FIV - The German Information Network International Relations and Area Studies

FIV - The German Information Network International Relations and Area Studies is a government-financed, cooperative model for the operation of a social science database, unique in Germany.

The Network is a cooperation between the libraries and documentation departments of ten German research organisations, coordinated by the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik - German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). All member institutes are largely publicly financed and active in the fields of international relations, foreign and security policy or area studies.

Cooperation between the members consists of:

• shared responsibility for the evaluation and provision of relevant scholarly literature
• the common use of a central database for input and research
• the joint development and use of resources such as the multilingual thesaurus International Relations and Area Studies, which evolved out of a European cooperation initiative
• flexible uses of the database for the Network and its individual members
  

The aims of the Network are:

• the provision of information services to the German federal government, parliament and ministries
• the provision of high-quality, comprehensive and relevant bibliographic information to the member institutes
• the provision of a publicly accessible bibliographic database as an infrastructure measure, as described in the German federal government’s information programmes
  

The German federal government has financed the FIV continuously since 1986, originally as a project and since 2001 with an annual grant, which is anchored in the budget of the coordinating institute.