Project description

The "Slavistik-Portal" is based on the project "Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Slavistik", which was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for five years starting in 2005. The goal of the "Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Slavistik" (ViFa) was the creation of a central contact point for specialized information on Slavic studies on the Internet. "ViFa" Slavistik was primarily aimed at scientists and students, but also at teachers, translators, journalists, cultural managers and all those interested in Slavic studies, Slavic languages and literature as well as Slavic folklore.

The "ViFa" Slavistik was part of the "Sondersammelgebiet" (SSG) for Slavic Languages and Literatures, which was maintained at the Berlin State Library from 1998 to 2015 and successfully supplied the German Slavists with Slavic specialized literature during this period. Since 2016, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin has been in charge of the "Fachinformationsdienst" (FID) Slavistik, which takes service to researchers on another level. The "Slavistik-Portal" continues to function as the central point of contact for specialized research and counts more than 5.000 visitors per month. It continues to offer its services in the coming years and within the framework of the FID, expand the services and continue to supply the German and international specialized user community with relevant scientific specialized information.

In the following text, the main modules of the portal (including their technical basis) are briefly outlined in order to make it clear that behind the visible web presentation, which follows the principles of clarity, transparency, good design and performance, there are twelve years of intensive work on the content, technical infrastructure and professional know-how.

Search - The "Search in Slavic databases, bibliographies and catalogues" covers a search area of over 70 data sources that provide subject-related information on and about Slavic studies. Since 2013, the open source system Pazpar2 has been used as the software, which is able to search the local bibliographic data stored on site in Berlin in the form of SOLR indices, as well as remote specialized sources via various XML or Z39.50 interfaces, in a matter of seconds. Approx. 30 local SOLR indices are equipped with special analyzers (with functions such as automatic transliteration of Cyrillic, etc.), so that searching them is particularly effective for Slavic specialists. A cautious estimate of the subject-related data sets in the entire search area is approximately 5 to 10 million bibliographic units.
New acquisitions - The portal offers the service "New acquisitions Slavistics", which reflects the monographic acquisitions by the SBB for the entire German-speaking area (on behalf of the German Research Foundation) of the last 15 years. Via the recently added service "New publications OLC Slavistics" you will find newly added articles from 500 of the most important Slavic periodicals. Both services are updated every hour. Accordingly, you can subscribe an RSS service.
Journals - The module provides an overview of the most important printed and electronic journals in Slavic studies. The data from the "Elektronische Zeitschriftendatenbank" (EZB) and the "Zeitschriftendatenbank" (ZDB) are connected via XML interfaces and are therefore always up-to-date. The integrated list of journals in the database "Online Contents (OLC) Slavistik", which is also always up to date, will give you an overview on the journals.
Databases - This module forms the heart of the portal. Bibliographic metadata from the most important German-language Slavic bibliographies and the subject-related regional bibliographies are represented on more than 300.000 Google-optimized webpages. The metadata of these bibliographies were obtained from the printed editions by specialized OCR and structured using data mining techniques during the conversion projects from 2007 to 2012. These bibliographies are now available in database form and are fed into the SOLR indices for browsing, Pazpar2 and widget searches. In addition to the bibliographies, the module also offers a selection of about 2.000 relevant online sources which the portal team has collected over the last ten years.
Online tutorial - Until the end of 2016 the online tutorial LOTSE-Slavic studies (as a subproject of "ViFa" Slavistik) was offered as a learning portal for search techniques in Slavic studies. It was maintained by the Bochum University Library for five years and then hosted by the SUB Hamburg.

Intensive work is still being done on the "Slavistik-Portal". Above all, the acquisition of new, high-quality metadata is a main focus. Additionally, more printed bibliographies will be made accessible by data mining; furthermore, electronic subject-related OAI servers will be harvested worldwide. Access to free and licensed full-text sources/databases is also playing an increasingly important role. E.g., since autumn 2016, a Germany-wide FID license for the full-text database "Universitetskaja biblioteka online" is accessible via the "Slavistik-Portal".

We will continue to focus on the principles of transparency and performance and will design our portal accordingly. The most recent development concerns the new responsive design of the portal, which has been online since January 2017. This means that we have also optimized our websites for those users who access our services via mobile devices and browsers of all kinds. Welcome to our website To the search.