Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Archives, libraries, museums and the spell of ubiquitous knowledge

  • Original paper
  • Published:
Archival Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper describes the convergence of libraries, archives, and museums in Germany from traditional brick-and-mortar institutions to a digital memory institution on the Internet. An implementation of such a digital memory institution is BAM—the joint portal of archives, libraries, and museums in Germany. BAM has the potential to serve as a single point of access to existing, but separate offerings of the several branches of cultural heritage, e.g. union catalogs, and a great number of separate digitization projects offering their content on the German Web. BAM can make an important contribution to the efforts of both the German governments (federal and states) and the European Union, which are in the process of establishing portals to cultural content on the Internet. The article gives an outline of the current undertakings and illustrates how the striving for ubiquitous knowledge delivered by Internet portals relates to the scientific tradition of documentation in Europe.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. <http://www.acls.org/uploadedfiles/publications/programs/our_cultural_commonwealth.pdf>.

  2. <http://www.loc.gov/ead/>.

  3. <http://museum.zib.de/museumdat/>.

  4. <http://dublincore.org/>.

  5. <http://cidoc.ics.forth.gr/index.html>; <http://www.ifla.org/publications/functional-requirements-for-bibliographic-records>.

  6. <http://support.ddb.de/swd/listeNSW/index.htm>.

  7. <http://theseus-programm.de/>.

  8. <http://www.quaero.org/>.

  9. <http://www.bl.uk/collections/toppage.html>.

  10. <http://www.bundesarchiv.de/bestaende_findmittel/bestaendeuebersicht/index_frameset.html>.

  11. <http://gallica.bnf.fr/>.

  12. <http://www.culture.gouv.fr/documentation/joconde/fr/apropos/presentation-joconde.htm>.

  13. <http://www.bildindex.de/>.

  14. <http://www.bmpix.org/>.

  15. <http://echo2.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/home>.

  16. <http://www.universeum.de/>.

  17. <http://www.arbimus.dk/>.

  18. <http://www.abm-utvikling.no/>.

  19. <http://www.europeana.eu>.

  20. <http://www.athenaeurope.org/>.

References

  • Besser H, Borda A, Dietz S, Geber K, Lévy P (2004) The virtual museum (of Canada): the next generation. Canadian heritage information network. <http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/Members/Rethinking_Group/>, accessed: 12/06/08

  • Bredekamp H (1993/1995) Antikensehnsucht und Maschinenglauben. Die Geschichte der Kunstkammer und die Zukunft der Kunstgeschichte. Wagenbach; Berlin [engl.: The lure of antiquity and the cult of the machine: the Kunstkammer and the evolution of nature, art and technology. Markus Wiener; Princeton]

  • Bredekamp H (2004) Die Fenster der Monade. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Theater der Kunst und der Natur. Akademie, Berlin [engl.: The Windows of the Monads. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Theatre of Art and Nature]

    Google Scholar 

  • de Sepibus G (1678) Romani Collegii Societatis Jesu Musaeum Celeberrimum (…). Jansson-Waesbergen, Amstelodami

    Google Scholar 

  • Dempsey L (2000) Scientific, industrial, and cultural heritage. A shared approach: A research framework for digital libraries, museums and archives. In ariadne, Issue 22, 1999. <http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue22/dempsey/>, accessed: 12/06/08

  • Findlen P (2004) Athanasius Kircher: the last man who knew everything. Routledge, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Hedegaard R (2003) Benefits of archives, libraries and museums working together. In Access point library: Media––information–culture. proceedings of the world library and information congress: 69th IFLA General conference and council in Berlin, Germany, August 1–9, 2003 <http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla69/papers/051e-Hedegaard.pdf>, accessed: 12/06/08

  • Kraemer H (2001) Museumsinformatik und digitale Sammlung. WUV-Universitäts-Verlag, Wien [engl.: Museum Informatics and Digital Collections.]

    Google Scholar 

  • Leinkauf T (1993) Mundus combinatus. Studien zur Struktur der barocken Universalwissenschaft am Beispiel Athanasius Kirchers SJ (1602–1680). Akademie, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Malraux A (1965) Le musée imaginaire. Gallimard, Paris [Initially published 1947]

    Google Scholar 

  • Otlet P (1934) Traité de documentation Le livre sur le livre. Théorie et pratique. Mundaneum, Bruxelles

    Google Scholar 

  • Pöppel E (2007) Wissen––und wie es kommuniziert werden kann. [engl.: Knowledge––and how to communicate it]. In: Wissenschaftskommunikation der Zukunft, edited by Rafael Ball (Schriften des Forschungszentrums Jülich, Reihe Bibliothek 18) <http://hdl.handle.net/2128/2893>, accessed: 12/06/08

  • Porter M (2005) Windows of the soul. Physiognomy in European culture 1470–1780. Clarendon, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Rayword WB (1990) International organisation and dissemination of knowledge. Elsevier, Amsterdam Selected essays of Paul Otlet

    Google Scholar 

  • Sieglerschmidt J (2002) Metadaten. [engl.: Meta Data.] In: <http://opus.bsz-bw.de/swop/volltexte/2008/242/>, accessed 25/06/09

  • Sieglerschmidt J (2006) Convergence of Internet services in the cultural heritage sector––the long way to common vocabularies, metadata formats, ontologies. ISKO conference Vienna 2006. In: <http://opus.bsz-bw.de/swop/volltexte/2008/276/>, accessed 25/06/09

  • Smith A (1776) An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/MOME?dd=0&af=RN&locID=bsz_konstanz&srchtp=a&c=1&ste=11&d4=0.33&stp=Author&dc=flc&docNum=U101696886&ae=U101696886&tiPG=1&an=19010108800201>, accessed: 12/06/08

  • Steinberger R, Pouliquen B (2007) Cross-lingual named entity recognition. In: Sekine S, Ranchhod E (eds) Named entities: recognition, classification and use. In: Linguisticæ investigationes 30 (2007), 135–162

  • Thomas S, Joseph C, Laccetti J, Mason B, Mills S, Perril S, Pullinger K (2007) Transliteracy. Crossing divides. In first monday––peer-reviewed journal on the internet, 12 (12) 2007. <http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2060/1908>, accessed: 12/06/08

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors want to thank Peter Marzahl and Thomas Max Safley for the enhancement of their Continental English and for insisting on more clarity of expression and concepts. All shortcomings are the responsibility of the authors.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Museum Information System (MusIS), Bibliotheksservice-Zentrum Baden-Württemberg, Universität Konstanz, 78457, Constance, Germany

    Thomas Kirchhoff, Werner Schweibenz & Jörn Sieglerschmidt

Authors
  1. Thomas Kirchhoff
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Werner Schweibenz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jörn Sieglerschmidt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Werner Schweibenz.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kirchhoff, T., Schweibenz, W. & Sieglerschmidt, J. Archives, libraries, museums and the spell of ubiquitous knowledge. Arch Sci 8, 251–266 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-009-9093-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-009-9093-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation