2020 was a notable year in many respects. The coronavirus pandemic determined andchanged how we live and work in ways that most of us could not have imagined at the start of the year. But we – TIB and its team of more than 550 employees – have overcome these challenges effectively. We managed to ensure the continued supply of literature: thanks to TIB Document Delivery, thanks to online order collection, thanks to numerous electronic services, and, of course, thanks to the tireless efforts of our staff.
As we look back on 2020, however, the year meant much more to us than just COVID-19. After all, it was a highly successful year for us: TIB was designated “Library of the Year 2020”; Professor (Simón Bolívar University) Dr. Maria-Esther Vidal won the Stifterverband Science Award; the DPC Fellowship – the most prestigious award in the f ield of digital preservation – went to Micky Lindlar; and our Open Science Lab was named “University Gem of the Month January”.
In our annual report, you will f ind out more about what we achieved in 2020, everything that happened at TIB, and which new projects were launched.
TIB’s Open Science Lab shows how digital collections can be opened up and linked to facilitate better use of their content. The Lab provides support to scholars who use the internet as a public space for research, teaching and learning. Stifterverband designates this innovative project “Open Science University Gem” of the month in January.
In early 2020, the Coronavirus was still a distant phenomenon in China. Now it has found its way to Germany and to Hannover. TIB closes its doors in mid-March. However, the library continues to provide information via a number of services – TIB Document Delivery, online ordering and on-site collection, as well as numerous electronic services, webinars and online consultations. Many employees leave their offices behind them and start working from home.
CRISIS MANAGEMENT TEXTBOOK
The Academy of Public Health Services and TIB’s Open Science Lab make available, under open access conditions, the textbook “Krisenmanagement – Lehrbuch für den Öffentlichen Gesundheitsdienst” (Crisis management – Textbook for the public health service). It provides practical tips on how public health departments and other healthcare institutions can prepare for handling crisis situations, and covers the basics of crisis management. The textbook was realised in the context of a Book Sprint, a method of agile knowledge generation.
RESEARCH DATA TO ALL!
Research data provide a wealth of information – a valuable resource for science and research. To harness this great potential, data must be publicly accessible and reusable. This is the aim of the planned “National Research Data Infrastructure” (NFDI). Three consortia, involving TIB as co-applicant, receive funding within the (NFDI) initiative.
SHARING AMONG UNIVERSITY TEACHERS
Whether individual visualisations, videos, podcasts, scripts, course materials or complete lectures – Open Educational Resources (or OER for short) can be of a very wide variety. Twillo, a sustainable OER portal for sharing open educational resources (or OER for short), enters the Beta testing phase. Teaching staff from Lower Saxony’s higher education institutions can now fill the portal with high-quality content.
#vBIB20 – THE VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
At times when it is not possible to meet in person for further training or for professional and social interaction, the Berufsverband Information Bibliothek and TIB team up to organise #vBIB20 – the virtual conference on libraries, information institutions and all those who work for such organisations. Three days, almost 70 hours of input, more than 100 contributions and over 3,000 registrations – #vBIB20 is a resounding success.
“LIBRARY OF THE YEAR 2020”
The German Library Association and Deutsche Telekom Stiftung designate TIB “Library of the Year 2020” in recognition of its outstanding work. In doing so, they recognise the library work undertaken at TIB in the field of open science, open access, research data and digital preservation, as well as its development of services at the interface between analogue and digital formats. We are delighted and grateful to receive this tremendous award!
Where in present-day Lower Saxony were places of Gestapo terror located? Which buildings did the political police use during National Socialism? How did transport services and routes affect the selection of sites at that time? Answers to these questions are to be provided within “Places of Gestapo terror in present-day Lower Saxony”, a collaborative project being undertaken by the Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation and TIB.
TIB ONCE AGAIN DESIGNATED FOR OPEN LIBRARY BADGE
TIB is awarded the Open Library Badge 2020 for its commitment to greater openness in science and society. Having met ten criteria, TIB is the badge holder with the most criteria ever met. The few remaining outstanding issues, such as the lack of a completely barrier-free website, are currently being addressed. TIB is keen to embed the concept of openness even more firmly at the library, including in areas that are not among traditional open science topics.
Professor Dr. Sören Auer is among the finalists at the Falling Walls Conference 2020: thanks to his Knowledge Graph project on Open Research Knowledge Graphs (ORKG) he is nominated in the “Science and Innovation Management” category. The TIB is currently reinventing scholarly communication. Instead of representing research in static PDF articles, the TIB works on a dynamic knowledge graph – the Open Research Knowledge Graph. Using a dynamic knowledge graph, various research ideas, approaches, methods and results are to be connected and presented in a machine-readable form. In this way, completely new connections of knowledge can be revealed.
CODING DA VINCI NIEDERSACHSEN 2020
The culture hackathon connects the worlds of culture and technology. Diversity and record-breaking figures characterise the digital kick-off meeting in Hannover: Never before were so many data sets (45) from so many cultural institutions (36) up for vote; never before were so many digital communication tools (6) used at once; and never before did the presenter have to stand alone in such an empty room, despite 200 registered guests. Following a highly intense phase of the project, four outstanding projects received awards in January 2021.
MICKY LINDLAR RECEIVES AWARD
Micky Lindlar receives the DPC Fellowship award from the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) on World Digital Preservation Day – 5 November 2020. The highest award given by the DPC is conferred in recognition of a substantial and outstanding contribution to safeguarding digital heritage. Congratulations!
TIB celebrates reaching the 30,000 mark – the number of scientific videos contained in its AV-Portal. A substantial number! The quality-tested videos embody science in its audiovisual diversity – originating mainly from the fields of engineering as well as architecture, chemistry, computer science, mathematics and physics.
