Mission statement of the ZBW

Mission:

We stand for comprehensive information supply in economics through user-oriented services. Our services are based on competence, innovation and cooperation.

Services

We

• are
  • your specialist in economic literature and economic information
  • your guide to world wide information sources
  • your document delivery service
• provide customised services for research, studies, and commercial and public needs - for the national and international market
• have more than a million publications in print and in electronic form
• comprehensively and efficiently catalogue books and journals as well as articles in ECONIS - our online-database -
• offer you our online-database ECONIS which is clearly arranged for easy searching and structured according to the latest scientific standards
• give you professional advice for your research
• help you competently with printing and copying
• use the latest technology
• keep you informed of our services through active marketing
• react flexibly and quickly to your wishes

External Cooperation

We

• cooperate with national and international partner libraries and participate actively in several panel and working groups
• develop innovative services with specialists from other libraries, research institutes and universities
• provide services and products in cooperation with our partners
• engage in projects and discuss the results with other organizations
• consider benchmarking as an important way of improving our work

Internal Communication

We

• deem the following to be key to performing our jobs in a goal-oriented and responsible manner:
  • clear communication structures
  • mutual information exchange
  • transparency in decision-making
  • readiness to self-evaluation
• structure internal communication so that we can identify with our products and services
• provide for a good work environment by
  • encouraging mutual respect
  • taking responsibility for one another
  • creating family-friendly working conditions

Qualification

We

• take responsibility for our professional development
• consider continous learning as a positive process
• strive to keep up with the permanent changes and developments in library science
• support the readiness to engage in further training by providing a variety of training programs

Organization

Our organizational structure

• ensures that the work-flow is transparent and efficient
• supports individuals in taking responsibilty for their work area
• promotes teamwork
• is flexible and can change to take on new challenges

Management

Our management

• ensures that the library performs well and is future-oriented
• creates goal-oriented management and organizational structures
• sets high competence standards for itself
• uses a cooperative management style and delegates tasks
• motivates the staff to identify with their work