Design Kommunizieren/To communicate design

Abstract

All librarians come face to face with design every day in their interaction with a library building, its furniture, and its equipment. Librarians in design libraries are in addition concerned with information, about and for designing. The library of the German Design Council constitutes the most comprehensive collection of design information available to the public in the former Federal Republic, and is complemented by a photo and slide archive, including company literature and a newly-established video collection. Although no use is made of modern information technology, user-friendly information services, including a periodicals indexing service in the form of cards which are also available to external subscribers, are provided. However, the dissemination of design information further afield is constrained by three factors. In the first place, designers themselves do not fully appreciate how libraries can help them. Secondly, there is little co-ordination in Germany of design libraries of different kinds and in different regions and administrative units. Thirdly, most German design libraries are insufficiently resourced to allow them to do more than fulfil a specific function within the context of an institution or a locale. Nonetheless, librarians of German design libraries have formed an action group and have taken the first steps towards working together, while the German Design Council’s publication Design Bericht (1989) has provided a directory of design institutions. Design Bericht will appear every two years; a similar publication encompassing the whole of Europe is envisaged. (A full English version follows the original text in German. Please note that this paper was written before the unification of Germany).