Collection Coordination

Since the post of ‘Collections Officer to the President’s Executive Council of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, based at the Zentrum für Kulturtechnik’, was established in spring 2011, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has had a central collections coordinator for the first time. He acts as the point of contact for the teaching and research collections managed decentrally by the institutes and brings together their interests and represents them in dealings with the university. Furthermore, he represents the collections as a whole in academic and wider society, both nationally and internationally.

The Collections Coordination supports the conceptual development of the collections and collections management, with the aim of enhancing the usability and utilisation of the collections as infrastructures for research, teaching and knowledge transfer. It is responsible for jointly promoting the visibility of the collections both within and outside HU. To this end, the Collections Coordination operates a portal where all necessary information regarding the collections can be accessed in one central location. Addresses and contact persons, further information resources, activities and projects, as well as publications, can be published here using a tiered publication model. In addition, it manages the regional and national networking of the collections, provides them with information and supports them in securing external funding.

Humboldt-Universität has had a Collections Regulation in place since 2014. This regulates the preservation, use and protection of academic collections and works of art at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU). For the purposes of these Regulations, the collections include holdings of the University Archives and the University Library only insofar as they are listed as a collection in the Annex or are incorporated into the collections in accordance with these Regulations after they come into force.

The Collections Council is elected from among the heads of collections at HU. The central collections coordinator or collections officer of the President’s Executive Council is the fifth full member of the Collections Council. The Collections Council facilitates the flexible exchange of information and draws on a range of expertise to advise individual collections and Institutional Leadership and Management on matters relating to the further development of the collections.