Bielefeld Academic Search Engine: a (Potential Information-)BASE for the Working Mathematician

Services of an university library do not end in itself, but the “general user”, i.e. the “customer”, is in the centre of interest. Customer’s demands can easily be described by – simple and easy search facilities – relevant and complete lists of results – direct and transparent access to all retrieved items, which can best be summarized as a “one-stop-shop” to meet the customer’s demand for information. While customer’s demands are legitimate and very easy to understand, customer’s own skills very often are poor and inappropriate: So in practice Google has become the first choice for information retrieval and seldom there is an awareness of the really relevant scientific sources and the reliability of retrieved items. Beyond traditional library services, the first step to keep the customer satisfied was building up “digital libraries”, also called portals or subject gateways, which provide a simultaneous search in different databases by a single user entry, i.e. a meta-search, provide availability information for each retrieved item and provide access to the shelves, the electronic full-texts, or document delivery services with respect to the libraries holdings or licensed materials. In fact, digital libraries integrate printed and electronic materials, monographic and journalarticle information, local and remote holdings, so they are called hybrid libraries also. A well-known example is the “Digital Library of North Rhine-Westphalia”, which started in