ETH Library

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ETH Library
ETH Library.png
ETH Library
LocationZurich, Switzerland
Type Scientific library, University library
Established1855
Collection
SizeOver 8,450,000 items
Other information
DirectorRafael Ball
Website www.library.ethz.ch
ETH Zurich in the evening ETH Zurich im Abendlicht.jpg
ETH Zurich in the evening

The ETH Library, serving as the central university library at ETH Zurich, has a notable collection of scientific and technical information. It is considered one of the largest public scientific and technical libraries in Switzerland[ citation needed ]. Furthermore, it also offers resources for the public and companies in research and development. Particular emphasis is placed on electronic information for university members and the development of innovative services.

Contents

Collection focuses

ETH Library collects media from the following fields: [1]

Special Libraries

ETH Library's four special libraries are responsible for supplying subject-specific literature to the corresponding departments and institutes at ETH Zurich. Their holdings are also generally available to the interested public. The special libraries include:

Collections and Archives

ETH Library's Collections and Archives contain valuable original holdings of scientific and cultural-historical relevance. The Collections and Archives [3] include:

Image Archive

Image Archive of ETH Library
ETH Library
LocationRämistrasse 101, Zurich, Switzerland
TypeImage Archive
Established2000
Collection
Sizec. 3.2 million images
Other information
Website ETH Library’s Image Archive
The Image archive is located in the main building of ETH Zurich ETH Zurich - Hauptgebaude - Polyterrasse 2012-09-27 14-40-49 ShiftN.jpg
The Image archive is located in the main building of ETH Zurich

The Image Archive of ETH Library indexes the library's image holdings. Its nationally and internationally significant image holdings document the development of ETH Zurich, research expeditions, settlement development and changes in society, politics and technology in Switzerland. Launched in 2000 as an organizational unit of ETH Library, the Image Archive curates a large number of image holdings acquired by the library in recent decades, such as within the scope of academic legacies. Searches and online access to the Image Archive's digitized holdings are available via E-Pics Bildarchiv Online. A growing number of sub-holdings are also available on Wikimedia Commons. In the series Image Worlds [4] (photographs from ETH Library's Image Archive), the archive's core holdings are presented thematically in texts and pictures.

ETH Library's Image Archive includes image holdings with a direct relation to the history of ETH Zurich and its architectural and staff development. In particular, this includes:

  • scenes (from around 1860 onwards): historical photographs of buildings, institutes, lecture theaters and laboratories at ETH Zurich
  • portraits: portraits of former members and students of ETH Zurich and notable scientists
  • photograph collections from institutes at ETH Zurich: e.g. Geobotanical Institute/Rübel Foundation, Geological Institute, Institute of Aerodynamics, Institute of Building Conservation (Georg Mörsch) or the Photographic Institute
  • photographs and drawings from the personal papers of former professors at ETH Zurich: e.g. Albert Frey-Wyssling, Immanuel Friedlaender, Albert Heim, Arnold Heim, Robert Maillart, Leopold Ruzicka, Carl Schroeter, Leo Wehrli or Hans Leibundgut

The Image Archive has some extensive image holdings bearing a broader relation to science and technology and topics such as civil aviation, landscape and settlement development, architecture or nature photography:

  • Foundation Luftbild Schweiz Archive (1918–2011): aerial photographs by Walter Mittelholzer from flights over Switzerland and to Persia, South Africa, Chad, Abyssinia, Svalbard or as the first to fly over Kilimanjaro, portrait and landscape shots of Switzerland, taken by the Swissair Photo AG
  • Swissair Photo Archives (1931–2001): photographs and films on civil aviation, the aviation business and aircraft and destinations of the former Swiss airline Swissair
  • Comet Photo AG Archive (1952–1999): media images on topics such as architecture, culture, nature, politics, prominence, sport, technology, and transport about Switzerland
  • Scenes (from around 1860 onwards): landscapes and views of locations (primarily Switzerland)
  • Other private image holdings: Photo archive of the foundation Documenta Natura, photo archive of the Industriekultur Foundation of Dr Hans-Peter Bärtschi, aerial image archive of Air Color SA (Meyrin), nature photographs by Albert Krebs and orchid photographs by Hans R. Reinhard

The image materials serve as a primary information source and reference material for studies on image production and usage. Last but not least, the copies, negatives, glass slides and individual films also document the technical development of the image as a medium.

Selected key figures for ETH Library's holdings

ETH Library's holdings comprise around 8 million analog and around 550.000 digital resources. As of September 2022, these include:

Analog resources

Monographs and journal volumes 3'003'361
Image documents3'791'324
Maps343'096
Archival material in linear meters5'025

Digital resources

Digital image documents876'620
E-books957'993
Dissertations, articles and reports in the ETH E-Collection82'716
Licensed e-journals 45'196
Databases150

The holdings of all ETH Zurich libraries, as well as more than 490 libraries across Switzerland, are available on ETH Library @ swisscovery. ETH Library @ swisscovery therefore provides access to more than 30 million books, series, journals and non-book materials.

Digital search platform

Research Collection

The Research Collection [5] is ETH Zurich's publication platform. University members can publish their scientific full texts open access as well as archive their research data and make them accessible to the public. Furthermore, the Research Collection records all publications produced at ETH Zurich and serves as a source for publication lists in academic reporting and on ETH Zurich's websites.

Other nationally relevant platforms operated by ETH Library

Selected services

Circulation courier

Library customers have the option of having documents from the institutions participating in the Swiss Library Service Platform delivered to the library of their choice. [8]

DOI Desk

ETH Zurich's DOI Desk [9] is located at the ETH Library and acts as a central DOI registration center for universities and research institutions in Switzerland. This service is also provided in collaboration with DataCite.

Research Data Management and Digital Curation

The specialist Research Data Management and Digital Curation [10] office advises researchers at ETH Zurich on aspects of handling research data and digital data in general. The ETH Data Archive provides the technical infrastructure for the electronic long-term archiving and publication of this data.

E-Publishing office

As a central contact point for open access within ETH Zurich, ETH Library helps members of ETH Zurich to publish their dissertations, articles, reports and much more in a freely accessible way online. [11]

DigiCenter

The Digitization Centre at the ETH Library is the service provider and competence center in the fields of digitization and the handling of metadata. In cooperation with various institutions of ETH Zurich and Swiss libraries, it carries out large-scale and high-quality digitization projects. [12]

Ongoing projects

ETH Library conducts some future-oriented projects, which ensure that the service and product portfolio is geared towards the needs of the target groups. [13]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photographic plate</span> Target medium in photography

Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a capture medium in photography. The light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was coated on a glass plate, typically thinner than common window glass. They were heavily used in the late 19th century and declined through the 20th. They were still used in some communities until the late 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ETH Zurich</span> Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich

ETH Zurich is a public research university in Zürich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digitization</span> Converting information into digital form

Digitization is the process of converting information into a digital format. The result is the representation of an object, image, sound, document, or signal obtained by generating a series of numbers that describe a discrete set of points or samples. The result is called digital representation or, more specifically, a digital image, for the object, and digital form, for the signal. In modern practice, the digitized data is in the form of binary numbers, which facilitates processing by digital computers and other operations, but digitizing simply means "the conversion of analog source material into a numerical format"; the decimal or any other number system can be used instead.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Scherrer</span> Swiss physicist (1890–1969)

Paul Hermann Scherrer was a Swiss physicist. Born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, he studied at Göttingen, Germany, before becoming a lecturer there. Later, Scherrer became head of the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Mittelholzer</span> Swiss aviation pioneer (1894–1937)

Walter Mittelholzer was a Swiss aviation pioneer. He was active as a pilot, photographer, travel writer, as well as of the first aviation entrepreneurs.

The California Digital Library (CDL) was founded by the University of California in 1997. Under the leadership of then UC President Richard C. Atkinson, the CDL's original mission was to forge a better system for scholarly information management and improved support for teaching and research. In collaboration with the ten University of California Libraries and other partners, CDL assembled one of the world's largest digital research libraries. CDL facilitates the licensing of online materials and develops shared services used throughout the UC system. Building on the foundations of the Melvyl Catalog, CDL has developed one of the largest online library catalogs in the country and works in partnership with the UC campuses to bring the treasures of California's libraries, museums, and cultural heritage organizations to the world. CDL continues to explore how services such as digital curation, scholarly publishing, archiving and preservation support research throughout the information lifecycle.

The University of British Columbia Library is the library system of the University of British Columbia (UBC). The library is one of the 124 members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). In 2017, UBC Library ranked 29th among members of the ARL for the number of volumes in library, making it the third largest Canadian academic library after the University of Toronto and the University of Alberta. However, UBC Library ranked 23rd for the titles held and second in Canada, and had a materials expenditures of $13.8 million, placing it 44th.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryerson & Burnham Libraries</span>

The Ryerson & Burnham Libraries are the art and architecture research collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The libraries cover all periods with extensive holdings in the areas of 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century architecture and 19th-century painting, prints, drawings, and decorative arts. A variety of materials important to scholarly research includes architects' diaries, correspondence, job files, photographs, sketchbooks, scrapbooks, articles, transcripts, and personal papers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Florida Digital Collections</span>

The University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC) are supported by the University of Florida Digital Library Center in the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. The University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC) comprise a constantly growing collection of digital resources from the University of Florida's library collections as well as partner institutions. Founded in April 2006, UFDC has added over 622,114 items - books, newspapers, oral histories, videos, photos, data sets, and more - with over 14 million pages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Archives of Japan</span>

The Independent Administrative Institution National Archives of Japan preserve Japanese government documents and historical records and make them available to the public. Although Japan's reverence for its unique history and art is well documented and illustrated by collections of art and documents, there is almost no archivist tradition. Before the creation of the National Archives, there was a scarcity of available public documents which preserve "grey-area" records, such as internal sources to show a process which informs the formation of a specific policy or the proceedings of various committee meetings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swiss Electromagnetics Research and Engineering Centre</span>

The Swiss Electromagnetics Research and Engineering Centre (SEREC) is the sole organization for handling electromagnetic research and concerns in Switzerland.

The online project Virtual Laboratory. Essays and Resources on the Experimentalization of Life, 1830-1930, located at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, is dedicated to research in the history of the experimentalization of life. The term experimentalization describes the interaction between the life sciences, the arts, architecture, media and technology within the experimental paradigm, ca. 1830 to 1930. The Virtual Laboratory is a platform that not only presents work on this topic but also acts as a research environment for new studies.

The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology is a Swiss research institution for application-oriented materials science and technology. It has three locations – Dübendorf, St. Gallen and Thun. As part of the ETH Domain, it is assigned to the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER). For more than 100 years since its foundation in 1880, Empa has been a material testing institute. Since the late 1980s, it has increasingly transformed into an interdisciplinary research institute for materials and technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smithsonian Libraries and Archives</span> System of libraries at the Smithsonian Institution, United States

Smithsonian Libraries and Archives is an institutional archives and library system comprising 21 branch libraries serving the various Smithsonian Institution museums and research centers. The Libraries and Archives serve Smithsonian Institution staff as well as the scholarly community and general public with information and reference support. Its collections number nearly 3 million volumes including 50,000 rare books and manuscripts.

The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology is a union of Swiss governmental universities and research institutions. It primarily consists of the following institutions:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German National Library of Science and Technology</span> German national library for engineering, technology, and natural sciences

The German National Library of Science and Technology, abbreviated TIB, is the national library of the Federal Republic of Germany for all fields of engineering, technology, and the natural sciences. It is jointly funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the 16 German states. Founded in 1959, the library operates in conjunction with the Leibniz Universität Hannover. In addition to acquiring scientific literature, it conducts applied research in such areas as the archiving of non-textual materials, data visualization and the future Internet. The library is also involved in a number of open access initiatives. With a collection of about 8.9 million items in 2012, the TIB is the largest technology and natural science library in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture</span> Teaching and research institute

The Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture is a teaching and research institute at the Department of Architecture of ETH Zurich, situated on the ETH Zurich’s Hönggerberg Campus site.

The Max Frisch Archive is an independent research institution that belongs to the Max Frisch Foundation and is based at ETH Library. It curates the literary legacy of Swiss author Max Frisch and is available for academic, journalistic and artistic research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ETH Zurich University Archives</span>

The ETH Zurich University Archives are responsible for safeguarding, indexing and mediating documents belonging to ETH Zurich and the ETH Board. They also curate the private papers of scientists and societies with ties to ETH Zurich. Its holdings aid research on national and international academic, university and technical history. Biographical dossiers and other documents round off the archival holdings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silke Langenberg</span> Swiss-German architect and professor

Silke Langenberg is a German-Swiss heritage scientist and architect. She is a full professor of construction heritage and preservation in the department of architecture at ETH Zurich.

References

  1. "Locations and media" . Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  2. "Material Archiv" . Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  3. "Collections and Archives" . Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  4. "Regina Wanger (2016): E-Periodica – Eine Plattform für digitalisierte Zeitschriften" . Retrieved 31 January 2018.
  5. "Research Collection" . Retrieved 27 June 2017.
  6. "e-pics". Archived from the original on 13 February 2016. Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  7. "About E-Periodica" . Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  8. "Unsere Services für Bibliotheken und deren Kundinnen und Kunden" . Retrieved 2015-11-03.
  9. "ETH Zurich DOI Desk" . Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  10. "Research data management" . Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  11. "Open access at ETH Zurich" . Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  12. "Digitisation" . Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  13. "Projects" . Retrieved 2015-11-03.

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