Markus Franz, Niedersaechsische Staats-und Universitaetsbibliothek Projekt Math-Bib-Net
Hans J. Becker, Head of Acquisition and Cataloguing Department Subject Librarian Mathematics and Computer Science, SSG Pure Mathematics State and University Library of Goettingen
franz@mail.sub.uni-goettingen.de
becker@mail.sub.uni-goettingen.de

Many people expressed their doubt about the loss of relevant scientific information and scholarly communication from the age of non-electronic publishing. Here at the Lower Saxony State and University Library Goettingen (SUB) we recognized these upcoming problems some time ago and started several activities to counteract.

So first of all, this is how we try to utilize our stock of printed mathematical preprints and put them into a unitary concept with the increasingly offered archives of electronic preprints. As the special subject field library for pure mathematics in Germany, the Lower Saxony State and University Library Goettingen collects printed mathematical preprints from several institutes and preprint series since the early seventies. All documents are referenced in the OPAC of SUB Goettingen and the central catalogue of the regional library consortium.

As part of the ongoing Project "Math-Bib-Net", funded by the DFG, we have made the metadata of about 42,000 of these preprints available on the web (http://harvest.sub.uni-goettingen.de - follow the link "MBN-Preprints" ). We also integrated an online order facility, including the capability of electronic delivery via email or Ariel. Right now we are working on the integration (which means deduplication and merging) of our database into the MPRESS-System at the mathematical department of University of Osnabrueck (http://MathNet.preprints.org), the largest German retrieval system for national and international electronic preprints. After that, it will be possible to access printed and electronic documents ranging from the early 70īs to the present with a single request.

If you are interested, have a look at http://harvest.sub.uni-goettingen.de and follow the link to "MBN-Preprints".

Information on other mathematical projects, e.g. JFM-Project/ERAM (Electronic Research Archive for Mathematics), EULER etc., are available at http://harvest.sub.uni-goettingen.de/mbnhome/projects.htm (mostly German)