KU News Release

Germany’s national librarian to tour KU during visit to Kansas and Missouri

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas Libraries will host Germany’s national librarian for a visit to Kansas and Missouri on Thursday, Nov. 9, and Friday, Nov. 10.

Elisabeth Niggemann (pronounced neeg-ah-MAHN) is director general of Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Germany’s national library, which includes sites in Leipzig, Frankfurt and Berlin. Her position is the German equivalent to the Librarian of Congress in the United States. She also is a scientist and holds a doctorate in biology.

On Thursday, Niggemann will meet with KU Information Services librarians and other information professionals, visit with faculty, students and friends of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures and tour the Max Kade Center for German-American Studies. She wants to examine German exile literature, which is relevant to her library’s mission. She also will give a lecture titled “German Libraries in a European Environment” at 7:30 p.m. in the Max Kade Center. The lecture is open to the public.

“We are honored to welcome an international dignitary such as Dr. Niggemann to KU and the greater Kansas City area,” said Lorraine Haricombe, KU’s dean of libraries. “Her visit to KU demonstrates the significance of international cooperation among those of us who document and preserve the world’s knowledge.

“Dr. Niggemann’s visit is timely, as it fits well with the KU libraries’ renewed initiative to highlight KU’s many international programs and cultures. This is increasingly relevant because libraries are no longer limited by geography; we electronically provide information just as easily to someone across town as to someone on the other side of the world. This is how libraries expand access to knowledge about cultures around the globe.”

Niggemann is visiting the United States in conjunction with a meeting of the Board of Trustees of OCLC, Online Computer Library Center Inc., through which she has worked closely with William Crowe, librarian at KU’s Spencer Research Library.

“National libraries such as Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek represent the richness of international cultures, and we have a piece of that here because of the rich German cultural heritage in Kansas and Missouri,” Crowe said. “Internationalism has been a part of KU’s culture and focus for decades, and Dr. Niggemann’s visit highlights the value of collections here in the U.S., such as the exile literature in the Max Kade Center, to the peoples of the countries from which they came.”

On Friday, Niggemann will deliver a luncheon address to an invited group at the Kansas City (Mo.) Public Library, focusing on the national library’s role in ensuring Germany’s leadership in science and technology.

The German National Library is the central archival library and national bibliographic center for the country. Its task is to collect, permanently archive, comprehensively document and record bibliographically all German and German-language publications from 1913 on and to make them available to the public. The German National Library holds about 22.2 million books.

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