IT and Science: German Academic and Information institutions join forces to support science

Three German national libraries - TIB (German National Library of Science and Technology, Hannover), ZB MED (German National Library of Medicine, Cologne/Bonn) and ZBW (German National Library of Economics – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, Kiel/Hamburg) have signed a cooperation agreement with FIZ Karlsruhe – Leibniz Institute for information infrastructure.

Under the agreement four important German infrastructure institutions aim that they can provide innovative products and services through joint developments and processes. They also aim to closely collaborate in developing, offering, and hosting new e-Science services in the future. The activities will focus on providing electronic content on a sustainable basis.

The first joint activities will focus on hosting. A large amount of digital publications from publishing houses will be processed. E-journals, e-books and databases will be stored, administered and made available to scientists via a sustainable infrastructure. Another project is to collaborate in the fields of long-term preservation and full-text provision.