The German Research Foundation [Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG] has approved almost €2 million in funding for the further expansion of the African Studies and Performing Arts Specialised Information Services (SIS) projects of Frankfurt-based Johann Christian Senckenberg University Library (JCS UB). With six specialized information services under its belt – African Studies, General and Comparative Literature, Biodiversity Research, Performing Arts, Jewish Studies, and Linguistics – JCS University Library is a key player in the SIS system. Its goal: provide high-quality and subject-specific services, continuously develop these, and anchor them for the long term.
The African Studies SIS has been developing subject-specific information services for Africa-related humanities and social sciences based on special academic needs since 2016. The procurement of literature from the African continent and the African diaspora will continue to remain one of its central tasks in this third funding phase, which will also see the expansion of the SIS’ supra-regional licenses. Several trips are planned to acquire literature that is not available via other distribution channels. As part of an innovative pilot project for data work, so-called “communities of implication” will be involved in developing standard data for oral sources. The African Studies Library – the central information platform of the African Studies SIS – will receive several new functions: To improve research opportunities, a geographically explorative search will be implemented, which will make it possible to find publications by region and topic. In addition, it will also be possible in future to place interlibrary loan and Subito orders directly from the portal, while a new Researcher Compass will simplify the transdisciplinary and transcontinental networking of researchers.
In operation since 2015, JCS University Library has been continuously developing the Performing Arts SIS as a key specialist information infrastructure. The work of this specialised information service is characterized by its close ties to the heritage institutions of the performing arts and its consistent orientation towards the needs of the theater and dance research community. The focus of this, the fourth funding phase, is on consolidating and optimizing the SIS portal www.performing-arts.eu, aggregating and curating further collection data and publishing it digitally on the SIS performing arts portal, as well as on further developing research-related services, e.g. mapping collections of performing arts program booklets. In addition, the recording of persons and organizations in the Integrated Authority File [Gemeinsame Normdatei, GND] will be intensified, as will the work in the Standardization Committee’s Performing Arts Working Group. A new Research Navigator Performing Arts is also being set up to curate and publish freely accessible e-resources, research projects and research data on theater and dance studies in the SIS portal. Where possible, the open access criteria of free availability and accessibility of sources (FAIR principles) are applied.
With its six SIS, UB JCS supports the transformation of German academia brought about by ongoing digitalization. As a key interface, the work performed by these SIS contributes to the long-term partnership between and the transfer of knowledge among research and infrastructure facilities. The library has extensive expertise in subject librarianship, information science and technology for the professional curation and indexing of media and (research) data, as well as the development and operation of corresponding services.
