Burkhard Staff

Review of HAW Hamburg

I got to know the University of Applied Sciences i...

I got to know the University of Applied Sciences in the 1980s under its former name "Fachhochschule Hamburg". The then visited Department of Librarianship - probably no longer comparable with today's standard, and that was good. It was painful to think of science in the face of the highly schooled, mixed-content contents of teaching; of which this subject area and the learned material were certainly far from it; There was a lot to learn, but even more memorizing. There was one exception, that was statistics. Three semesters at its best, but geared to what later professional life ...? Nobody knew it; Accordingly, for all mau, almost devastating the results of the relevant final examinations. One was glad that apart from the library subjects, which were perceived as rather boring, two "real" optional subjects of pure science had to be filled. At that time it was even possible to write the diploma thesis in the first field of science; This saved many who otherwise would not have known, for the umpteenth time, to have recited themes to which library question he should have commented. The teachers: I liked them all because they were different from the others; from the old-sighted thoroughbred librarian to the former submarine commander of the Second World War to the former library director; they were all real kauze in good, old Feuerzangenbowlenmanier, with due to their extraordinary fateful path in part considerable list; especially the elders had learned that life meant struggle, sacrifice and suffering.
But what were those people who were studying librarianship at the time ...? The impression was disappointing: only a few seemed to be really fit for this job; the conflict between jobs, which was something you did for financial reasons, and vocation was enormous. Anyone who thought of highly intellectual, outcast, ivory-towered nerds was wrong. Most of the newcomers of the 1980s were more reminiscent of boring-minded administrative workers who were not particularly intellectual, bibliophile, literate, or specifically interested-profanity almost across the board; from recognizably mentally ill to former soldiers on temporary occasions, many were represented. What also attracted so many: a promised respectable payment for a relatively low work performance; one hoped to be able to push a quiet ball until retirement. Our students were felt and, to a first approximation, the men and women without qualities, who perhaps wanted to study "something" as a result of lacking in orientation in order to gain the coveted university degree. If one considered: the most powerful men in the cities of the Middle Ages were undisputedly the physician, the lawyer and the librarian; the latter, however, was far from today's reality. In addition to the explosion of knowledge, there were, among other things, the notorious old maids who spoiled our professional image and made it what it was today - very regrettable; the type of omnipotent, omniscient Grailkeeper degenerated over the centuries and degraded to the petty, prescriptive catalog card tipper. The focus was no longer on the book contents, but on the whole, the administrative apparatus. Every bookseller and antiquarian could easily pocket my experience in terms of intellectuality, as he was usually more involved in the subject of books and their content.
On the bottom line: we started the study as nobody and finished it as nobody, since in the end we were neither scholars nor regular administrators; thrown out and thrown into a job market that had been dying since the late 1970s at the latest - a pity.