Session Number
05
Description
Academic libraries in the Federal Republic of Germany had, after World War II, to devote their main activities on collection development with emphasis on periodical collections. Circumstances recommended decentralized cooperative acquisition programmes coordinated and supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Besides these decentralized special collections, local serials collections developed in number and coverage to a fair standard: the traditional universities were enlarged, former Technische Hochschulen expanded to full universities, new universities were founded. Both local and regional/supra-regional activities led up to acceptable satisfaction rates. These were positively influenced by the creation of periodical holding lists (local, regional, national) , culminating in the Berlin Periodical Data Base.
The entire development was favoured by economic prosperity, which declined gradually in the late seventies and dramatically in 1982. Academic libraries in the Federal Republic had suddenly to face the same challenge as libraries in the USA and other countries some years earlier.
One of the immediate reactions of academic libraries was the cancellation of more than 25,000 current periodicals. The existence of decentralized special collections (Sondersammelgebiete) was basic to the line of decision taken by local library systems. Problems and implications of the present situation, with its impact on the publishing and the user community, are briefly discussed. Given conditions in the Federal Republic determine procedures of reducing acquisition programmes and resource sharing. These are to be seen within a changing world of information development and new ways of publishing outside the paper medium. Extreme resource sharing is seen as fundamentally fatal to a desirabie balance of the socio-economic system of research, publishing and library activities.
Periodicals Collections in Academic Libraries of the Federal Republic of Germany: Development and Managerial Aspects
Academic libraries in the Federal Republic of Germany had, after World War II, to devote their main activities on collection development with emphasis on periodical collections. Circumstances recommended decentralized cooperative acquisition programmes coordinated and supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Besides these decentralized special collections, local serials collections developed in number and coverage to a fair standard: the traditional universities were enlarged, former Technische Hochschulen expanded to full universities, new universities were founded. Both local and regional/supra-regional activities led up to acceptable satisfaction rates. These were positively influenced by the creation of periodical holding lists (local, regional, national) , culminating in the Berlin Periodical Data Base.
The entire development was favoured by economic prosperity, which declined gradually in the late seventies and dramatically in 1982. Academic libraries in the Federal Republic had suddenly to face the same challenge as libraries in the USA and other countries some years earlier.
One of the immediate reactions of academic libraries was the cancellation of more than 25,000 current periodicals. The existence of decentralized special collections (Sondersammelgebiete) was basic to the line of decision taken by local library systems. Problems and implications of the present situation, with its impact on the publishing and the user community, are briefly discussed. Given conditions in the Federal Republic determine procedures of reducing acquisition programmes and resource sharing. These are to be seen within a changing world of information development and new ways of publishing outside the paper medium. Extreme resource sharing is seen as fundamentally fatal to a desirabie balance of the socio-economic system of research, publishing and library activities.