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A call for papers for the 80th German archivists' meeting in 2010 is presented in the July 2009 issue.

The article announces the publication of an online finding aid to the personal archives of French-German general Duke Emmanuel de Croÿ, which was jointly developed by the Deutsches Historisches Institut (German Historical Institute) in Paris, France (DHIP) and the archives of the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (Westphalia and Lippe Regional Association, LWL) (LWL-Archiv) in Münster, Germany, and is available on the website of the State Archive of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, at www.archive.nrw.de.

The article discusses a European Commission position paper published in February 2007 on scientific information in the digital age. The paper calls for better access to online scientific information in digital form and preservation of research results for future generations. The European Union supports the Open Access initiative and has budgeted € 25 million for research into the maintenance of digital contents.

Information about the symposium "Fragment und Makulatur. Vom Einbandfund zur Internetpräsentation", a symposium on the question whether to restore manuscript fragments and to consider them as missing links, or if they are considered waste paper, held July 2, 2012 in Duisburg, Germany is presented. Other topics mentioned are the conservation of manuscripts, a special treatment of Jewish manuscript fragments, and an overview of recent studies is provided.

The article discusses a May 2007 ruling of the appellate court in Munich, Germany which held that sending copies of scientific journal articles via email violates copyright laws in effect. The alternatives explored are to send paper copies by post or to obtain licensing of the technical articles prior to their electronic transmission.

Copyright of Soziale Welt is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the summer of 1945, following German occupation and the atrocities committed during World War II, the German minority living in the reestablished Czechoslovak state was exposed to violent acts of retribution. Despite the state authorities' initial endeavors to prose -cute some of the acts of violence committed after the war, the Communist takeover in February 1948 rendered the post-war persecution of Germans taboo in Czechoslovakia. It was only the Velvet Revolution of 1989 that paved the way for both academic discussion and public commemoration of those tragic events. However, it was only at the turn of the millennium that the Czech society's stance towards the post-war violence started to change. The initial taboo and resentment were partially replaced by public opinion assessing post-World War II anti-German violence more critically. Newly established sites of memory dedicated to post-World War II violence are often seen as one of the signs of a changing culture of remembrance in Czech Republic. There is, however, a lack of rigorous research exploring these monuments and plaques. The aim of this study is to analyze various aspects of these sites as part of a social framework shaping public opinion in the Czech Republic on a local level. In doing so, it seeks to answer the question of how Czech society is coming to terms with the "negatives" of its past. Drawing on oral history interview s, the paper explores the process of establishing current sites commemorating anti-German violence in today's Czech Republic, as well as the often grass-roots initiatives that lay behind them. Furthermore, the analysis will focus on the monuments' inscrip tions and the message they send to the public, shaping its historical awareness. Understanding society as a structure consisting of various memory communities, the paper contributes to the under-researched area of a Czech culture of remembrance at a local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal for Human Rights / Zeitschrift für Menschenrechte is the property of Wochenschau Verlag GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte (DVjs) is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Soziale Welt is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While the discussion in historical scholarship to date has focused undoubtedly on Wilson’s importance to the postulate of national self-determination, this paper shifts the focus and shows that the linchpin of Wilson’s thinking was democracy. First, in this article the development of Wilson’s positioning on democracy and national self-determination is unfolded in detail. Then, the discussion of the concepts of leading nation-state actors in Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia is summarized. In particular, it becomes clear that the debate about democracy and nationhood in these states was by no means first triggered by Wilson and his slogans. The following section examines the impact of Wilson’s postulates on the contention over disputed border territories. Specifically, it deals with an area of neighboring regions—Upper Silesia, Teschen Silesia, and the Orava River—that found themselves in a tri-border area between Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia during the transition period after World War I. The following section examines the impact of Wilson’s postulates on contested border areas. With regard to these regions, his ideas were by no means without effect. Along the lines of the core idea that peoples should be able to decide for themselves who governs them, and thus should also decide for themselves on their state affiliation, referendums were scheduled in the three regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Soziologie is the property of Campus Verlag GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv and the Lautarchiv of the Humboldt University of Berlin house early sound recordings made, among other places, in German prisoner-of-war camps and in German colonies between 1899 and 1954. These recordings were intended to preserve musical traditions of different world cultures for the future. Upon closer examination, it becomes clear that many recordings were also made in the logic of colonial knowledge production. A significant part was also recorded in situations shaped by colonial power relations, with people sometimes being forced to sing, speak or play musical instruments against their will. In some recordings, they expressed criticism of the recording »authority« or described painful experiences they had made within this framework. Based on selected recordings and secondary literature, this paper contextualizes the experiences of the recorded people, especially in recordings from German colonies, as instances of colonial »suffering. « [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whiteness as a construct of ideal skin colour was created at the intersection of the visual arts, literature, natural history and medicine (among others). This paper traces the construction of whiteness through four case studies in sixteenth-century Venice and Rome, examining the works of Agnolo Firenzuola, Lodovico Dolce, Girolamo Mercuriale, and Giulio Mancini. It shows that this construct of whiteness was rooted in ancient medical theories of internal equilibrium and by the seventeenth century had been gradually transferred to the external surface. Notions of beauty, gender dynamics and the emergence of colonial and racial ideologies were closely linked to this ideal. In close interaction with medicine, sixteenth-century art played a crucial role in making complexion a central theme in both visual art and art theory, and in establishing a hierarchy through the ostentatious absence of non-whiteness. Depictions of darker skin tones did not appear until the seventeenth century when attention shifted from a colour mixture of red, white and black to a polarity of light and dark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal for Sociology of Education & Socialization / Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung & Sozialisation is the property of Julius Beltz GmbH & Co. KG Beltz Juventa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal for Sociology of Education & Socialization / Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung & Sozialisation is the property of Julius Beltz GmbH & Co. KG Beltz Juventa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Pädagogik is the property of Julius Beltz GmbH & Co. KG Beltz Juventa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Freud's Lost Neighbours: Ways of Presenting Historical Documents in Exhibition Catalogues Historical documents such as forms and other writings are usually subordinated to linguistic narratives and used in exhibition catalogues to illustrate the necessary contextualization. Using the example of the exhibition catalog Freud's Lost Neighbours, designed by Walter Pamminger, this paper examines a mode of presentation that avoids illustration. Instead, forms from the National Socialist era make it possible to understand the bureaucratic procedures for confiscating the property of Viennese Jews. According to my hypothesis, the catalogue achieves this by placing the documents on an equal footing with the text, shifting the focus to the media implications. Drawing on Sybille Krämer's reflections on medial performativity, this article examines questions of the construction of truth through the media and the visual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropotechnologies of Learning: Optimization between Experiment and Exercise in Edward Lee Thorndike's Work Over the course of the twentieth century, "human beings" have optimized themselves through external (prosthetic, pharmaceutical, biotechnical) interventions to the point of being partially transformed. "Learning", on the other hand, is often not recognized as self-optimization. At first glance, learning seems to have little to do with human experiments or the technical utopias of transhumanist actors, including their optimized cyborgs. But even "learning", as this paper will show using Edward L. Thorndike's concept of "exercise" as an example, has been about the human self-optimization of its future development (as an individual or as a society) in Western cultural history. Specifically, I will look at the practices of experimentation and how these brought an actual economic concept of "success" into the focus of analyses of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Habitus of Self-improvement. Resolution and Reflection in the Diaries of Lausanne's Philippe Secretan (1756-1826) This paper examines the hitherto little-known diaries of Philippe Secretan (1756-1826) from Lausanne. Over a period of almost half a century (1778-1826), the young tutor, later judge and politician recorded in 18 volumes not only his experiences during this revolutionary period but also his personal ambitions. Secretan's diary also documents his methods, which makes it a rich source for exploring the relationship between writing practices and self-improvement at the end of the Ancien Regime. Secretan used his diary as a medium to optimize himself. Accordingly, its analysis reveals various techniques and the diarist's specific habitus of self-improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-optimisation in the Early Middle Ages: A Useful Anachronism Most research conceives of self-optimization as a phenomenon specific to modern "western" societies. It is characterized by a strong focus on the individual, techniques of self-control, and purpose-oriented methods of pursuing a goal that is, by definition, unattainable. It thus seems like a serious anachronism to speak of "early medieval self-optimization". However, used as an analytical term, it allows us to investigate premodern discourses on competition, performance and perfection. This paper aims to explore its heuristic potential, starting from the key term "athlete" as found in the sources. Based on a wide range of texts, such as hagiography, guidebooks and historiographical testimonies, it gives us first insights into the means and goals of early medieval "self-optimization". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bibliotheksdienst is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Politik is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Der Bericht informiert über die Tätigkeit der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Regionalbibliotheken in der Sektion 4 des Deutschen Bibliotheksverbands (dbv) in den Jahren 2015 und 2016. This report provides information about the activities of the consortium of regional libraries (AG Regionalbibliotheken) within section 4 of the German Library Association in the years 2015 and 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most inter-state comparisons of education systems are limited to figures on participation in higher education. In contrast, this paper presents a new metric that takes into account the hierarchical structure of education systems and focuses on access to higher education. These continuation rates were collected for up to 180 countries and 120 years and show that, although expansion started in the 1990s, a relatively high number of education systems currently still have rather elite access to higher education, despite high enrolment rates in secondary schools. Interstate differences are attributed in this paper, among other things, to colonial pasts. Although a clear association of rising continuation rates and rising unemployment among the highly educated is not apparent, it is worth considering regional variation in labour markets. This is because in the regions of West Asia and North Africa, which are characterised by above-average youth unemployment, the unemployment rate among the highly educated is also rising sharply. Here, expanding access to higher education does not appear to fulfil the promise of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Soziale Welt is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)