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University of Tubingen
Entry 6 of 14 | show all | print this entry |
About 10:00 a.m., Jürgen Plienenger, the librarian at the Institute for Political Science, University of Tübingen, came to Haus Birkach and we drove the 29 miles to Tübingen, a university town in the Neckar valley. The University was founded in 1477 and there are half-timbered, gabled medieval houses everywhere. Schiller and Hegel both studied there. First we walked through the city, which lies alongside the narrow Neckar River. Students pole shallow boats long the river, just like punting on the Avon River in Cambridge, England or Christchurch, New Zealand. We walked through narrow streets to the Markplatz (market square) and saw the Rathaus (city hall) which dates from the 15th century (except for the painted design on the façade which are only from the 1800s). A small band was playing marches and Dixieland music-there were only 5 of them but they made a great noise. We saw the Stifskirche, a former monastery church now the collegiate or town church. It dates from before the 16th century. We had coffee before going to see Jürgen's library.
Jürgen lives in Stuttgart because he said that feels trapped in a small town. He and his wife have three children, Daniel 11, Marta 8, and Simon 6. Her parents run a winery nearby and he brought us some grapes from their vineyard. By the way, he took his wife's name when they had children because he wasn't close to his family and they liked her last name better (his was Ahrens).
Jürgen's library is on the top floor and attic of a building built in the 1920s for one of the Kaiser Wilhem (later Max Plank) Institutes. When they moved to the University's new campus on the hill in the 1990s, the Political Science Department took it over. He has about 50,000 books and is out of room (whose library is not?). They have to cut purchases every three years and have dropped newspaper and journal subscriptions drastically. To make up for the budget decreases, they are doing more cooperative acquisitions with the main library. The University has a main library and over 80 institute and departmental libraries. They do not have a shared catalog, but there is an area-wide union catalog that most have input their holdings into. Most of Juergen's collection is now on the online catalog. He does all the cataloging himself, using a unique national system. He wrote a chapter on OPLs for a German book on library management (get title) and has developed web portals and research guides in both political and social sciences. He showed Judy some of the many resources for librarians, especially OPLs, in Germany, including a couple of Weblogs.
While Jürgen and Judy were talking, Steve wandered around the university and took pictures: beautiful views, old homes, and cars that you are unlikely to see in the USA (and one US car, the Chrysler PT Cruiser, that has made its way to Germany). Afterwards we went for a light lunch at a Greek/Turkish café. Steve had pita bread filled with spinach and melted cheese, Judy had gyro meat with yogurt and dill dressing, and Juergen had a pizza.
We got back to Haus Birkach about 4:00 p.m. Juergen went on home to Stuttgart, while we purchased gas for the car (€1.32 per liter, or €4.98 per gallon, or $6.50 per gallon!!), picked up some cheese, wurst (like bologna), and beer for dinner, and packed up for the drive to Berlin the next day.
Where I stayed:
Haus Birkach, Stuttgart
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