Projects

POLLUX: Political Science Information Service (2016 - 2022)

The Subject Information Service for Political Science aims at giving scholars in the field of Political science at German universities direct access to scientific literature and research  information, irrespective of their work location.
In creating this service Bremen State and University Libray (SuUB) will not only support scholars at the University of Bremen but political scientists all over Germany. Together with its project partner Gesis - Leibniz Institute of Social Sciences, SuUB Bremen will develop services designed to meet the needs of everyday academic work.
The project will focus on creating a comprehensive search environment which will provide direct access to electronic publications (e-books, e-journals, e-articles), open access documents and research data as well as content from specialist databases and newspaper archives. Printed publications are currently still essential for political research and will complement the content  where electronic resources are not yet available.

The German Research Foundation (DFG) is supporting the project since 2016.

Contact:
Maria-Elisabeth Müller - Tel.: +49 421 218 - 59400 - E-Mail: direktion@suub.uni-bremen.de
Dr. Michael Czolkoß-Hettwer, - Tel.: +49 421 218 - 59586 - E-Mail: czolkoss-hettwer@suub.uni-bremen.de

Digital collections

Digitization is an important instrument in improving the accessibility of scientific information contained in fragile historical works. To facilitate academic research and teaching, and to enhance access to historical texts of significance to the wider Bremen region, selected sections of the library's historical holdings are being digitized and published on a purpose-built portal. This project creates the infrastructure for the on-demand production of electronic full-text documents of print sources urgently required for research projects.
The production, administration, and presentation of the digitized texts is carried out with the Visual Library technology created by semantics GmbH. The publications are indexed in the library's catalogs, and made available online to the general public at no charge.
Bremen's digitization platform is designed to comply with the German Research Council's latest open standards. It interfaces with national and international reference systems including the German Digital Library and Europeana.
The Digital Collections Portal (SuUB Bremen Digital Collections) has been online with a selection of retro-digitized books and journals since spring 2011.

Project Leader:
Dr. Manfred Nölte - Tel: + 49 421 218 59416
E-Mail: noelte@suub.uni-bremen.de

E-LIB Bremen, next generation discovery search engine

The SuUB developed its innovative "E-LIB" search engine to provide users with a single point of access to both print and electronic media. Utilizing cutting edge search engine technologies, the catalog has been developed continuously since 1999. E-LIB provides a single, searchable access point to all kinds of local holdings and external resources, enabling users to access information in a timely and direct manner and overcoming the limitations of previous reference systems. E-LIB currently provides access to approximately 130 million media, 95% of which are electronic media with direct access to full-text versions. E-LIB is both an application development environment and a production system, and processes 10-18,000 search queries every day.

Project Leader:
Dr. Martin Blenkle - Tel: +49 421  218 59 410
E-Mail: blenkle@suub.uni-bremen.de

Previous projects:

Looted cultural property in the State and University Library Bremen (2007-2009)

Scores of Jewish families fled from Germany to escape the persecution and terror of the National Socialist regime, with many of them travelling through Bremen's international port. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, their belongings were retained in Germany and confiscated to be sold in 1942 at public auctions commonly known as "Jewish Auctions". The State Library purchased a large number of books at these auctions, acquiring approximately 1,600 books in total (slightly more than 40% of the new titles acquired that year). The looting of cultural works under the National Socialist regime was not significantly addressed until the 1990s.

In 1991 the SuUB became one of the first libraries in Germany to initiate a review of its holdings in order to identify looted books. Roughly 1,600 books have been identified to date, of which 290 have been restituted. An online catalog detailing all of the books discovered so far was created in 2009.

Project Leader:
Dr. Joachim Drews
Tel: +49 421 218 59562
E-Mail: drews@suub.uni-bremen.de

Retrospective cataloging of printed music (2006-2008)

With the retrospective cataloging of the SuUB's sheet music holdings, previously listed in a microfiche catalog, the holdings are now indexed in the library's online catalog. In light of the complexity of this material the project was handled by an external service provider. In the wake of the project, roughly 50,000 titles, including 10,000 titles held by the branch library for music, are now indexed in the SuUB's central search engine E-Lib as well as in the online public access catalog and the GBV Interlibrary Catalog, making the SuUB one of the few institutions in the Common Library Network (GBV) whose entire sheet music holdings are indexed in an online catalog.

Cibera: Virtual Library for Latin America, Spain & Portugal (2003-2006)

Developed at the SUB Hamburg in cooperation with the State and University Library Bremen, Cibera is an Internet portal for scholars and students of the culture, history, politics, economics, and societies of Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries and the Caribbean. Cibera allows users to search library catalogs, Internet-based sources, a collection of digital full-texts, a journal contents service, a press archive and a specialized database of Latin America Studies resources in the German-speaking world.
Cibera's meta-catalog also allows users to access multiple catalogs from relevant specialist libraries through a single user interface.

The SuUB manuscript catalog (1996-2003)

The Bremen state- and university library holds 124 manuscripts from the medieval period and 480 from the modern period. With the generous funding of the German Research Foundation (DFG), the SuUB has worked with the specialist center for manuscript cataloging at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel since 1996 in a project to catalog 124 medieval codices held by the library. The catalog (in german) is available online via http://brema.suub.uni-bremen.de/urn/urn:nbn:de:gbv:46:1-982

Digitized historical maps – new perspectives on old maps (1997-2001)

The evolution of the Internet enables users from around the world to access digitized versions of the State and University Library's valuable historical holdings. Work on the project "Retrospective digitization of historical maps at the State and University Library Bremen" began in 1997, and was generously supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of its funding program "Retrospective Digitization of Library Holdings".

A selection of one hundred historical maps was digitized in the first phase, which was completed in 1999, and a software prototype developed to facilitate their online presentation within a searchable catalog. A stand-alone CD-ROM version complete with all the necessary resources was also developed and tested in this time.

Building on these experiences, the SuUB's entire collection of historical maps was digitized in the second phase, during which the online map catalog was completely overhauled and new features added. The catalog's innovative geographic search capabilities include a visual search function, enabling users to search for historical maps utlizing an overview map.

In addition to preserving this valuable historical material, the project aims to provide a user-friendly and efficient tool for direct and concurrent access to the library's map collection via an online map catalog with enhanced search functions.
 
Project Leader:
Silke Huesmann
Tel: +49 421 218 59550
E-Mail: huesmann@suub.uni-bremen.de