Open Password – Wednesday, April 7, 2021
#908
COVID-19 – Central government – Antonia Diaz – Public goods – European Union – Negative externalities – Public health system – Coordination – Moral hazard – Council of Ministers – European Commission – Subsidiarity – Challenges – European unemployment insurance – Industrial policy – Nation states – Redistribution of skills and finances – Israel – Great Britain – USA – Hans-Christoph Hobohm – Libraries – Frank Seeliger – Sebastian Nix – David Lankes – Expect more – Heiner Müller – Collected Errors – Aztecs – Rite de Passage – Huehuetlatolli – Sputnik shock – Third place – TU Nuremberg – Automation – Digitalization – Open Access – Open Science – Informatization of services – Disintermediation – Value chains – Neue Zürcher Zeitung – ETH Library – Rafael Ball – Andras Degkwitz – Klaus Ceynowa – Wolfgang Schäuble – Commercial information monopolies – Research data management – BuB – State Library – Google – Paradise according to Borges – Fifth power – Basic research – ZBW – TIB – ZBMED – Corona pandemic – Peter Strohschneider – Life sciences – ZB MED – Bielefeld Institute for Bioinformatics Infrastructure – Research cycle – Open Science – Open Access – Big Data – Research and Networking – Data Science – Access to Information – OPEN + Fair – Transfer of Knowledge and Skills – DGI – Transfer of Information in Times of Distance – Further and Further Education Offers
Outside the box (33)
a European central government and an inefficient one at that to combat COVID-19 ?
Antonia Diaz, The EU Budget and the Role of Public Goods, in: cesinfo FORUM, March 2021. The best way to defend the economy against Covid-19 and similar disasters is to invest in public goods and institutions. It is extremely unlikely that private companies can foresee such events, especially since they operate in markets with major information problems. This is particularly true for the European Union, “where the right mix of public transfers and public goods is critical in minimizing incentive problems related to consolidating the single market and European integration.”
Similar to air pollution, for example, the corona pandemic has negative external effects, only much stronger. Market-based solutions are ruled out from the outset because the marginal social costs of infections cannot be determined. “Setting a price for the externality is almost impossible in a country with a public health system, because the allocation of health care is not carried out by a price system but by queues and patient characteristics. … This is the reason why governments do not even attempt to create a market for the coronavirus externality and resort to regulating and coordinating actions of private agents. This is why we have lockdowns and the short-run negative trade-off between health and the economy. It follows that a combination of health system capacity (particularly ICU beds) and a wide system of testing and tracing is the only feasible way of cutting the transmissions … Thus, the fist lesson from Covid-19 is that public goods are the best way to restore efficiency when we cannot set markets for those externalities. …
The second lesson of Covid-19 is that fiscal capacity is key to implementing the needed transfers when private risk-sharing mechanisms fail. The third lesson of Covid-19 is that the uncoordinated national responses to fight the pandemic disrupt the single market. Coordination is key to fighting externalities. …
The issuance of Eurobonds … as well as the implementation of public transfer programs creates a moral hazard problem: some governments may feel tempted to relax their fiscal discipline, as was pointed out during the European Council meeting on 27 July. This is a very reasonable fear in a confederation of countries. … To avoid moral hazard problems, policies that, until now, are in the hands of country governments should be transferred to the supranational body. The first candidate is to create a true European unemployment insurance program”. Health care spending should also be raised to the supranational level. “The European Commission is designed to be the social planner of the European Union and should be given the power to act as such. … The corollary of this is that we need to revise, and, very possibly, to reduce the scope of the principle of subsidiarity.”
The European Union faces enormous challenges in the short and medium term: it has to combat the effects of COVID-19, maintain the common market, avoid a new financial and debt crisis, combat climate change and promote digital transformations. All of these challenges are “negative externalities that call for collective action”.
The author concludes with political recommendations that are tough: “The timing outlined in this article dictates that the first step should be building fiscal capacity so that the common institution has enough muscle to invest in common public goods. The second step is transforming to the common institution (the European Commission) those policies that need to be coordinated at the European level. In my view, these points to a European unemployment subsidy and all industrial policies. The Commission is heading perhaps too cautiously in this direction.”
Comment: I agree with the author that private sector solutions are prohibited for resolving the COVID-19 crisis. However, if it had occasionally lowered itself from its high level of abstraction, it could have come up with the idea that additional private sector initiatives are desirable, as the pharmaceutical industry is currently demonstrating. You could also have been well positioned for the corona pandemic before it came. One only had to listen to Bill Gates and his pandemic warnings, whose foundation is probably fighting diseases in developing countries better than government development aid. Especially since people in politics and administration cannot rely on the Prime Minister personally picking up the phone to buy the vaccine, as happened in Israel.
However, Diaz’s contribution should be viewed critically as soon as it turns to the relationship between the European Commission and the governments of the nation states. In fact, it is not about combating the COVID-19 crisis at all; rather, COVID-19 is just an example or a “Trojan horse” for all the major challenges facing the EU member states. Are different optimal mixes of political levels (including private initiatives) possible for the various challenges? Ms. Diaz might have come up with this idea if she had used empirical evidence in addition to her model considerations. In fact, their argument doesn’t even boil down to this: All of these challenges are external effects, so they must be coordinated and combated from the central level. Consequently, it proposes a gigantic redistribution of powers and finances in favor of the Commission and at the expense of nation states. In connection with this, she expressly says that the concept of “subsidiarity”, which has so far been a mainstay of the EU treaties, needs to be largely put into perspective.
However, Diaz did not use the feasibility criterion. If she were to get her way with her demands, we would be moving at a rapid pace towards not a federal state, but a centralized state (perhaps along the lines of France), and an inefficient one at that. This could be demonstrated by the example of the procurement of vaccines by the EU Commission in comparison to Israel, Great Britain and the USA. Would a pandemic policy in the hands of the EU Commission have been better than that of the member states? That doesn’t seem plausible.
In honor of
Hans-Christoph Hobohm
What stars should libraries reach for, what is their vision, what is their mission?
By Frank Seeliger and Sebastian Nix
Richard David Lanke’s work “Expect more!” (original: Expect more, 2012) contains the statement that libraries could be even better than they already are if they set themselves big goals.
OK, then we’re simply asking on the occasion of Hans-Christoph Hobohm’s departure from the formal active working life, which mission on which planet we should go on, given his almost inexhaustible background of experience. To paraphrase Heiner Müller, Hobohm in particular demands that the dialogue with those in the know should not be interrupted until they reveal what future would be lost with them (Collected Errors, Volume 2, 1990, page 64).
In a distant land with a long tradition – we call them the Aztecs, they called themselves Mexi’ca – there was the tradition of «Huehuetlatolli», a Nahuatl word for a «Rite de Passage». When the venerable dignitaries (tlato’ani) passed the baton to their successors, the exhortation and educational speech contained not only a moral face, but also perspectives. What would tlato’ani Hobohm want to tell us in such a form?
At first we can only assume: Maybe things would go in the direction where we could forestall the supposed second Sputnik shock (which founded the TIB Hannover). Would the “Huehuetlatolli” provide answers as to which terrain we could set accents and impulses after Gutenberg and the Internet? Set the dramaturgical tension differently: Is the preservation and development of the “Third Place”, the emotionally charged challenges of automation and digitalization and the transformational tension from Open Access to Open Science suitable as a vision for our guild? Let’s try one of several possible answers!
Buzzwords used everywhere, such as automation and computerization of services, not only affect the emotional state of colleagues, but also raise the question of the future place of “the” library in the educational and academic value chain. We all know the “manslaughter argument” that is often put forward in the political sphere, saying that everything is on the Internet. And the question arises as to whether the new comprehensive university in Franconia, the Technical University of Nuremberg, which is currently in the founding phase, will still have a library in accordance with the Bavarian high-tech agenda. If, for example, one grumbles about the disappearance of pay phones in public, then the business sector dispassionately calls this effect “disintermediation”. The question of the whereabouts of the information facility should be asked in an existentialist (or even fatalistic?) manner; in a visionary way, it should be asked where the function and equipment of information facilities should go.
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The existential threat to libraries according to Rafael Ball and Wolfgang Schäuble.
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Let’s move on to the existential threat to libraries. We remember: In the Sunday edition of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung from February 7, 2016, an interview with the then new director of the ETH Zurich library, Rafael Ball, began with the provocative statement: “Libraries: Get rid of it!” When asked “ Mr. Ball, do we still need libraries today?» replied Rafael Ball: «No, not in their current form.» Such an echo to a public statement by a representative of their own «guild» inside and outside the library cosmos has been very rare so far – if at all – given. The spontaneous responses were very indignant, see for example the following week (NZZ am Sonntag from February 14, 2016, page 24) the reply from Andreas Degkwitz and Klaus Ceynowa under the title: “The book has a future”. Looking for the salvation of libraries exclusively in the digital and thus in the abandonment of the analogue was certainly off the table in the pure form that Ball formulated.
Wolrgang Schäuble: What librarians are still good for.
However, the culture of debate in the library landscape, which was generally expandable, quickly ebbed. Soon the discourse was once again dominated by the classic tasks of libraries and transformational realignments, for example on research data management and open access. But then the President of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Schäuble, referred twice to Rafael Ball’s theses. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of an undivided German National Library, Schäuble wrote in the BuB (12/2020, pages 700-702) under the motto: “A German unity on a small scale – National Library”:
“Even more than the Peaceful Revolution and German unity, the digital revolution gives rise to a review of the library’s self-image. The most radical thing to do is Rafael Ball, the head of the library at ETH Zurich, who four years ago demanded: Get rid of the books! His theses met with fierce opposition, even though he only emphasized what many libraries are already planning. During the Corona restrictions, online access kept the library running. It has also been shown that a bookless library is possible in principle. But is it desirable?”
In his speech at the reopening of the Unter den Linden building of the Berlin State Library on January 25, 2021, he said:
“The library also has a future in the digital age. A passionate debate has broken out about what the future looks like. Rafael Ball, the head of the Zurich University Library, calls for e.g. B.: ‘Away with the books!’ Bibliophiles see this as an attack on the foundations of our culture. If the library becomes an internet café, the downfall of the West will not be far away. We should always conduct debates in moderation. By the way, this doesn’t just concern librarians.”
Schäuble clearly expressed where he sees the task of libraries as a whole:
“Google’s search engine is only free as long as it makes commercial sense. … In addition: In the supposedly free Internet, knowledge is concentrated in a worrying way and is sometimes monopolized. Who says that one day corporations won’t be able to pursue a political agenda?”
For Schäuble, the first and most tangible task of libraries remains what is already written in the genuine library book:
“Article 5 of our Basic Law enshrines the fundamental right to ‘obtain information freely from generally accessible sources.’ The resulting task for libraries changes with the demands of the times. Libraries used to be viewed as information monopolists. Today their job is to prevent commercial information monopolies. Especially in a digitalized public, we need neutral and reliable institutions that document knowledge, make it accessible – and yes, filter it! And enable readers to critically evaluate information.”
Although this basis for library activity may seem old-fashioned in the local professional community, its value for society in all its social, educational and academic breadth is a lasting cornerstone in any agenda. Schäuble is not only asking about the existential threat to the library as an information institution. Rather, it also shows the way for their future function and equipment: space and services around securitized information and data worlds are the launching pad for everything another mission to reach for the stars. The non-profit, i.e. “non-entrepreneurial” nature of action, thinking in terms of public instead of private goods and acting beyond the life cycle of “business” are the cornerstones of the specifications
Hans-Christoph Hobohm on the way to retirement? We’ll see each other
again – not only Frank Seeliger and Sebastian Nix hope so.
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So that would be our Mars mission: Let’s create a fifth power after the media with the libraries!
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Which stars or planets should we now set out for, and in which places are libraries still far from Borges’ paradise, but to which a feasible route can perhaps be found right now, taking advantage of new opportunities?
Hans-Christoph Hobohm’s retirement from formally active research seems well suited to such a question of the century. It is characterized by not only socializing data, information and people around information facilities. His special interdisciplinary view of the knowledge and knowledge of economic and entrepreneurial contexts, of historical conditions and experiences, of education in general and in particular, on civil and urban society and in general predestines him to be an observer of the whole.
There is no need to discuss further that the force of transformation, of balancing between preservation and progressiveness, cannot be managed with just one, albeit very committed, university-based institute in Berlin alone.
If one wants to see future-oriented and visionary information placed in central relevance in and around the freely developing society, which sees broad education as one of its most important resources, then it could be seen as further violence in a democratic state after the legislature, executive and judiciary, right after the public Media as supposedly fourth give a fifth. What would be the Mars mission of this fifth estate?
This requires intensive and sustainably structurally anchored engagement with a wide variety of environmental factors such as technology and data, educational and social developments. This service cannot be provided on the side. In addition to the research work carried out at universities and partly at research libraries, it requires interdisciplinary basic research – which of course must not lose sight of the application relevance! – as it is provided at non-university institutions. This type of research is also carried out partially and is a credit to its namesake, who was also a sought-after librarian, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Two and a half Leibniz institutions maintain the information science research approach with a strong specialist scientific focus in Kiel and Hamburg on the economy, in Hanover on the applied natural and technical sciences as well as in Cologne on medicine.
To do this, we need powerful research institutions with clear priorities in the information sciences that take all aspects into account. The resources “data” and “information” with their catalyst, the library, deserve more attention in fundamental issues such as media-related individual and autodidactic learning in private and public spaces, as is particularly evident in the difficult phase of the Corona pandemic. The lack of a non-university research institution focused on such questions is a structural gap in the very scientific discipline that Hans-Christoph Hobohm tried so successfully to develop.
How should such a research institution be able to transfer its results to a typologically and structurally heterogeneous infrastructure landscape so that they can be applied there profitably? Are the information institutions and the surrounding “ecosystem”, for example the associations, taking part? We are indeed faced with extremely difficult tasks here. In any case, the “theoria cum praxi” principle will only work if it also finds fertile ground in the institutions.
But people landed on the moon just a few years after John F. Kennedy’s visionary speech on May 25, 1961, in which he envisioned a manned lunar mission as early as the end of the 1960s. So let’s be confident that our guild will also succeed in setting off for distant planets! Or to say it with the former DFG President, Peter Strohschneider: Sometimes you have to look for India to discover America!
Life Sciences
ZB MED and BIBI merge
and present strategy 2020 – 2025
ZB MED – Information Center for Life Sciences in Cologne and Bonn and the Bielefeld Institute for Bioinformatics Infrastructure (BIBI) work closely together in a strategic alliance and are planning to merge into one institution across the three locations. With the overall strategy that has now been adopted, the partners are setting out the common path until 2025. The aim: to support researchers in the life sciences throughout the entire research cycle in the spirit of Open Science and thereby strengthen people and the environment with research and infrastructure.
The life sciences are undergoing profound changes due to globalization and digitalization. They have to face major challenges: securing nutrition, combating major widespread diseases, pandemics and rare diseases, enabling healthy, self-determined aging and protecting the environment and climate while ensuring energy supplies. Overcoming these challenges is only possible if science and research make their indispensable contributions.
For example, MED and BIBI, both institutes jointly fulfill the national task of providing a sustainable supply of information, research literature and data in the life sciences. The ZB MED/BIBI offering covers the entire spectrum of information provision and data analysis in the life sciences. This ranges from quick and comprehensive access to specialist literature via modern research infrastructures – for example for open access publications or big data analyzes – to the transfer of skills and knowledge in a strong network. The offering is completed by our own research and expertise in bioinformatics and data science. The work of ZB MED/BIBI is based on five strategic guidelines:
- Research + network: We conduct research together with the regionally, nationally, European and globally networked research community.
- Data Science: We enable data analysis and generate new insights through research.
- Access to information: We provide sustainable access to information, literature and data as a central information infrastructure.
- Open + FAIR: We promote open and reproducible science in the spirit of Open Science and FAIR principles.
- Transfer of knowledge and skills: We actively impart knowledge, skills and abilities.
Further links: ZB MED/BIBI Strategy 2020-2025: Strengthening people and the environment with research and infrastructure – https://www.zbmed.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Profil/PDFs/Strategie-2020-2025-ZB_MED_BIBI_final.pdf – Video clip on the strategy: https://youtu.be/rSXyDpu4Bjo – Blog post “The goal is the goal: development and core results of the overall strategy 2020-2025 for ZB MED and BIBI” http://zbmedblog.de/das-ziel-ist- the-goal-eg-med-and-bibi
DGI
Providing information
in times of distance
The further education and training offer 2021
October 29, online – In the pandemic year 2021, the DGI Forum is dedicated to the corona-related changes in working methods and structures as well as the exchange of information in education and information management. Under the motto «Providing information in times of distance» the focus is on three key questions: information and knowledge about politics, research and science – information and knowledge in organizations and @home – information and knowledge as resources and means of production for information professionals
Posters and speeches from all different research areas that have to do with information and knowledge management in the broadest sense are welcome. Please send submissions (max. 250 words) to dgi-forum2021@dgi-info.de by June 13, 2021. – Further information at: https://dgi-info.de/dgi-forum-2021/- The further training offer 2021:
Digital photography for social media and websites
Module I: April 12, 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Michael Borchardt
Module II: April 26, 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Michael Borchardt
Social media and research – introduction
April 13, 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Christa Rahner-Göhring
July 12, 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Christa Rahner-Göhring
GDPR – data protection in practice
April 16, 9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m., online, Diana Dimitrova, Fabian Rack
Project planning, implementation and evaluation
Module I: April 20th to 21st, 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Gudrun Schmidt
Module II: April 22nd, 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Gudrun Schmidt
NEW: Design virtual meetings and workshops successfully
April 27, 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Gudrun Schmidt
Communication for information professionals
Module I: May 4th and 5th, 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Gudrun Schmidt
Module II: May 6th, 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Gudrun Schmidt
Writing workshop – websites, blogs, Facebook
Websites: May 12th 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Michael Borchardt
Blogs: May 19th 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Michael Borchardt
Facebook: May 26th 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Michael Borchardt
Methods and instruments for formal and content-related information development
Module I: June 15th to 16th, 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Gudrun Schmidt
Module II: June 17, 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Gudrun Schmidt
Online seminar: Knowledge management
Module I: June 22nd, 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Gudrun Schmidt
Module II: June 23rd, 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., online, Gudrun Schmidt
Social media and public relations
Module I: July 7th, 9:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m., online, Paula Landes
Module II: July 8th, 9:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m., online, Paula Landes
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