Overview of Chinese specialist literature in the field of Science and Technology in Germany

Abstract

The main target audience of the libraries special collections of East Asian literature is the scholars of humanities and social sciences, just like the sinological libraries are normally considered for the scholars of Chinese Studies. But in recent years one can notice a growing interest in East Asia, especially in China, in the field of science and technology. The increasing international economic relations between China and Germany are raising the demand for engineers who have a broad knowledge of China and the technical developments of both countries. In order to achieve an overview of the rapid technical and scientific developments in China, it is assumed that specialized language skills are required to be able to access important information. As the National Library for all areas of engineering and natural sciences, the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) takes the responsibility to provide research and industry with specialist literature and information – nationally and internationally. Therefore the TIB also built up the most comprehensive collection of modern Chinese literature in science and technology in Germany. As to understand how the library can provide a good support for the much more heterogeneous user group of Chinese literature in this field as well, it is necessary to learn more about their requirements. The purpose of this paper is to get an overview of the Chinese research output in science and technology by analyzing international databases, and to examine the target audience of this kind of literature. It is expected that it will not only show the growing awareness and use of Chinese technical and scientific publications by engineers in Germany, but also demonstrate the importance of access to these publications in terms of scholarly exchange for both German and Chinese scholars in Germany.