The TIB acquires literature in all engineering fields as well as architecture, information technology, chemistry, mathematics, physics and other basic sciences. It is a particular specialist in the acquisition of "gray literature";[4] that is, literature difficult to obtain and not available via the standard book or journal trade.[5] It also holds a large number of standards, norms, patents, source data, scientific conference proceedings, government research papers and dissertations. Special collections include the "Albrecht Haupt Collection" of digitally rendered architectural drawings, and a regional focus on technical literature from East Asia and Eastern Europe.[6] The film and audiovisual material held previously by IWF Knowledge and Media (IWF Wissen und Medien) is now held by TIB.[7]
The TIB's holdings total 10 million media units (as of December 31, 2022):[citation needed]
6.1 million books
3.4 million non-electronic materials such as micro-materials
143.3 million metadata in the index
about 54,650 licensed and digitized electronic journals
about 6,950 continuously held journals (non-electronic)
about 6,560 subject databases
In 2010, the physical collection occupied 125 kilometres (78 mi) of shelving.[8]
In 2005 the TIB became the world's first Digital Object Identifier (DOI) registration agency for research data sets in the fields of technology, natural sciences and medicine.[9] It offers registration for the results of any publicly funded research conducted in Europe.[10]
The TIB is a member of the Leibniz Association,[11] a consortium of 87 non-university research institutes in Germany. In support of the Association's open access goals, the TIB operates the Leibniz Open Access Repository in cooperation with Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure (formerly Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe). The TIB advises the Leibniz Association's various member organizations, scientists and staff on depositing publications in the repository according to open access guidelines.[12][13]
The amount, usage and importance of non-textual materials such as 3D models, AV media and research data is continually increasing and only a small proportion can be searched at the present time.[14]: 270 The goal of the TIB Competence Centre for Non-Textual Materials (Kompetenzzentrum für nicht-textuelle Materialien, abbreviated to KNM) is to fundamentally improve access to, and the use of, such non-textual materials. The TIB also develops new multimedia analysis methods such as morphology, speech or structure recognition to create indexing and metadata to help researchers and educators make better use of these complex materials. In addition, the competence center is dedicated to the preservation of multimedia objects, the assignment of DOI, and knowledge transfer.[15]
TIB operates the GetInfo portal for science and technology with interdisciplinary search capabilities for the other German National Libraries as well as access to more than 150 million data sets from other specialized databases, publishers and library catalogs.[16][17] The TIB also makes scientific videos of lectures, conferences, computer animations, simulations and experiments available via GetInfo. These video items can be searched free-of-charge and can be downloaded via Flash Player.[needs update][18]
The TIB is one of three partners in the Leibniz Library Network for Research Information consortium Goportis, the others being the German National Library of Economics (ZBW) and German National Library of Medicine (ZB MED). This initiative develops and operates online search services, online full-text delivery services, licensing agreements, non-textual materials, document preservation efforts, data storage, and open access.
The TIB is also the scientific information provider for researchers in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, including Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and the Ukraine. It also collaborates with numerous organizations in China, Japan and Eastern Europe. Notable institutional partnerships include:
As part of the German national research infrastructure, the TIB conducts its own applied research, particularly in the field of information science. In cooperation with a variety of other institutions, these projects focus on the areas of visual searching, data visualization, the Semantic Web, and the Future Internet.
PROBADO is a project to develop tools for the automatic indexing, storage and delivery of non-textual documents such as 3D models. Its goal is to enable academic libraries to deal with multimedia objects just as easily as with textual information. Tools include searching by intuitive drawing in 2D and 3D and delivery of results while drawing. For this initiative the TIB partnered with the Technical University of Darmstadt, the University of Bonn and the Technical University of Graz.
This project, funded by the Leibniz Association, is a joint effort of the TIB, the GRIS Darmstadt (Interactive Graphics Systems at the Technical University of Darmstadt) and the IGD (Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics). It deals with developing approaches to the interactive, graphical access to research data in order to make it easily represented and searchable. The project is tasked with developing methods for data analysis, visual search systems, metadata-based searching and prototype implementation.[20]
SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics) is a global consortium of organizations in high energy physics, physics research centers and leading international libraries. Its goal is to convert essential journals in particle physics that are presently financed by subscriptions into open access journals with the support of the publishers.[21] SCOAP3-DH is funded by the German Research Foundation, working in cooperation with the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) and the Max Planck Society (MPS).[22][23]
^ ab"Library profile". Leibniz University Hannover. 2012. Archived from the original on 23 April 2012. Retrieved 18 March 2024.
^ abGabrys-Deutscher, Elzbieta (6 December 2011). "Reports / Germany". German National Library of Science and Technology. Archived from the original on 22 February 2012. Retrieved 18 March 2024.
^ ab"Technische Informationsbibliothek" [Library of Science and Technology]. Official portal of the capital and region Hanover (in German). 2024. Retrieved 18 March 2024. Als weltweit größte Spezialbibliothek für Technik und Naturwissenschaften und wesentlicher Teil der nationalen Forschungsinfrastruktur [...].
^Drake, Miriam A., ed. (2 June 2005). Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, First Update Supplement (2nd ed.). CRC Press. ISBN978-0849338946. OCLC1107880185.
^Hasemann, Christine (17 April 2007). "Special Collections". German National Library of Science and Technology. Archived from the original on 22 February 2012. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
^Schindler, Uwe; Brase, Jan; Diepenbroek, Michael (6 October 2005). Rauber, Andreas; Christodoulakis, Stavros; A Min Tjoa (eds.). "Infrastructure for the Registration of Scientific Primary Data". Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries: 9th European Conference (ECDL 2005). Vienna: Birkhäuser. ISBN978-3540287674. OCLC262680996.
^Ziedorn, Frauke (7 April 2011). "DOI Registration Agency". German National Library of Science and Technology. Archived from the original on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
^Gabrys-Deutscher, Elzbieta (23 January 2014). "LeibnizOpen". German National Library of Science and Technology. Archived from the original on 13 September 2015. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
^Ashton Acton, Q., ed. (2012). "Issues in Ethics Research and Application: 2011 Edition". Issues in Information Science Research (2011 ed.). Atlanta: ScholarlyEditions. ISBN9781464967399. OCLC893676365.
^"GetInfo Portal". German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB). 16 April 2010. Archived from the original on 22 February 2012. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
^"About GetInfo". German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB). 23 January 2014. Archived from the original on 8 July 2015. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
^Marketing (21 January 2011). "Partners". German National Library of Science and Technology. Archived from the original on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
^"VisInfo". Visual Access to Research Data. Archived from the original on 27 October 2021. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
^Sens, Irina (13 February 2012). "Projects". German National Library of Science and Technology. Archived from the original on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 20 March 2024.
