although it was possible to "swing" between general topics. Fortunately, all of the presentations given at the conference will be included, as always, in a special edition of the Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie (ZfBB Journal for the Library Profession and Bibliography). All participants went home with a multitude of impressions, information, suggestions, and inspiration for their own work, regardless of whether they got these in personal discussions and exchanging experiences with colleagues, at talks, project reports, and workshops, or at company presentations.
Of course only a few of these interesting and professionally excellent projects are applicable without bother to other libraries because of their individual context (financial, personnel structure, resources, etc.). Let us hope that we succeed in transferring the diverse contents and impetus giving ideas of this great conference to our librarians' daily life to keep pace with the rapid developments in publishing and librarianship. That will not be at all difficult for the genuine "wisdom-advisor".
Notes
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In Germany, unlike in the Anglo-American library profession, a major distinction is made between "public" (öffentliche) and "research" (wissenschaftliche) libraries. The English terms do not reflect this distinction precisely, although they are the terms generally used. German public libraries serve the literary and informational needs of the general public in their immediate area, whereas research libraries are specialized in the areas used by the scholars and university faculty of the institutions to which they are associated.
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- 3.
The DFG is the central public funding organization for academic research in Germany. It is thus comparable to a research council or a national research foundation.
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Regina Goldschmitt (golds@mpp-rdg.mpg.de ), born 1966 in Erlangen, Germany, completed an apprenticeship as a bookseller before she studied publishing, sinology and economics at the Universities of Erlangen-Nuernberg (Germany) and Fu Ren Da Xue in Taipei (Taiwan). After her graduation (Master of Arts) in 1995 she went to the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz as a trainee in librarianship. Since 1998 she has been the head of the library of the newly founded Max-Planck-Projectgroup "Common Goods: Law, Politics and Economics" in Bonn, Germany. She built up a small but exquisite reference library that serves the information needs of the Projectgroup's scientists.