The Institute for Newspaper Research in Dortmund (INRD), affiliated with the Dortmund City Library in Germany, is a unique and special media library in the world that collects historical and contemporary newspapers and periodicals from German-speaking countries. It is understood that Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein have German as the only official language in the world today, and Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and Switzerland have German as one of the official languages.
”Whether it is present, past, or discarded after reading, all newspapers and magazines will be accepted.” Reporter Paul Fecht once described the work of INRD. Since the 1920s, INRD has made it its mission to collect newspapers and preserve cultural heritage for future generations, becoming a world-renowned special media repository, newspaper archive and news archives center.
The general press holds a wealth of information
In 1907, Eric Schultz, then director of the Dortmund City Library, had already started collecting newspapers. He was one of the first to recognize that the informational value of newspapers extends beyond the date of publication, when the study of newspapers was still in its infancy in the early 20th century. In the eyes of many, newspapers are merely ordinary paper used for daily communication and have no academic value at all.
Schultz’s approach was gradually understood and recognized, and newspaper collecting became more and more popular. The INRD was established in 1926, but the Second World War destroyed 60% of its collections, making it extremely difficult to replenish. INRD researchers go to great lengths to find out where the most important newspapers are published and fill them out as much as possible. They gathered in Dortmund to preserve this precious material on microfilm. The task of restoration and finishing was extremely arduous and arduous, and continued until the 1970s.
INRD’s collections date back as far as the 17th century, such as the first daily newspaper Relatio printed in 1609, posters, placards and cartoons of the March Revolution of 1848, immigration magazines from 1933 to 1945, 1870 preserved by microfilm 2010 – 4,700 political posters for the 2010 elections in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Rhineland, Westphalia and the Ruhr.
The INRD also organizes forces and publishes the 64-volume Dortmund Contributions to Newspaper Research series. This set of books is expansive and all-encompassing, such as bookstores in railway stations, journalism in South Korea, management of newsrooms in the United States… It is really colorful and has become a rare authoritative reference book for newspaper researchers.
Preserving newspaper editions on microfilm
After 1945, the INRD collected important newspapers and magazines from Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and Switzerland while finding ways to replenish the damaged collection. Today, INRD, located opposite Dortmund’s main train station, subscribes to more than 70 daily newspapers, more than 200 professional and general magazines from German-speaking countries. According to statistics, there were 33,000 bound newspapers in the past, and 110,000 sets of microfilms were kept in full version of newspapers.
INRD maintains a dedicated media library of 37,000 newspaper bound newspapers and 60,000 books covering mass communication and journalism. INRD Director Gabriele Ziegert explained: “Our database holds newspaper articles on the media as a bibliography of the widest significance. In this way, we focus not only on , TV and print media, but also sites like Wikileaks.”
The “WikiLeaks” website was established in 2006 and only made its first appearance on the Internet in January 2007. Its purpose is to oppose an overextended government, support citizen activists, journalists, and other people who challenge the power, specialize in publishing confidential “internal” documents, expose corruption or even illegal insiders of the government or enterprises, and pursue information transparency. The “WikiLeaks” website does not publish its own office address, phone number, name and email address of its main operator, and relies on servers and supporters in dozens of countries to do a lot of things. It rose to fame in early April 2010 after it disclosed a video of the indiscriminate killing of Iraqi civilians by American helicopters, which was viewed more than 8 million times. The “WikiLeaks” website posts an average of 30 sensitive documents every day, but the US government has no choice but to “keep it hidden”. As the founder of “WikiLeaks”, Julian Assange is known as “The Hacker Robin Hood”. He believes that the disclosure of secret documents and information of public governance bodies is a good thing for the public. The declassification of more than 90,000 secret documents of the US military stationed in Afghanistan made him enough to become a historical figure. Readers who want to know what the print media has to say about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can find detailed information at INRD, which has the full publication.
Provide convenient services for readers
Every year, nearly 10,000 readers visit INRD. Among them, scholars account for the vast majority, and some study print media and its historical development, and some use newspapers as historical materials. In order to consult the famous “Berliner Illustrierte” published in the original text, the relevant experts even came all the way from the United States. College students also fall in love with INRD in preparation for essay writing. Elementary and middle school students browse newspapers for information about astronaut landings on the moon or local political issues. Others come just looking for a way to do something very specific, like a tax collector looking up classified ads for work needs and the cost of a certain model of car four or five years ago.
INRD catalogs in alphabetical order for the convenience of readers. For special collections, special cataloging is used. Books with a publication history of less than 100 years can be borrowed for 4 weeks, microfilm extended to 6 weeks, and photocopies are available for most books and small-format magazines. If someone in Munich wants to browse the Bild-newspaper, which was published in 1960, there is an interlibrary loan. At INRD, bound newspapers, slides, posters and brochures etc. are permitted to be borrowed for exhibition or to be reproduced. Of course, value for money, all services have to be charged.
