About us

As a central service institution close to teaching and research, the university library is undergoing a transformation process. The digital transformation, changing usage requirements, the innovative further development of the provision of the growing range of electronic media as well as services for open access, electronic publishing and research data management form the challenges in the daily implementation. For many years now, the TU Library has been actively shaping the discourse on open source, open science and open education and has contributed to current debates on learning space design.

TUB stands for openness and supports open access to scientific information: free of charge and as far as possible without technical and legal barriers. This includes the active visualization of research results via TUHH Open Research as well as support for publishing and research data management. Openness also applies to the software used. TUHH Open Research and the tub.find catalog are based on open source software.

TUB – open access to technological information

Head of Library: Beate Rajski

---

Stock Profile

The University Library acquires engineering literature in German and English, in exceptional cases also in other languages. The library’s main guiding principles are the needs of researchers and the requirements of teaching.

Target groups of our library

Customers of the University Library are primarily members of the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) as well as residents, companies and institutions in the Hamburg region as well as students from other Hamburg universities.

Content profile of our media portfolio

The departments we supply correspond to the TUHH schools of study:

• Civil Engineering
• Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics
• Management Sciences and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering
• Technology and Innovation in Education
• Process and Chemical Engineering

In line with the research focuses of the institutes at the TUHH, literature from the fields of shipbuilding, technomathematics, logistics and business administration is also procured. Furthermore we meet the requirements for the promotion of key skills. For the natural sciences as well as for law, social sciences, humanities and cultural studies, mainly basic or application-oriented titles are acquired. Specific technical literature forms, such as DIN, VDE and IEEE standards, are also available to users or are indexed for them.

The TUB owns the holdings of the former Institute of Shipbuilding (IfS) in the areas of ship design and ship operation. The literature holdings of the former Hamburg-Eppendorf Sewage Clarification Experimental Station are also located in the University Library.

The currently licensed journal and e-book packages can be found on the TUB website, in our catalogue as well as in the TUB annual report.

Acquisition policy

Digital media (journals, databases, e-book packages) play a major role (approx. 85-90%) in the acquisition business at the TUB. In addition to current research literature, which is available in particular in periodicals (conference proceedings, journals), the licensing of specialist databases such as Web of Science, Scopus or Nautos (DIN standards, VDI guidelines, ISO standards) is a focal point of acquisitions.

A growing proportion of the media budget is being spent on expenses arising from the open access transformation of academic publishing, for example through new licensing models, publication support or individual contributions to alternative open access funding models.

The promotion of open infrastructure for free publication, in particular through the open access repository “TUHH Open Research (TORE)”, has also become an indispensable part of our services.

In the subjects represented in research and teaching at the TUHH, a broad selection of monographs and reference works is made. We give priority to electronic acquisitions where this is economically viable (“e first” or “e preferred”). Printed books are still in demand, particularly in the area of study literature and in the textbook collection.

We react quickly to changes in study and research content and user groups. We take into account various key figures to determine literature requirements.

Through negotiation, acquisition cooperation (discounts, consortium agreements, etc.) and with the some financial support from the SUB Hamburg, we ensure cost-effective contract conclusions in times of heavily burdened acquisition budgets.

Discarding

We are continuously reducing the proportion of outdated textbooks and redundant, duplicated or obsolete literature in order to make room for up-to-date print media and user workstations.

The detailed stock profile is available for download (only in German).

Facts

The information and services offered by TUB include:

Literature:

• 466,000 volumes in print
• 162 current scientific journals in print form, 53,227 electronic journals
• Textbook collection: 1806 titles with 16,226 books for loan
• 600,000 digital books
• direct access to about 49,000 printed media in the text book collection and reading area
• Digital DIN-Standards for inhouse use in the library

Information services:

• Catalog tub.find
• Specialized databases for research
• Databases of the “Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverbund” (GBV)
• Information available on the Internet and social networks
• Advisory services
• General and subject-related reference works as a non-lending collection in the reading room.
• Self-service lending including books ordered from the stacks (2023: 12,628 loans)
• Document delivery
• Training courses and information events available (2023: 1,796 participants)
• Services on publishing and scholarly research methods
• Learning and working in TUB at 345 individual and group workstations. Possibility of reservation for seats in the upper reading room.
• Scanner and coin-operated photocopying machine
• 212,593 visitors in 2023

Behind the Scenes

The library staff ensures that media, information and literature are made available and procured as effectively and as efficiently as possible.

• The user’s department takes care of the service areas in the reading rooms (information and loans), document supply and the closed stacks which accommodates almost 400,000 volumes.
• The media processing section ensures that media are procured and made accessible as quickly as possible.
• Subject librarians of the scientific service department are responsible for selecting literature, co-ordinating acquisitions and making the media available. These librarians are also available for specialist information retrieval and for mediating specialized information literacy.
• The computer department takes care of the comprehensive information technology. The library administration supports the management in the areas of budgeting and staff.
• Co-operation partners are: the computer centre of the TUHH, other libraries in Hamburg, the “Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverbund” (GBV) (Joint Library Union) of 7 German federal states as well as specialized organizations and commercial business partners.

Open Library Award

The University Library of the Hamburg University of Technology has received the Open Library Badge 2020 for the following criteria:

• Help shape open source software: GitHub and TUHH GitLab-Repository
• Promote openness in workforce development: Policy of Openness in Research and Teaching (with the participation of the library)
• Training opportunities: tub.talks (Coffee Lectures)Establish cost transparency in the acquisition process: Participation in OpenAPC
• Making open access resources visible: Search Open Access
• Uncovering Open Access potential: Event Collect, Write, Publish 2020
• Teaching and learning materials under open license: Use of H5P
• Publish only open access yourself: List of publications of the library in the research information system