Continue to know. With us. The academic and research libraries in Germany

Weiter Wissen KampagneAcademic libraries, including the SUB Göttingen, are launching the major campaign "WEITER WISSEN. Mit uns." to make their unique work for science and society more visible. Academic and research libraries have a shared responsibility to actively shape, promote and drive forward reliable information infrastructures. Open access, research data management, cultural heritage, digital long-term preservation as well as research and development are the central tasks of academic and research libraries.

As such, academic and research libraries are the driving force behind open science and society. They provide researchers, teachers and students with research data and literature and support research, teaching and study with modern services and tools. At the same time, they support researchers with questions relating to publication formats and services, as well as questions about authorship and usage rights. The aim is to make data research accessible to everyone!

With the "Weiter Wissen" campaign, major academic and research libraries, among them the SUB Göttingen, want to make the social relevance of scientific libraries, their tasks and functions visible to politicians, the scientific community and funders.

Open Access
Research accessible to all. With us.

Open Access provides free access to scientific information and research results. This means that anyone can access and use this information. Open Access promotes the dissemination of knowledge and enables researchers to make their work available to a wider audience - an important step towards more open and transparent science (open science). As academic and research libraries, we are committed to Open Access because it contributes to one of our core concerns: the free provision of information for all.

Research Data Management
From a mountain of data to a source of knowledge. With us.

As part of the digital transformation, research is generating vast amounts of data of all kinds - across all disciplines. It is collected, indexed, analysed, enriched, visualised, archived and published. Academic and research libraries - as traditional specialists in the indexing and provision of information - help researchers to preserve their data for the long term and to make it accessible, visible and usable for everyone. The steps required to achieve this are at the core of research data management, which is now part of the canon of good scientific practice. As scientific libraries, we offer processes, tools and infrastructure as well as consultancy and training services for research data management - a forward-looking service for science.

Cultural Heritage
Preserving cultural heritage for generations to come. With us.

We, the academic and research libraries, collect and curate cultural heritage - often before it is even perceived as such. We ensure that important historical documents such as Victor Klemperer's diaries or Alexander von Humboldt's estate remain accessible to everyone in the future. From the  Nibelungenlied to the Gutenberg Bible, from Goethe's first editions to the original scores of Bach, Beethoven or Mahler: we preserve and maintain cultural heritage and we accept the responsibility that goes with it. We ensure that the works, some of which are thousands of years old, are carefully and responsibly archived for many generations to come and, if necessary, restored. We make them
accessible according to standardised rules and make them available for use in a variety of scenarios. Whether analogue or digital: we provide new access to manuscripts, old and valuable prints,  photographs and maps, film and sound recordings, periodicals, and special collections such as historical cookery books or broadsheets from far eastern cultures - with and for everyone.

Digital long-term preservation
Data secured forever. With us.

Unfortunately, the data from the moon landing was overwritten - what a shame! What could have been done? As academic and research libraries, we know the answer: digital long-term preservation. Analog books, texts, photos, or research data cannot be found by other researchers. What is not  digital is not always available, is not secure and cannot be used in the long term. Digital long-term preservation uses special technologies to ensure long-term availability and also protects against risks such as loss through accidental deletion, fire, water and cyber-attacks. This means that valuable collections such as Mozart's sheet music or research data on SARS-CoV2 can be preserved. It's a
good thing that we in academic and research libraries are experts in collecting, archiving, and preparing metadata and file formats. This is how long-term preservation preserves treasures for the general public - and for future generations of researchers. The next moon landing can come...

Research and Development
Infrastructure and services for science. With us.

As academic libraries, we not only provide researchers with curated specialist information and  research data, but also develop our own application-oriented infrastructures to make data of all kinds digitally available. We do this by developing software and code, programming algorithms and using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to sort, filter and find data in a user-friendly way. At the same time, our applied research addresses fundamental questions about user habits and research routines, thus
providing essential insights for designing services that are designed for the next generation of researchers.

A joint initiative
The "Weiter Wissen" campaign is a joint initiative of the Baden State Library, the Bavarian State Library, the German National Library, the Göttingen State and University Library, the SLUB Dresden, the Berlin State Library, the Hamburg State and University Library Carl von Ossietzky, the Leipzig University Library, the Libraries of the Humboldt University Berlin, the Free University of Berlin and the Technical University of Berlin, the Mannheim University Library, the TIB - Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology and University Library, the ZB MED - Information Center for Life Sciences and the ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics together with the German Library Association (dbv).

More information: weiterwissen-kampagne.de