The Göttingen State and University Library ( or SUB Göttingen) is the library for
Göttingen University
Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...
as well as for the
Göttingen Academy of Sciences and is the state library for the German State of
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...
. One of the largest German academic libraries, it has numerous national as well as international projects in librarianship and in the provision of research infrastructure services. In the year 2002, the SUB Göttingen won the German Library of the Year (''Bibliothek des Jahres'') award. The directors are Thomas Kaufmann, Bela Gipp (Scientific Director) and Kathrin Brannemann (Administrative Director).
The library works under a dispersed system, with six branch libraries located in various academic departments, supplementing the central collection housed in the Central Library (construction completed in 1992) on the main campus and the Historical Library Building in downtown. The Historical Building holds manuscripts, rare books, maps, and a significant history-of-science collection and works in its special collections. In addition, its original core, the
SS. Peter and Paul's Church, Göttingen, has been made into an exhibition and lecture center through
adaptive reuse
Adaptive reuse is the reuse of an existing building for a purpose other than that for which it was originally built or designed. It is also known as recycling and conversion. The adaptive reuse of buildings can be a viable alternative to new con ...
and reconstruction.
As of December 2016, the SUB Göttingen holds some 8 million media units, among which are 5.9 million volumes, 1.6 million microforms, 50,000 licensed electronic journals as well as 126,000 further digital media, 327,000 maps and more than 14,000 manuscripts, 3,100 incunabula and 400 ''
Nachlässe'' (literary remains).
It possesses a
Gutenberg Bible
The Gutenberg Bible, also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42, was the earliest major book printed in Europe using mass-produced metal movable type. It marked the start of the "Printing Revolution, Gutenberg Revolution" an ...
(one of only four perfect vellum copies known to exist).
The SUB Göttingen has maintained the Göttingen
Center for Retrospective Digitization
The Center for Retrospective Digitization in Göttingen () is an online system for archiving academic journals maintained by the University of Göttingen.
See also
*JSTOR
JSTOR ( ; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library of aca ...
(GDZ) since 1997. It also operates the Göttingen University Press, which has been expanding since its foundation in 2003 and is committed to the
Open access
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...
principle. Since its establishment in 2004, the library's Department for Research and Development has been instrumental in the development of new services such as the establishment of virtual research environments and infrastructures for scientific data and services.
Within the framework of the
Collection of German Prints
Collection or Collections may refer to:
Computing
* Collection (abstract data type), the abstract concept of collections in computer science
* Collection (linking), the act of linkage editing in computing
* Garbage collection (computing), autom ...
, the SUB Göttingen collects publications of the 18th century. Within the Specialised Information Services Programme funded by the
German Research Foundation
The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bud ...
(DFG), it operates the specialised information services Mathematics (since 2015, with the
German National Library of Science and Technology
The German National Library of Science and Technology (), abbreviated TIB, is the national library of the Federal Republic of Germany for all fields of engineering, technology, and the natural sciences. It is jointly funded by the Federal Mini ...
(TIB Hannover)), Anglo-American Culture (since 2016, with the Library of the J. F. Kennedy Institute of the Free University of Berlin), Geosciences of the Solid Earth (since 2016, with the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ Potsdam)) and Finno-Ugric / Uralic Languages, Literature and Culture (since 2017). In cooperation with the University Library "Georgius Agricola" of the Technische Universität
Bergakademie Freiberg (UBF), the SUB Göttingen maintains a large online collection of geoscience-related materials, the GEO-Library Experts Online, or GEO-LEO.
The SUB Göttingen coordinates the establishment of a nationwide competence center for the licensing of electronic resources (together with the
Berlin State Library
The Berlin State Library (; officially abbreviated as ''SBB'', colloquially ''Stabi'') is a universal library in Berlin, Germany, and a property of the German public cultural organization the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation ().
Founded in ...
and the Head Office of the Common Library Network (GBV). Since 2014, it has operated the Göttingen eResearch Alliance (together with the University Computing Centre (GWDG). The library coordinates the DARIAH-DE project for the development of research infrastructures in Germany, and supports the consortial establishment of open access research infrastructures (OpenAIRE 2020, COAR) across Europe and worldwide.
History
The Library was founded in 1734, three years before the university. Its first director was
Johann Matthias Gesner
Johann Matthias Gesner (9 April 1691 – 3 August 1761) was a German classical scholar and schoolmaster.
Life
He was born at Roth an der Rednitz near Ansbach. His father, Johann Samuel Gesner, a pastor in Auhausen, died in 1704, leaving the fam ...
, who remained in the position until his death in 1763. It soon was considered one of the leading research libraries in Germany, pioneering cataloging systems (then in large bound volumes).
Christian Gottlob Heyne
Christian Gottlob Heyne (; 25 September 1729 – 14 July 1812) was a German classical scholar and archaeologist as well as long-time director of the Göttingen State and University Library. He was a member of the Göttingen school of history.
...
's directorship (1763–1812) laid the basis for the library's status. However, a half century of reduced financing then weakened the library's status. Only in 1866, with official Prussian sponsorship, did the library again begin to flourish. Both
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; ; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was an outstanding poet, writer, and literary criticism, literary critic of 19th-century German Romanticism. He is best known outside Germany for his ...
and
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
used and commented on the library in their time.
File:Besemann - Grosser Bibliothekssaal Goettingen (um 1820).png, Library hall (~1820)
File:Eberlein - Universitaetsbibliothek Goettingen (um 1800).png, The library (~1800)
File:Heyne-Lesesaal der Niedersächsischen Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, September 2022.jpg, Heyne Hall (2022)
File:Blick in den Heyne-Lesesaal der Niedersächsischen Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, September 2022.jpg, Bookshelves in the Heyne Hall (2022)
In 1992, a new central library building located just outside the city center (Altstadt) was opened. The previous main building, now the Historical Building, houses manuscripts, rare books and some other special collections. Meanwhile, department-specific collections are still held in facilities at various academic departments.
Bibliography
*Fast, Jan-Jasper, Tobias Möller: ''The Future with Tradition: The Göttingen State and University Library''.
ransl. Kim Dammers, Isabel D. HolowatyGöttingen: Georg-August-Univ., 2003.
*Elmar Mittler: "Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen," in Bernd Hagenau (ed.): ''Regionalbibliotheken in Deutschland.'' Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2000. pp. 187–195.
*Fabian, Bernhard (ed.): ''Handbuch der historischen Buchbestände in Deutschland''. Vol. 2, 1. Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1998. pp. 140–266.
*Christiane Kind-Doerne: ''Die Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen. Ihre Bestände und Einrichtungen in Geschichte und Gegenwart''. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1986.
References
External links
*
The Göttingen Gutenberg Bible in the InternetGöttingen Center for Retrospective DigitizationGöttingen University PressMathematics Information ServiceLibrary of Anglo-American Culture and HistoryFachinformationsdienst Geowissenschaften der festen ErdeKompetenzzentrum für die Lizenzierung elektronischer RessourcenGöttingen eResearch AllianceDARIAH-DEOpenAIRECOAR
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gottingen State and University Library
Göttingen
Academic libraries in Germany
Library
A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...
1734 establishments in Europe
Deposit libraries
Libraries established in 1734