„Information is a core resource of the 21th century“

[translated from: Empfehlungen zur digitalen Informationsversorgung durch Hochschulbibliotheken. – Greifswald: Wissenschaftsrat, 2001, www.wissenschaftsrat.de/texte/4935-01.pdf]

 

The overwhelming success of the internet has considerably carried forward the relevance of this statement. Given the abundance and increasing complexity of available electronic information resources, on the one hand functions for search and retrieval must be improved appropriately; on the other hand the competencies for the efficient use of information resources ("Information Literacy") ought to be strengthened. Consequently, within the scientific context it must be a goal of national interest to make scientific information available for everyone individually and according to their demand. The construction of a Swiss electronic library (E-lib.ch) therefore represents an important milestone for the development of a knowledge-based society.

A nationwide electronic library is of particular importance in consideration of the fact that in this context Switzerland is meanwhile clearly lagging behind the states of the European Union and the United States.

The strategic objective is to set up E-lib.ch as the leading and central national gateway in terms of a single point of access for academic information provision and information research in Switzerland and to establish it as a long-term entity. E-lib.ch is distinctive from other programmes because it integrates multi-value services, subject-specific programmes, specialist quality controls, professional indexing and direct user and ordering facilities, all of which form the basis of the "Swiss Electronic Library".

Project management and project co-ordination for the entire E-lib.ch project has been delegated to ETH-Bibliothek (the Library of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich). The Conference of University Libraries (KUB/CBU) is accompanying the E-lib.ch project.

The project is funded by the Swiss University Conference (SUK) for the cantonal universities. The participation of the institutions of the ETH-domain is supported by ETH-Rat (Council of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology).