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Niedersachsische Staats-und Universitatsbibliothek Gottingen (Goettingen State and University Library)
Platz der Goettinger Sieben 1, 37070 Goettingen, Germany
www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/index.html

History

The library was founded in 1734 at the same time as Goettingen University and was officially opened in 1737. Its core collection of some 12,000 volumes consisted of three smaller sets: the library of the Goettingen high school (history, Classical philology, and theology), the library left by Joachim Hinrich von Buelow (1650-1724) of Hanover (a universal library in which historical, political and legal literature predominated), and duplicates of items in the royal library in Hanover.

Photograph: SUB Goettingen (Left), Martin Liebetruth (Right)

The collection philosophy of the early years was based on the Enlightenment approach of collecting all literature in all areas of scholarship from all over the world as well as the sources that the literature used. Foreign works were obtained directly from residents abroad and book dealers. Since this approach was followed not just during the first decades of the library's existence but over the entire time even unto this day, the library has achieved a high degree of completeness in its collections, making it a model of a modern scholarly universal library. Although the two World Wars of the 20th century disrupted the collection development of the library, only a few items of its holdings of about 941,000 volumes were destroyed, which led to a leading role of the library in inter-library loan services in the post-war period. For its achievements in this area, the library was given the title “Niedersaechsische Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek” in 1949. In the same year, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft re-organized the national special collections program, giving the library new areas to enhance its traditional areas of strength.



    Photographs: Ronald Schmidt

The library developed electronic catalogues of journals and monographs through the 1970s, and in 1982, the Lower Saxony library computer center was set up in Goettingen. With the acquisition of the Lower Saxony PICA software system, this grew in 1993 into the GBV, a consortium of northern German libraries with an electronic catalogue. Since then, the North German Central Catalogue and the catalogue systems of the states of Mecklenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia have been added.





The post-war period saw a concentrated restoration of the damaged and destroyed buildings in conjunction with increasing the size of the library’s holdings. Various parts of these holdings were moved as divisional libraries into their current buildings. The main library’s new building was erected over the time period 1986-1992. The Historical Library Building on the original premises is now used for special divisions as well as for the research library. Since 1990 the German Imprints Program 1701-1800 has been housed there.

The Goettingen Digitization Center was built up as part of a program "Retroactive Digitizing of Library Holdings" in 1997. It is responsible for developing prototypes in this field, as well as for taking over digitizing services for other libraries. The library also serves as the library of the Goettingen Academy of Sciences.

On October 24th 2002 the library was presented with the German Library of the Year 2002 award for “the impulse-giving and exemplary cooperative work for the improvement of service to libraries in Germany, the successful cooperation in international projects, and the outstanding achievement in combining the library's historic legacy with modern technology so that multimedia services could be created for patrons”. For the fifth time in succession the library was at top of the nationwide library ranking “BIX” in the category “two-tier university libraries” in 2008. The library distinguished itself by outstanding performance in the field of development and services. In the same year 2008, the library was selected as landmark within the contest “Germany - Land of Ideas” in acknowledgement of its multiple activities undertaken as a centre of competence for digital library development.

Collections

Today the library is one of the largest libraries in Germany. Its holdings exceed six million media units, among them 13,000 current print journal subscriptions, 13,400 manuscripts, 3,100 incunabula, 308,000 maps and plans, 390 sets of literary remains, as well as extensive digital holdings. The library provides user-friendly and differentiated offering of research and study facilities.

The specific collections include, among others, manuscripts and rare imprints, among which is a copy of the Gutenberg Bible printed on parchment around 1454; German and foreign maps and atlases from all geographical areas and covering all topics; and the collection of gifts from the physician general to the Russian Imperial Army Georg Thomas von Asch (1729-1807).

Services and Responsibilities

Daily, some 4,500 to 5,000 individuals use the new library building that is open 116 hours a week. Hundreds of thousands of books and journals are freely accessible in the new library building, the divisional libraries and the Historical Library Building. Almost 1,200 workplaces (including carrels and group workplaces) are available.



          Photograph: Tobias Möller-Walsdorf (Right)

The SUB also provides lending and document-delivery service in microfilm formats and digitized versions. The Goettingen Digitization Center takes on digitization projects that demand the highest standards. Among its many important projects have been the digitization of Goettingen Gutenberg Bible, itinerary literature, early North-Americana, and works of intellectual history of the 18th and 19th century.

Internet publishing for students and researchers is supported in a variety of ways including multi-media facilities for teaching and learning (Learning Resources Center).The library's web site and full-text server are accessed more than 10 million times a year.

The library’s digital library comprises large numbers of electronic databases, journals, books, dissertations, and multimedia items. It offers Internet portals focused on its numerous special collections fields, virtual subject libraries, and Internet guides, all of which are intensively used by an international public. The Research & Development Department works with numerous national and international partners in projects of standardization and cooperation. In this way, new, future-oriented services are continually developed.