The Swiss National Library

In Alexandria 21(2) 2009, as part of a series ‘the next ten years in national libraries’, we outlined some plans and predictions for the next decade at the Swiss National Library. These included an increased need for electronic storage, open questions on copyright in Switzerland, and a need for more shared spaces and meeting areas allied with a greater online presence especially through digitization. Financing these activities was expected to remain challenging: continuing cooperation was highlighted as one of the ways to achieve these goals.

In the following, we will see to what extent these ideas have been confirmed, outline some of our other activities over the past years, and explore some of our plans and challenges over the next decade.

Published output in print in Switzerland has not declined over recent years, contrary to some expectations, though, as predicted, online storage requirements have increased as we continue to selectively archive Swiss websites, and collect online publications such as serials, dissertations, and now self-published e-books. If the trend in print continues, the print storage areas will be filled by 2030 so new areas must be planned.

As predicted, copyright was and remains an ongoing topic, with legislation still being discussed. We planned to increase cooperation in public/private partnerships with publishers and other libraries in Switzerland, and have been very successful with over 100 newspaper titles and over 100 periodical titles digitized and freely available online. Less successfully, increased collaboration with The European Library did not happen as the service was disbanded in December 2016. This was also the service that delivered the Swiss National Library’s metadata to Europeana, and an alternative has not yet been established, in part due to a major library system migration within the library between 2017 and 2018. In 2009, open data, virtual reality, and 3-D were not part of the library’s activities, but in the following years, we began experimenting with 3-D digitization of objects in the collection and access to images through virtual reality. The major changes have been in open data: library metadata is available for download, and over 14,000 (rights-free) images have been uploaded to Wiki Commons for free re-use. While not specifically outlined in 2009, these innovations correspond to our goals of being more present online, and going where the users are to be found. A Wikipedian in residence and Wiki Hackathons were also successful in bringing the collections to the users.

The library has grown, with the integration of the Swiss Sound Archives in Lugano into its structure, bringing new formats, expertise in digitizing and archiving sound material—and more Italian-speaking colleagues, thus encouraging staff in Bern and in Lugano to increase their linguistic and cultural skills.

In 2020, the library will celebrate its 125th anniversary with an exhibition, publications, open days, and virtual outreach. In addition, for the first time, the Swiss Post Office will produce a postage stamp of the library. In 2021, we will celebrate the centenary of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s birth, one of the greatest and best-known Swiss authors, again with publications and exhibitions at the Centre Dürrenmatt and in Bern.

System migrations will continue in the next few years as we select and move to a next-generation system for the Swiss Literary Archives and acquire a long-term preservation system for the born-digital and digitized collections, including those of the Swiss Sound Archives.

Ten years ago, we anticipated creating more shared spaces in the library but financial restrictions meant this project has been postponed. In the coming years, it will be revived, as part of a major renovation of the whole building which will require staff and users to move to a temporary location. A reading room will be provided at that site, and access to the print collections in the library’s underground stacks will be guaranteed during this period. In addition, more material will be made available online, in cooperation with publishers and other institutions. The renovation will enable the library to review its user areas and increase its on-site activities to complement the growing digital collections. In common with other institutions in Switzerland and abroad, we will take into account environmental questions and include sustainable development goals. We will include our users, especially the younger generation, in our plans, as we have done so over the past year while preparing our strategy for 2019–2024, reflecting the changing relationship we see between the library and its users. We plan to confirm our position as the memory of Switzerland and as a bridge between the past, the present, and the future.

For the Swiss National Library, as for other national libraries, community will be a major theme in the coming years: both the GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums), where we will seek closer cooperation, especially our local cultural institutions, public libraries, our population, as well as our colleagues internationally. We will seek to increase interactivity, for example, with on-site hands-on laboratories, more open data, develop linked-open data, and continue to make our data available on widely used third-party platforms. Digital humanities is a field of increasing development and we plan to put our large collections of digitized newspapers available for in-depth study, as we are currently doing, for example, in the Impresso project (https://impresso-project.ch/Media monitoring of the past). These activities will require that staff acquire more digital skills; continuing education for staff is encouraged. As expected, the number of people retiring is increasing: new job descriptions will reflect the new skills needed.

We will monitor developments in artificial intelligence and assess their appropriateness for our institution, in terms of added value but also taking into account data protection. We expect questions of data protection to grow in importance both in terms of access to sites and user data: with the implementation of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in Europe, and news of data privacy breaches, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the challenges we all face in the networked environment.

As we look forward to the coming years, we can anticipate a mix of continuity (e.g. in our collection mandate for Helvetica), change (e.g. in our premises), and innovation (especially in access). The experience of the past years has shown that new advances and techniques are difficult to predict in the long term, and that as a national library we cannot be early adopters for financial and capacity reasons. Our strategy is to keep aware of innovation through a group of staff who seek out trends and suggest small test projects on a regular basis, and through discussion and exchange within our communities, both professional and local.