Dear colleagues,

first of all I wish to extend my own warm welcome to you at the AIB conference Bibliocom here in Rome. I hope that you will have a stimulating and fruitful conference. It is both an honour and a pleasure for me to be here and give you the best wishes and regards of the German librarianship and of course it is an honour to say a few words in this session about a very important project and campaign for the German libraries, which is called library 2007.

A few figures as a background for you about the German libraries: There are currently around 2.100 public local-authority library systems on some 3.600 sites, around 13.000 further institutions that include libraries that are open to the the public (some 7.000 of these are copuncil-run libraries, around 5.000 are run by religious organizations, and around 1.000 by other bodies), in addition to the 1.700 academic libraries that ensure provision of academic knowledge for universities, colleges, research institutions, or whole areas. As well as university and college libraries, this includes depository libraries, specialist libraries, regional libraries and special collections. There is just a library law for the national library, for the German Library; all other libraries are not on a legal basis and a voluntary task of the authorities.

Most library management and staff are specially trained. However, when compared with figures from other European countries, staffing levels in public and academic libraries are at the lower end of the scale. German libraries are forming a network that covers most areas and meets the whole range of information demands. They promote reading and media skills, ensure free access to information in any form of media and offer orienttaion in real and virtual media wrlds. This is why libraries make the raw material „information“ avalaiable for the social and economic innovation of a country.

There are innovative institutions in all fields of the library work, which are achieving excellent results. However, on the other hand, there are a number of circumstances that do not promote the future-oriented development of libraries in germany and that reduce the contribution that libraries can make to education, to lifelong learning, and, as a corollary, to Germany's competitiveness:

• the autonomy of the funding bodies within the individual branches of library work and the tregional authorities means that synergies and chances for optimization often go waste
• The increasing autonomy of higher-education institutions holds the danger that elements of library systems that were previously centralized or cooperative may break away
• The division between public and academic libraries is no longer apropriate and is acting as a hindrance to fruther development

In other words, an analysis of of the actual state of the German library sector as part of that program „Library 2007“ demonstrates that the concrete implementation under given circumstances urgently and obviously requires optimization. This result is mainly based on the following three factors

• The missing strategic inclusion of libraries as part of the educational infrastructure; nowadays, constant targets in terms of educational policy are not adequately linked with the library sector, neither on regional level nor with regard to federal policy
• The missing coorodinated innovation and development policy for the library sector on federal level; there is a lack of central coordination and control mechanism appropriately completing federal structures and personal responsibility. Library organiszation and management are often inhibeted by limited prevailing conditions and must be enabled to provide efficient services.
• The obvious reduction of necessary financial resoruces for the development of libraries.

So on the whole, Getrmany has suffered from a lack of toward-thinking library planning and policy. The results of this are insufficient levels of cooperation, unstaisfactory use opf resources, and a lack of innovation and flexibility.

What are the aims of the project?

What can libraries do for the academic community in Germany? How can all libraries in future contribute to an optimal infrastructure for education and culture? Which strengths can be used? Where are changes needed? The two partner organizations, the federal Union of German library and information Associations, nowadays called BIB Library Information Germany, and the Bertelsmann Foundation (and we may be lucky that the foundation is our partner because a lot of money was spent by the foundation for this project) aimed to

• Work out recommendations for the future organization of the German library system (this has happened) Strengthen the position of libraries within the education system (we hope so)
• Encourage exopert and political debate about oppotunities fore optimization and efficiency within libraries (at the moment working on that; for instance two meetings in Berlin last week)
• Initiate a comprehensive strategy and change process

What methodes were used as basis for that publication "Library 2007"?

The central element of the first phase was the development of a national strategey document, or „blueprint“, containing recommendations. This blueprint was based on the following foundations:

• Qualitative interviews

This starting point for the study carried out by ther Institute for applied social sciences, infas, was the question of the potential value of libraries and their future roleö. The change in the function of libraries – according to the initial hypothesis – has an effect on the perception of libraries amongst both staff and users. Research into both perspectives was entrusted to infas. So in autumn 2002, the opinions of the reölevant parties from the fields of library work, education, academia, culture, funding bodies and politics were combined in a form of stocktaking exercise. The poll was designed as a qualitative study, completed by a secondary analysis of numerous quantitative interviews from infas library research over the past five years; because this company were involved as a profession al advisor in some in library projects of the Bertelsmann foundation before and had a lot of material.

• Analysis of the current state of affairs in the German library system, a SWOT analysis

This analysis was intended to identify strengths and weaknesses of the German library system and to indicate areas that need to be changed. The intention was not to present a comprehensive, detailed picture of the German Library system and develop solutions for individual problems but to examine the German library system in its entirety.

• Research into international best practise

The aim of the best-practise research project was to learn from countries that have succesful national library planning and development programmes. The project examined succesful aspects of the library systems of five selected countries (Denmark, Finland, United Kingdom, Singapore and the United States)

Quite uninteresting for you is probably how the project was organised (Management group, operational project direction, team of experts and so on). So I will concentrate and emphasize on the results.

The five countries, above named, all show very interesting approaches and succeses in national library planning. They also are distinguished by a large state commitment to the library sector. So there are some central success factors that return again and again:

• A clear definition amaong all the stakeholders of the mandate and role of the libraries
• That sounds very simple, but in practise, it isn't. And it's not just about a simple image problem of the libraries among polticians but a stringent view of the functions of the libraries that protects against waste and strengthens the truly vital functions, that brings into line the perfomance expectations of the funders, financers, customers and librarians: it's the common goal that makes innovation possible.
• The anchoring of the libraries in the educational system
  Those countries that take education seriuously and have a comprehensive educational concept must logically also keep up the perfomance of their libraries. All cpountries with exceptional libraries have a large and professed government commitment to educational issues and libraries.
• Commitment to the library system – be it a legal basis or another form of security – that does not guarantee independence from the labors of day-to-day breadwinning but does promise a reliable framework to secure even medium-term-plans
• Cooperation and networking, paired with clear performance demands and stimulus mechnisms
  Utilization of synergies: targeted, determined and maybe also paired with the recognition that occasionally a library's very survival may depend on it
• The fifth main success factor: the existence of an institution whose mandate is not the bureaucratic adminsitration of general fixed assets but the innovative design of development strategies, and for whom the empowerment to innovation is the highest purpose in life, so to speak. This requires those very creative contacts, conferences and contacts that move mountains in the scientific world.

But we alos learned that there is no patente dformula for the infrastructure of the libraries that we could simply copy. But now we think to know where we must focus in order to create sustainable conditions for german libraries.

The result of the project is to suggest and to create an agency for the development of libraries as driving force for innovation. This agency might be a foundation, an independent one, or as a part of a larger education foundation. The agency has the following targets:

• To intensify the integration of libraries into the national education and information policy
• To improve the quality of customer-orientated library services
• To increase the efficiency of libraries

Based on these defined goals the agencý has the following core tasks:

• To reflect on the development and frame conditions in order to prevent conceptional double works by systematic coordination and to work out proposals ready to find approval by majority on a central level
• To stimulate and to carry out support programs based on the principle of making out mathcing funds and incentive financing. It is not planned that the agency provides for the current financing of libraries
• To assure librarian quality by defining quality standards for library services, benchmarking and promotion of new management methodes
• To modernize the work of libraries by innovative solutions for organizational topics, optimization of exemplary business processes as well as development of cooperation models between libraries or other educational and cultural institutions

The authors of the strategic concept „Library 2007“ assumes that a reform of the library sector must take the sovereignity of the federal states with regard to educatuional and cultural topics as well as the regional responsibility for public libraries into consideration and can just be implemented in close cooperation with the federal states and communities . this is a typical German aspect of the problems of structure and resposibilities. In a federal state, central services can only have an effect if they are supported and not directed. The individual libraries are the significant forces to implement innovation on the spot – central institutions or third parties have the function to support and encourage.

At this time we have a lot of meetings in lobbying this project and these goals. The agency has not been founded yet but we hope we are on the way to it. At the end it should be expressed that the goal of this project was not the creation of a pracitcal recommendation for the rioutine work of German libraries – some librarians would like to have such a manual of practise to be succesful – but rather the detailed documentation of the indispensable demand for optimization of the German library sector. A further consequence is the urgent appeal to the federal and regional policy for the founding of an agency for the development of libraries with the intention to assure quality, innovation and sustainability of public and scientific libraries within Germany.

Dear colleages, keep your fingers crossed for us to translate this idea into public and realizing policy, otherwise I am afraid that the German library sector will become a field for development aid workers. But I am hopeful and sure that we will be succesful.
Thank you very much for your attention and patience