Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen

The period from 1701 - 1800
Cataloguing

After its founding in 1734, the State and University Library in Göttingen quickly developed into an important research library of the Enlightenment era. Through targeted funding, well-established international relationships and considerable expertise, it succeeded from the beginning in becoming a model instrument of research.

Today, the library serves not only as the central library for all of the faculties and institutes of the university, but also as the library of the Academy of Sciences at Göttingen. Nearly twenty special collection areas, which are based on already existing strengths in the collection, are administered with the support of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), including among others English and American studies.

The Göttingen State and University Library is one of the five largest libraries in Germany, at present with 3.9 million volumes, about 16,000 current periodicals, 15,500 electronic resources, 6,500 electronic journals, 150 CD-ROM databases, 1.5 million microforms, 13,000 manuscripts, about 3,100 incunabula and the papers of about 350 scholars.

The period from 1701 - 1800

In some respects, the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment, was the period in which the roots for the development of our modern world were laid. In the period between 1700 and 1800 the belief gained acceptance that the world functions according to rationally perceptible laws and that man as a rational being can be educated to recognize and to shape his own world. If this led to an immense production of educational literature for members of all social classes, then it also brought along with it a flood of publications in the (natural) sciences which document the growth of knowledge gained through theoretical study and practical experiment of the time.

In the collection, particular attention is paid to both of these phenomena of the Age of Enlightenment. In addition, gaps are closed in so-called "light fiction" and in the types of publications of the 18th century that often do not survive, such as broadsides, leaflets and occasional papers.

Cataloguing

All acquisitions of the Sammlung Deutscher Drucke 1701 - 1800 are cataloged and are entered into the library's online catalog and into the databases of the consortium (GBV Common Library Network) and of the union catalog of serials (Zeitschriftendatenbank). In this way, the acquisitions of the project and, indeed, information about the entire holdings of the library dating from the 18th century, are not only available locally, but can also be accessed worldwide through the Internet. In addition, Göttingen holdings are entered in the Hand Press Book Database of the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL). Furthermore all supplementary purchases are cataloged according to subject and can be accessed in the catalog via subject searches. Users can find information about project activities by consulting the list of new acquisitions on the Göttingen State and University website.

Contact:

Dr. Joachim Migl
Assistants: Dietlind Willer, Karsten Otte
Abteilung HAD/DD18
D - 37070 Göttingen

Phone: +49-551-39-5397 oder -5674
Fax: +49-551-39-5674