Funding for library projects at the University of Stuttgart

The Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts (MWK) is funding 15 innovative projects in Baden-Württemberg as part of the “BW-BigDIWA – Wissenschaftliche Bibliotheken gestalten den digitalen Wandel” (BW-BigDIWA – Scientific Libraries Shaping the Digital Revolution) program. The Stuttgart University Library was successful with two externally-funded projects: a feasibility study for a new central library (C-HUB) at the Campus City Center as well as a text and data mining concept for copyrighted works (Xsample).

In the first project, “Campus-HUB”, or “C-HUB” for short, a concept and feasibility study is to be carried out for a central library at the Campus City Center to be shared by all the different universities  in Stuttgart. “The library should be more than just a learning center for students, it should also be a place for exchange within the scientific community as well as for dialog between the scientific community and the people of Stuttgart and of the state of Baden-Württemberg”, says Dr. Helge Steenweg, Director of the Stuttgart University Library. C-HUB is a joint project between the libraries of the Stuttgart Technology University of Applied Sciences and the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University with the Stuttgart University Library. Campus-HUB is therefore also the main focus of the planners at the various Stuttgart universities, who are promoting the joint university development project “Campus 2030”.

As part of the International Building Exhibition 2027, the Campus-HUB can represent the science quarter in the city center. The proposed combination of the old University Library, which has been a listed building since 2018, with a new construction at Hegelplatz which has yet to be built, symbolizes the close links between the past, present and future which are essential for scientific progress in particular.

The funding provided by MWK amounts to 300,000 euros. The project is scheduled to run for two years. The project is being managed by the Stuttgart University Library.

In the second project funded by MWK, “Xsample – Text and Data Mining”, the technical requirements for transparent research using text and data mining techniques should be improved by developing and implementing a concept for producing extracts from copyrighted works and the analysis findings derived from them. The extract concept should make it possible to make research findings from copyrighted works accessible to third parties within the extent permitted by law.

As well as the University Library, the project partners working on Xsample are the Institute for Natural Language Processing (IMS) at the University of Stuttgart and the Center for Applied Legal Studies (ZAR) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The funding amounts to 350,000 euros. The project is being managed by the Stuttgart University Library.