Networking libraries

The libraries from the Eucor region met once again on September 19, 2018 at the University of Freiburg.

Colleagues from the Eucor university libraries in Basel, Freiburg, Haute-Alsace, Karlsruhe and Strasbourg as well as the Badische Landesbibliothek in Karlsruhe and the Bibliothèque Nationale Universitaire (BNU) in Strasbourg reported on the work in their institutions and discussed important common strategies and services for the European Campus and beyond. Janosch Nieden, Director of the Eucor – The European Campus office, presented the current status of the European Campus project. The libraries defined important strategic fields of action, such as the widest possible access to electronic publications, the support of Open Access publishing and Open Science. In concrete terms, it was agreed that a proposal for a joint Open Access policy would be developed over the next few months in a small working group coordinated by the University Library Freiburg and submitted to the Eucor steering committees. In addition, under the coordination of the BNU, a survey will be carried out among the scientific users of libraries in the Eucor region with the aim of finding out more about the cross-border requirements for library services.

The libraries in the Eucor region have been working together since 1989 and offer students and staff of the five universities access to a total of around 14 million monographs.

The participants of the event quickly agreed that in the future meetings should take place every six months. The next meeting will be hosted by the University of Strasbourg.

Dr. Antje Kellersohn, Director, UB Freiburg (University library Freiburg)