The Potsdam University Library (Universitätsbibliothek Potsdam) is the largest academic library in the German state of Brandenburg. It serves the academic community of Potsdam University as well as interested readers from other universities and non-university research institutes in the Potsdam and Berlin area. The library is also open to private users from the region Berlin-Brandenburg with a research or study interest.
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The Potsdam University Library is a library system with a single budget and central library staff management. It comprises three divisional libraries („Bereichsbibliotheken“), one at each of the three university campuses. The holdings in the fields of the humanities are housed in the Communs of the New Palace at Park Sanssouci, a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the holdings in the fields of Law, Economics and Social Sciences are located on the campus of Potsdam-Babelsberg a section of Potsdam well known for its film studios; and resources in the fields of Human and Natural Sciences can be found in the library building of the City of Science at Potsdam-Golm.[1]
The University Archives and the University Press are part of the University Library.
The University Library was founded in 1991 as part of the University of Potsdam, which was founded one year after the reunification of Germany. It contains the holdings of previous institutions such as the Karl Liebknecht College of Education and the Academy of Justice and the State of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
After years of having to repeatedly move the library to different buildings, the library was able to move into functionally appropriate quarters: in 2000 to a former depot of the German Red Cross in Babelsberg,[2] which was converted into an attractive structure and in 2006 to an extensively refurbished back building (remise) at South Commun, extended by a new glass building at the New Palace.[3] The first real library building of the university,[4] an information and communication center located in the City of Science in Potsdam-Golm, will be completed in 2011. It will provide readers with 6,800 square meters of usable space, a capacity of 1 million volumes, large reading and multimedia areas, carrels, group study rooms and a special reading room for rare material.
The library’s holdings number about 1,3 million volumes, 2,850 current printed journals, 8,000 e-journals and numerous databases and e-books. Potsdam University Library is a library of medium scale in German comparison. It is a member of the Kooperativer Bibliotheksverbund Berlin-Brandenburg (KOBV), a library network, with which it collaborates in the field of innovative electronic publishing. It is also co-operation partner of the library network GBV (Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverbund) in the fields of shared cataloguing and interlibrary-loan. The search engine** DigiBib of the network of North Rhine-Westfalia (Hochschulbibliothekszentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen (hbz)) enables extensive simultaneous searches of a very large number of print and electronic resources.
In the first years of the university (1991–2002) a core collection could be built based onf the Hochschulbauförderungsgesetz, a German law that defined the development of academic institutions as a common mission of the Federal Government and the States. The collections are now being systematically developed . Various disciplines are covered, representing the interdisciplinary focus of the university and the idea of the universitas litterarum, the institutional representation of all of the traditionally relevant disciplines of knowledge . The university’s development plan of 2008 names as its fields of research excellence and expertise: Cognitive Sciences, Empirical Pedagogy, Spaces of Cultural Encounter, Public Policy and Management, Complex Systems, Earth Sciences, Functional Ecology and Evolution, Plant Genomics/Systems Biology and Functional Soft Matter. A further special area is Jewish Studies.[6]
About half of the collections of Potsdam University Library are open access holdings shelved according to the Regensburger classification system (RVK), which is widely-used in Germany. An interlibrary loan system allows registered users to request material held at other sites. There are about 670,000 lending transactions annually and 22,000 registered borrowers. An increase in efficiency and in library use are expected as a result of the introduction of RFID (radio frequency identification). In one or two years the open access holdings of each library site will be equipped with transponders and the users will be able to borrow and return items quickly using self-service machines. At present, 740 seats are available for readers in the whole library system, 160 of which have workstations that enable online catalogue and/or Internet access.
The Potsdam University Library owns collections of valuable Judaica and Hebraica books:[7]
Part of the collections are also rare books of various subjects from the 17th and 18th centuries, which are to be digitized on medium term.
In 2009 Potsdam University Library began integrating the holdings of the special library of the former Center for European Enlightenment Research (Forschungszentrum Europäische Aufklärung – FEA). The library contains the full text of Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften und der freyen Künste,[9] one of the most important German-language journals of the second half of the 18th century, which was digitized by the former FEA with assistance of the DFG, German Research Foundation.
The University Library also manages the holdings of the library of the DGG, (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geowissenschaften), a deposit collection including a significant collection of geological maps.[10]
Furthermore, the Potsdam University Library is a United Nations Depository Library.
The Archives of the Brandenburg State College (Brandenburgische Landeshochschule), whose direct predecessor institution were the Archives of the Karl Liebknecht College of Education created in 1966, became the University Archives in 1991. It contains the holdings of current administrative records as well as documents of permanent value. The archives of Potsdam University currently take up about 1,800 running meters. They preserve collections of the following former institutions:
The University Archives are a public service institution. It is the repository of historically valuable records of the Potsdam University. The University Archives acquire, organize and promote the use and, as the case may be, the publication of these materials.
The publication service section of the Potsdam University Library, founded in 1998, enhances both print- and e-publishing and consolidates the responsibilities for the University Press, the UP open archive, the bibliography of Potsdam University publications and the exchange department.
Potsdam University Press stands for the principles of open and permanent access to the scholarly information and ideas and facilitates their wider dissemination according to the resolution of the Senate of Potsdam University of May 17, 2006.[11] It has established an editorial platform by publishing peer-reviewed contents which increase the visibility of Potsdam University research. In addition to text documents, multimedia materials (lecture recordings, digital music archives etc.) are now gaining in importance. They are archived on the Multimedia Server of Potsdam University administrated by the University Library.[12]
The University Press is member of a Working Group of largely German-language University Presses (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Universitätsverlage).[13] In 2008 the publishing list of Potsdam University Press contained more than 400 printed books available from the UP Webshop[14] or via Online Bookselling. 80% of the production is filed in the open archive which comprises about 2,500 full text documents of academics and researchers of the university. The bibliography of Potsdam University publications currently contains 16,000 titles and registers an annual increase of about 1,200 titles.