Kalliope: an Open Union Information System of Literary Archives, Modern Manuscripts and Letters

By Jutta Weber - July 2002

Jutta Weber observes that European culture is mainly based on the tradition of text and that the preservation of the written word is one of the essentials of cultural heritage programmes. Here she writes about an initiative which enables all institutions in Germany holding hand-written documentation of a European cultural nature to present data effectively about their holdings, and themselves, on the Internet.

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The project Kalliope (Verbundinformationssystem Nachlässe und Autographen) is co-ordinated and carried out by the Berlin State Library (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin) [1] and |a|S|tec| - Angewandte Systemtechnik GmbH [2] and co-funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [3].

One of the most fascinating aspects of Europe's cultural heritage is the fact that every country owns a considerable number of collections of modern manuscripts and letters, written by the most famous and the less well-known, but which together form the backbone of our European culture. As cultural life has never been isolated within one nation or region, all kinds of national and international relationships exist between these collections. Europe's cultural history is defined by these relationships and its documentation is maintained in institutions with archival functions, not only in Europe but all over the world.

In 1966 the Union Catalogue of Modern Manuscripts and Letters in Germany was established in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Today it provides information about more than 1.5 million documents relating to 250,000 people. More than 150 partner institutions regularly provided this information by sending copies of their card catalogues.

The documents represented in this catalogue date from early modern times up to the present day. Among those people whose manuscripts and letters are documented there figure the most famous poets, artists, scientists and politicians of Europe but also less well-known people who survive in the Union Catalogue as they corresponded with those famous people. The data include brief information about archival collections, single letters or manuscripts kept in archives, libraries and museums in Germany. As these institutions differ in size and importance and have very different functions - there are small local archives as well as large universal libraries - the collections they own may be of importance on a local, national or even international level.

The Union Catalogue is a meeting point for scholars from all over the world who need information about the location of manuscripts and letters in Germany. It also represents a kind of interface between archival, library- and museum-related documentation and the administration of manuscripts and letters.

Catalogue conversion which started some years ago has now reached the point where results can be presented on the Internet. This data will appear together with that from a large network of cataloguing institutions to be established throughout Germany. All will be presented under the name Kalliope.

The goal of Kalliope is to establish in Germany a national node, acting together with all the German partner institutions as data provider in the European network MALVINE (Manuscripts and Letters via Integrated Networks in Europe) [4]. Kalliope will build the bridge between these partners and the MALVINE community. MALVINE is a search engine building the basis of a network of data __ namely collection level and item level descriptions __ of modern manuscripts and letters held in various European institutions.

All information contained in the card catalogue of the Central Catalogue of Manuscripts (Zentralkartei der Autographen) will be made available in Kalliope electronically, as mentioned above. This means that more than a million data items on literary archives, manuscripts and letters relating to more than 250,000 people can be searched on Kalliope. This will be the basic provision, but it will be regularly updated with new data from former and newly participating institutions.

There are two search options:

To generate a high level of usage, participation in Kalliope is in fact open to every institution.
The institutions can choose between:

• the use of a Kalliope client (free of charge)
• the exchange of data captured in their own system via MAB2
• the communication between their own system and Kalliope via Z39.50 / XML
• the use of a simple template

With these four options Kalliope is able to communicate with every sort of institution holding relevant material:

1. smaller and medium-sized institutions which do not use their own cataloguing system and are interested in using a Kalliope client; first attempts are being made at the moment by e.g. Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin [5], Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt/Oder [6], Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg/Br. [7] and Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin [8].
2. Other institutions equipped with special cataloguing systems will be able to send and receive their data via the German exchange format for libraries MAB2; this will be carried out with data from, for example, Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen [9], the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München [10] and the Archiv der Franckeschen Stiftungen [11].
3. Institutions working with powerful cataloguing systems will be able to communicate with Kalliope and MALVINE as well as via the Z39.50 protocol on the basis of the MALVINE protocol or on the basis of an XML protocol; one example is Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach [12].
4. There are also facilities for very small institutions with no cataloguing facilities and which own only a few documents: They will use an XML template just to send brief details on the material they hold.

All records available on Kalliope are presented by Berlin State Library in the Kalliope OPAC which is freely available on the Internet under http://www.kalliope.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/.

The German cataloguing tradition in the sector of modern manuscripts aims at giving information on both the collection level and the item level description of each document (whenever possible and meaningful) and is based on two standards:

1. cataloguing rules (RNA)[13]
2. authority data (PND) [14] and GKD [15]

Both are indispensable in a communication network designed to show specific material in a coherent framework. In Kalliope a very simple mechanism connects name authority records to corporate body authority records. It therefore provides comprehensive information on where documents on particular people are held.

This relationship is a 1 (person or institution) to n (institutions) relationship and is the basic structure of the model "DIANA" (Deutscher Index zu Autographen und NAchlässen). The possibility of just adding (via an electronic template) the name of an institution (or a private person) holding material on a person or institution is the simplest way of enhancing the Kalliope information service.

Some aspects of this DIANA model have influenced the idea of the project LEAF (Linking and Exploring Authority Files) [16]. LEAF, co-ordinated by Berlin State Library is developing a model architecture for a central server connected to a distributed search system harvesting existing name authority information with a view to automatically establishing a user needs-based common European name authority file.

Kalliope demonstrates that the preconditions for constructive and well-organised participation in the realisation of a European or international co-operation model can be established and that these can include more than just the biggest and best known institutions in this strategic goal. Only when all relevant institutions - including the smallest ones - are able to participate in the realisation of a European or even world-wide initiative, will it ever be possible to create a telling contribution to the "information society". This also means that every kind of institution - museum, library, archive, documentation centre, scientific institution - must have the chance to provide its information in a suitable way.

And so we envisage a virtuous circle: the more institutions that allow access to their data on Kalliope, so the more data will be available in MALVINE and the more terms of comparison will be available, and examples of "how to do" will be provided world-wide. This is in fact one of the expected outcomes of Kalliope on the national, and of MALVINE, on the international level: to give as many examples as possible of how Europe's modern manuscripts and letters are described and how they can be found in terms of this kind of description. The goal is to encourage new participants to do so in the same way. The use of authority information - the enhancement of which is the principal aim of project LEAF - will provide more focussed access to data. The network of information about the relationships between persons and institutions will become denser and more complex with every new participant in the projects. Thus Kalliope and MALVINE and, in the future LEAF, will have an increasing influence upon each other: Every public user, every expert, every participating institution, indeed country, will profit from these initiatives in the long term.

References

1. Berlin State Library
   URL: <http://www.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/> [Link to external resource]
2. |a|S|tec| GmbH
   URL: <http://www.astec.de> [Link to external resource]
3. Die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, (DFG)
   URL: <http://www.dfg.de/> [Link to external resource]
4. MALVINE,(Manuscripts and Letters via Integrated Networks in Europe)
   URL: <http://www.malvine.org/> [Link to external resource]
5. Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin, (ZLB)
   URL: <http://www.zlb.de/> [Link to external resource]
6. Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt/Oder ,
   URL: <http://www.ub.euv-frankfurt-o.de/> [Link to external resource]
7. Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg/Br.,
   URL: <http://www.ub.uni-freiburg.de/> [Link to external resource]
8. Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin
   URL: <http://www.bauhaus.de/> [Link to external resource]
9. Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen,
   URL: <http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/ub> [Link to external resource]
10. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München,
    URL: <http://www.bsb-muenchen.de/> [Link to external resource]
11. Archiv der Franckeschen Stiftungen,
    URL: <http://www.franckesche-stiftungen.uni-halle.de/> [Link to external resource]
12. Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach,
    URL: <http://www.dla-marbach.de/> [Link to external resource]
13. RNA cataloguing rules,
    URL: <http://zka.sbb.spk-berlin.de/rna/> [Link to external resource]
14. PND authority data,
    URL: <http://www.ddb.de/professionell/pnd.htm > [Link to external resource]
15. GKD authority data ,
    URL: <http://www.ddb.de/professionell/gkd.htm> [Link to external resource]
16. LEAF,(Linking and Exploring Authority Files)
    URL: <http://www.leaf-eu.org/> [Link to external resource]

Author Details

Dr.Jutta Weber
Head of the German Union Catalogue of Modern Manuscripts and Letters
State Library Berlin
Department of Manuscripts
Potsdamer Str. 33
Berlin
10785 Germany

URL: <http://www.sbb.spk-berlin.de/ [Link to external resource]
Email: jutta.weber@sbb.spk-berlin.de [Link to an email address]

Jutta Weber studied Latin and Romance Languages; 1978: state examination; 1980: Doctorate in Latin; 1982: state examination in the Libraries College in Köln. Since 1982, she has worked in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and since 1985, she has worked in the Department of Manuscripts as Head of the German Union Catalogue for Modern Manuscripts and Letters. She lectures and writes essays about conservation of and electronic access to information on modern manuscripts and letters. She also writes about national cataloguing rules for modern manuscripts, participation in national and international conferences on modern literature and the conservation of cultural heritage. She is a member of a consortium responsible for the national name authority file (Personennamendatei, PND) and is a member of a team working in partnership with libraries, archives and museums. She is currently acting as the co-ordinator of the EU-funded projects MALVINE and LEAF.

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For citation purposes:
Weber, J. "Kalliope: Open Union Information System of Literary Archives, Modern Manuscripts and Letters ", Cultivate Interactive, issue 7, 11 July 2002
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue7/kalliope/>

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