71st response
Content Strategy Consultation: Response
When responding to the questionnaire, please complete the attached pro forma as it will help us analyse the
responses.
Title: Ms.
Surname: Kirkwood
Forename: Rachel
Response being sent on behalf of: (please tick appropriate box):
: organisation
… individual
If response represents an organisation or part thereof, please be specific about this: (e.g.
university, university library, university faculty, learned society):
German Studies Library Group
Location: UK/ overseas (delete as appropriate)
Address:
John Rylands University Library, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester
M13 9PP
e-mail address: [email protected]
Telephone number: 07799 415744
It is the British Library’s intention to place your response on our website. If you would like your name and
contact details to be withheld please tick this box
…
As a public sector body, the British Library is subject to the Freedom of Information Act, 2000. Therefore
all information sent to the British Library as a result of this consultation exercise may be subject to
disclosure under the Act.
Issues for Consultation:
Q1
Please comment on the Library’s approach to developing a
‘content strategy’ as defined in 3.2.1 - 3.2.2.
In principle the GSLG supports this approach, certainly as far as electronic resources are concerned.
However, with regard to possible partnerships with other institutions in the collecting of printed materials, we
would urge caution:
• when such approaches have been mooted in the past with reference to German publications, they
have been shown to be impractical
• with the exceptions of Oxford and Cambridge, no institution in the UK has more than a fraction of
the resources for German studies currently offered by the BL – though some institutions have
outstanding strengths in particular areas, e.g. Warwick for primary texts of post-war German
imaginative literature
• though the German-speaking countries have good library resources and can be relied upon to
collect their own current publications, the German library system is historically much less
centralised than Britain’s with the result that it is not possible in Germany to consult in one place the
same range of resources that are available at the BL
• researchers have neither the time nor the financial resources to make frequent visits to foreign
libraries
Q2
Please comment on any of the implications of the British Library
shifting its focus to a content strategy, as described in 3.3.1 - 3.3.3.
3.3.3 refers to “developing staff expertise in different fields of research”. We question this approach. The
BL’s German collections range over every discipline, apart from current science and technology, and no
single person could expect to be expert in all these disciplines. Given the very wide range of the BL’s
collections, and the growth of interdisciplinary approaches in research, no expert in a given subject could
ensure that the BL continues to acquire the most relevant publications from every part of the world, or even
from the whole of Europe, as this requires language expertise and knowledge of publishing and the book
trade in particular countries/regions. The present organisation of the curatorial resource along
geographical/linguistic lines seems to us much more practical. Whilst in practice many BL curators have
high levels of expertise in particular subjects, they cannot be expected to match the expertise of the BL’s
users, many of whom are world-class experts in their field. The main function of the curator is to ensure that
the Library collects the materials that researchers will ultimately need, and to guide users to appropriate
material in the collections.
On the subject of staff expertise, we note with concern that the BL currently has no permanent head of its
German collections, and has had no head of French collections for nine years.
Q3
Please comment on the British Library’s approach to managing
the print-digital transition, as described in 3.4.1 – 3.4.3.
Here again we would urge caution.
For example, the content of many German official publications is now available on the web, but normally only
current (or recent) data is available in this way; as websites are updated, less current data is removed from
display. Researchers in (say) 50 years’ time, will only be able to access today’s information through the
original printed texts or by consulting digital archives. The BL will not be responsible for archiving “foreign”
on-line resources; though the Germans are well advanced in digital archiving, we cannot really know
• what will be archived
• where it will be archived,
• how future changes in technology will affect the accessibility of today’s digital media.
Q4
Do you agree with the Library’s assessment of the key drivers and practical considerations that
should influence its content strategy (4.1.1 – 4.1.2)?
We fundamentally disagree with several of the key drivers.
• Global trends: the BL has not become a great international library by following short-term trends.
Indeed, much of its greatness is due to the fact that in the past it was not afraid to collect
unfashionable types of material (e.g. in the 19C it collected German popular and ephemeral literature
of earlier periods which has now become very rare but whose research/sociological value has
•
•
•
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greatly increased; after the Second World War it acquired large amounts of non-academic
publications of Nazi Germany at a time when such material was being systematiclly discarded from
German libraries). The BL should look beyond current trends to long-term needs.
Relevance to UK: though this is not a key consideration for us as Germanists, we would stress the
close links that have existed between the UK and German-speaking countries, particularly Germany,
in the past and which continue today. Consequently, much that is relevant to German studies is also
by implication relevant to the UK. (This is acknowledged in Table 53 of the Appendices.)
Current UK research priorities: should be a priority for the academic library sector, but the rôle of the
British Library should be to complement academic libraries by ensuring that materials which the
latter cannot afford (or do not need) to collect are available in the national library.
Historic strengths: This is a valid criterion, as the BL needs to “add value” to its historic collections by
(a) continuing to fill gaps in them and (b) acquiring modern materials that illuminate them. However,
it is precisely in this context that we note with concern the statement in 5.1.1 that, as far as
retrospective purchasing goes, “material not of direct UK relevance will continue to be acquired by
exception only”: to pursue such a policy would be unduly restrictive and prevent the Library from
exploiting fully the incomparable German collections it has acquired in the past, extending from the
beginnings of printing up to the 20th century. Historically speaking, the BL’s German collections are
the most broadly based in Europe, due to the past (and to some extent present) political divisions of
Germany, where no single library can offer the same breadth of regional and chronological coverage
as the BL. A collection which ceases to grow is in danger of becoming a museum rather than a
working library.
Demand: should not be the overriding consideration (especially as research fashions change), but
should of course be taken into account (for all but legal deposit material). It is unfortunate that the
BL’s survey contains little evidence relating to demand, especially as its current proposals lay great
emphasis on Asia and Eastern Europe without any supporting evidence of present (let alone future)
demand. As previous BL surveys have shown, demand for publications in the principal languages of
Western Europe (including German) is many times greater than for publications from Eastern
Europe. It is completely incomprehensible to us why the Content Strategy document itself
repeatedly categorises the Library’s East European collections as a “centre of excellence”, without
similarly acknowledging the world-class status of its West European collections, in particular its
German collections which are, as stated above, the finest of their kind in the whole world.
Regarding practical considerations: our comments on “provision elsewhere” have been given above in
response to Question 1.
Q5
Please comment on the British Library’s overall proposal for what
it should and should not change within its content strategy (5.1.1 – 5.1.2).
Regarding the statement in 5.1.1 concerning retrospective purchasing, please see our comment under
“Historic strengths” in reply to Question 4.
•
•
•
We welcome the commitment to keep abreast of “emerging subject disciplines”, including the aim,
expressed in Schedule 53, “German, Dutch and Scandinavian Languages”, of broadening the
acquisition of works in (for example) film studies.
The proposals stress the growing importance of publishing (including English-language publishing)
in China, though they give no clear indication of the extent to which China’s published output is
internationally important beyond the limits of area studies, or how far its value may be limited by
political censorship. Given that there is already a first-class oriental library in London (SOAS) in
addition to the BL, this may be an area for greater reliance on external collaboration. There is no
similar insitution for German studies in London: the Goethe-Institut concentrates on literature and
contemporary Germay, but does not have historic collections, and the German Historical Institute in
Bloomsbury Square is much more restricted than the BL in its subject coverage. The former
Institute of Germanic Studies, now incorporated into the Institute of Germanic and Romance
Studies, is mainly limited to language and literature and has very limited acquisitions budgets.
The document proposes “modest downward adjustments” in Western European intake: can the BL
please tell us which parts of Western Europe it has in mind? We also question the data provided on
page 16, for which the BL gives no indication of its sources, implying that academic publishing has
declined in Germany and the Netherlands (a country of great importance to German studies) though
we ourselves have seen no evidence of this, and showing Germany as a country with a smaller
publishing output than France, which is again contrary to our own information.
•
Q6
Given the BL’s ambitious plans to expand acquisitions from Asia and other parts of the developing
world, and its continuing commitment to Eastern Europe and North America, we do not believe that
“modest adjustments” to intake from Western Europa will be sufficient to achieve these goals
against the background of static (or even decreasing) overall acquisitions funding (in real terms).
We are deeply worried that the main casualty of these proposals will be intake from Western
Europe, including not only materials from the German-speaking countries themselves but also
publications in other major languages that are relevant to German studies. We do not believe that it
will be possible to fulfil the criteria given in the various appendices for continuing current levels of
acquisition in specific languages and disciplines while simultaneously expanding acquisitions
elsewhere. Many of the statements in the appendices seem to be at variance with the broader aims
expressed in the main consultation document.
Within the context of finite Library resources, do you wish to make any suggestions about where the
Library should decrease or increase its collecting? Please provide a rationale for any suggestions
you wish to make.
Nowhere does the BL’s consultation document address the fundamental fact that international scholarship
is essentially published in English and certain other major languages, which include German. There is still a
great deal of research published in German in a whole variety of fields (e.g. music, archaeology, classical
studies, historical bibliography) that is simply not available in English. This is not therefore a specifically
“German studies” issue, but it should be a major consideration for the BL as a whole. The BL appears to
have lost sight of this fact in its desire to increase concentration on Eastern Europe and Asia. The danger is
that this will lead to fewer resources for acquiring publications of international (as opposed to purely “area
studies”) relevance, including German (and other West European) publications relevant to Eastern Europe
and the developing world.
Q7
Please comment on any of the draft format strategies in Appendix 2. (Please state clearly the name
and number of the table you are referring to.)
We do not wish to comment.
Q8
Please comment on the British Library’s proposed high-level content strategy for the arts and
humanities (5.2.1 – 5.2.5).
We welcome the reference to European languages and literatures as a ‘particular strength’, and also to the history of the
book (5.2.3)
By stressing the importance of Eastern Europe as a “continuing centre of excellence”, section 5.2.4 implies that Western
Europe is not to be similarly supported. This is all the more difficult to understand given that the BL has recently merged
its East and West European collections on the grounds that Eastern and Western Europe have grown closer together
since the end of the Cold War and many central and east European countries are now members of the EU. In terms of
acquisitions policy, there is therefore only one logical course of action:
•
recognise the BL’s European collections as a whole as a single centre of excellence
•
within that framework, do a thorough assessment of the international research importance of the publications
from each European country, and adjust resoures accordingly.
The UK’s membership of the EU, and above all its close cultural ties with Europe, are in our view at least as important as
its links with the Commonwealth.
Q9
Please comment on any of the draft content strategies for arts and humanities disciplines in
Appendix 1. (Please state clearly the name and
number of the table you are referring to.)
We note that Schedule 53 in Appendix 1 says: “Continue very selective level of collecting in major languages
published worldwide for German … studies”. In our view, books on German studies published in major
languages (e.g. English from North America, or French from France or the Netherlands) should be collected
extensively, as they currently very often are, and we would be strongly opposed to any lowering of this
standard.
Q10
Please comment on the British Library’s proposed high-level content strategy for the social sciences
(5.3.1 – 5.3.5).
We note with concern that section 5.3.2 acknowledges that West European
acquisitions in the social sciences have reduced since the late 1980s, but section
5.3.4, whilst it proposes concentrating resources around (inter alia) “Slavonic
and East European materials” makes no commitment to West European
materials. Nowadays, German studies courses tend to be broadly based and
often include elements of the social sciences. We would like to see the statement
changed to include “European materials” in general.
Section 5.3.4. supports the acquisition of “official materials worldwide”. The BL’s holdings of German official
publications (mainly serials) are outstandingly good, and cover not only Federal government publications but
also (to a lesser extent) those of the Länder. The BL’s coverage in this area is in fact much broader than
that of the London School of Economics. Coverage of Austrian official publications is also extensive, though
much is now being published only electronically. We strongly support the continuance of these collections.
Q11
Please comment on any of the draft content strategies for social science disciplines in Appendix 1.
(Please state clearly the name and number of the table you are referring to.)
We have no specific comments
Q12
Please comment on the Library’s preliminary thinking about
its high-level content strategy for science, technology and medicine,
as outlined in 5.4.5.
No comment
Q13
What factors do you believe the Library should consider as it continues
to develop a partnership strategy that meets the needs of UK researchers
(6.1.1 – 6.1.4)?
The opportunities for collaborative collection development in German Studies are limited. (See comments
above under Question 1, also under Question 5)
Q14
Please comment on the Library’s proposed approach for developing
a deeper ongoing dialogue about its content strategy with researchers
(6.2.1 – 6.2.3). Are there other mechanisms we should consider?
The GSLG welcomes this approach.