Volume 33, Issue 2

In archives, libraries and museums a large amount of documents bearing an overwhelming intrinsic importance is put on store. Therefore these documents, also in ancient times, are safeguarded on a specifically select paper-medium: charters, bibliophile editions, literary texts, music-notes, cartographic materials, especially also both technical and artistic hand-drawings and printed graphic arts. Beside the content of the documents the handmade paper sheets are suitable to diagnose the provenance, to reconstruct the process of papermaking, to localize and date the medium. These informations are always prior to the act of writing (plausibility test). The present paper deals with the paper technological methods and the procedure of paper analysis concerning these sort of documents. Further there is given a proposal of describing (check-list) and evaluating the informations.

Today libraries are confronted with different and often new challenges. The consequences of increasing digital activities are reducing the value of traditional roles and workflows. These are replaced by new requests, which also imply a turn to tasks, which were not in the primary focus of libraries. Global budgets in the universities, more effective controlling, and increasing cost-benefit analysis create additional pressure. Also ranking systems become increasing relevant to give hints at least for the relative value of an institution. Finally the libraries find themselves in a more and more competitive surrounding, as well as amongst themselves or compared with other parts of the university or external parties. This contribution tries to indicate the problems linked with this situation and how to deal with it.