Posts Tagged ‘Great Ideas’
Jun
Trip to Bavarian State Library – Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
by admin in Sabbatical Research and Thinking
Traditionally innovative – 450 Years of the Bavarian State Library
Munich celebrates. In the Bavarian capital the year 2008 – at least within the city’s thriving library network – marks a very special birthday. The Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) is celebrating 450th anniversary.
The history of the present-day Bavarian State Library (Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, BSB) began in 1558 – as the court library of the Wittelsbach Duke Albrecht V. “The newly founded library was far more than a mere expression of royal grandeur and self-promotion; together with the Antikensammlung (Collection of Antiques) and the Kunstkammer (Cabinet of Arts and Curios), Duke Albrecht wanted it to provide a cultural cosmos of that era,” explains Rolf Giebel, the General Director of the BSB.
In the “Cultural Cosmos of the Renaissance”
The foundation stone for this project was laid by the purchase of the valuable Oriental library of Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter. In 1571, as the next big step towards creating a cultural cosmos, Duke Albrecht acquired Johann Jakob Fugger’s library, comprising over 10,000 volumes, which was one of the largest collections of that time.
On the occasion of its 450th anniversary, the Bavarian State Library is now displaying the impressive stock from its founding era. In the jubilee exhibition “Cultural Cosmos of the Renaissance” it shows Ethiopian and Armenian manuscripts, Italian incunabula, early prints from France and Spain, illuminated Korans, exquisitely illustrated books on tournaments and works on the techniques of war, architectural tracts as well as books on coins and heraldry.
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A glimpse into the treasure chamber
Impressive as these gems from the first acquisition years are, they almost disappear in the abundance of treasures which the library acquired in the following decades. Some 92,000 manuscripts are currently stored only in the depots within the Library itself. Moreover, with over 20,000 titles it boasts the world’s largest collection of incunabula.
Spread over the entire anniversary year, the Library, affectionately referred to as “Stabi” by its users, will be inviting the public to smaller exhibitions in which more precious gems from its treasure chamber can be admired: splendid illuminated choir books, atlases of the “Mannheimer Palatina”, books by painters and artists, illustrated artist-autographs and the Ottheinrich Bible, the most spectacular new acquisition.
Multimedia Services
Yet even in this anniversary year the Bavarian State Library is by no means presenting itself merely as the judicious preserver of a cultural heritage that dates back thousands of years. As one of the most important international research libraries it is also the multimedia information service provider for the sciences and an innovative force in the field of digital services.
At the beginning of April 2008 the Centre for Electronic Publishing (Zentrum für Elektronisches Publizieren, ZEP) was opened here, which combines the activities of the Bavarian State Library in the field of genuine electronic publications. “With this,” says Rolf Griebel, “we are supporting the creation of a sustainable infrastructure for the operation and permanent accessibility of open-access publications in the sphere of humanities.”


Robots at work
When it comes to the retro-digitisation of holdings, the Munich Library has long been one of the trailblazers in Germany. Last autumn the first project in the sphere of mass digitisation was launched under the auspices of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). By the end of 2009 almost 37,000 German-language print works from the years 1518 to 1600 are to be digitised and, in a second step, to be made accessible, free of charge, via the internet – a total of over 7.5 million pages.
Anyone wishing to gain insight into how the BSB copes with such masses of sensitive books should go to one of the Scan-Robot Days that are taking place in the anniversary year. In the Library’s Fürstensaal leading manufacturers will present live their latest cutting-edge devices and demonstrate the various methods of automated scanning. This companies’ presentation will be accompanied by a series of lectures.
An imposing setting
The fact that the guided tour “Behind the Scenes of the Bavarian State Library”, which i.a. allows visitors a glimpse of the book conveyor system and of the “digitisation street”, is booked out many months in advance shows how great the general interest is in the innovative achievements of the State Library. There was also a very lively interest in the Day of the Open Door (on 11th October) when the staff, comprising some 700 employees, granted insight into the operation of a modern-day library.
The jubilee year will end on a spectacular note with a concert by the Tölz Boys’ Choir. For the evening concert will take place in the magnificent stairwell of the Library building in Ludwigstraße. Anyone entering the Library for the first time is inevitably awestruck by the 60 huge, broad marble steps of the main stairwell. Equally awe-inspiring is the success story of the Bavarian State Library, which has been accommodated here since the mid-19th century – and which, with its now over 9.25 million volumes, has developed in the course of the last 450 years into one of the most important European universal libraries.
works as a freelance journalist in Bonn
Translation: Heather Moers
Copyright: Goethe-Institut, Online-Redaktion
Any questions about this article? Please write to us!
online-redaktion@goethe.de
May 2008
Jun
SUNYLA 09 Keynote – David Lankes: Einstein Goes to a Party
by admin in Sabbatical Research and Thinking
Keynote: R. David Lankes – Syracuse
The Mission of Librarians: To Improve Society Through Facilitating Knowledge Creation in their Communities
Screencast: http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/blog/?p=760
See Join the Mission – http://www.DavidLankes.org
- Serve
- Innovate – bring about change
- Lead – Librarians are trusted 3rd party source, lead on campus, obligation to say “you can be better”
- … global mission .. improvement ..libraries about knowledge not about things … “connective tissues of our organizations” .. out of the building too.
- Permissive attitude of risk
- Knowledge is created through conversation
- Not what we provide
- What we change
- We .. Jump from this to this to this. Libraries are a museum of technologies that fail
Jun
IIC 2009: Competition for Library Services
by admin in Sabbatical Research and Thinking
Competition for Library Services – Dr. Larry Nash White
- Not only provider
- May not be best
- Not First provider (14th in OCLC Survey)
- We compete with each other (libraries)
- Staffing: poaching & book publishing
Competitors: (Options)
- Bookstores (Physical and online)
- Mom & Pop
- LSSI – outsourcing lib services (public, small academic, special libraries and they do it well)
- E-Books
- Social Networking: .. is this replacing “library as place”
- Google: 99 cent chapters on horizon – idea maps – time maps (check out) .. also repackage existing services for new markets
- (Slide: Visual Of Hundreds of 2.0 icons)
- iTablet
- Espresso Machine: Books on Demand (500,000, Million by 2010 books on it)
- Redbox
VD rental .. total automation - Flexible flex screens
There are competitors we cant see …
- Day Care
- Lack of time to go to the library
- Entertainment
- SEE .. “The Hidden” chart in ppt
Potentials:
- Walmart sells more books than Amazon, B&N and BooksaMillion combined
- Kiosks – that print out paperbacks and provide e-copies
Competitive Responses:
- Respond like a business
- Expand performance assessment
- Include competitive scanning /and intelligence
- now service environment
- innovate
- increases access, alignment and accountability
- value assessment!
“A Flat World Library” - Biblioteca de Santiago (Chile)
See YouTube on Biblioteca
Never had a library .. had clear set of needs .. built strictly according to need
- Everything On wheels
- Don’t Shelve – RFID Tags,
- Wireless
- Power system portal
- Customer delivery
- Art Museum
- Customized Seated
- Open 120hrs week
- 270,000 Sq Foot Bldgs
- Audio/Voice and Touch Screen Workstations
- 4000 Volunteer
Anthropologist in the Library to watch

Mar
MBTI – thoughts
by admin in Sabbatical Research and Thinking
- Allows people to be who they are, not what you want them to be

Feb
David Lewis Workshop:
by admin in Sabbatical Research and Thinking
David Lewis (dlewis@iupui.edu)
“Innovators Dillema”
see site .. “Public Lib of Science”
see
Price for Open Source Publication Fee (ie: $2500 .. editorial board)
Beware of “corporate capture” …
Find Open Source Publishers / Fees .. I need samples
Publishers who only do – Print on demand – ebook only ??
CC – Noncommercial-Share-Alike 3.0
Disruptive Change:
Learn by doing
Save resources for 2nd or 3rd time
Dont ask what they WANT … WATCH what they do!!!
Be impatient for small things – BUT – dont be in a hurry for full scale
“paper handling will go away” – at iupui … align Tech Srv. and Dgital Initi.
Univ Arizona – culture of innovation – tho burdensome process
Chris Anderson (Wired) – also Long Tail
Every technlogy that becomes digital becomes FREE
Free because “Too cheap to meter”
Copyright:
Free riders ok .. find ways to get people to pay
We can do free DSPACE -
ReBalance benefits of scholarship -new incentives
- Grads, hit counters, opportnuntities gto publish, CC license .. need to teach faculty to manging intell. property, differently
Look at open-source community “the more people that look at it .. the better it gets” – free riders are actually contributors to collective good – even critics – even stupid critics
BETTER THAN FREE …
What is it that people will pay money for ..
- Immediacy – (network)
- Personalisztion – some people might pay (network)
- Interpretation – software free – manual costs
- Authenticity – reliability, quality, library as “brand”
- Accessibility – ownership sucks .. subscription? mobile, repository role for libs?
- Embodiment -
- Patronage – WANT to donate
- Findability – needs network scale
Machine – makes books . pay by page
Flip thinking
budget should support creation of knowledge…
customer is not consumer … but creator
Scholalry primitives …copyright center .. tools and techniques sharing

Sep
Idea: Mine TED Site for libraries
by mylibreader in Sabbatical Research and Thinking
Mine “Ted” For Ideas and applications in Libraries
Sep
Idea: Photosynth
by admin in 2008 - Pre-Sabbatical Posts
Where is a place for photosynth in the library?
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html
http://livelabs.com/photosynth/
http://photosynth.net/Default.aspx
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/photosynth/synth

