Ordinance
onOrdinance
on the Library Am Guisanplatz
(BiGO)

This Or­din­ance reg­u­lates the man­date of the Lib­rary am Guis­an­platz (BiG) to col­lect in­form­a­tion, provide ser­vices and co­ordin­ate.

The BiG is the prin­cip­al lib­rary of the cent­ral and de­cent­ral­ised Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion and the Swiss Armed Forces.

¹ The BiG col­lects spe­cial­ist in­form­a­tion that is either prin­ted or stored on oth­er in­form­a­tion car­ri­ers. Such in­form­a­tion:

a.

serves to ful­fil the tasks of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion or the Swiss Armed Forces; or

b.

has been pub­lished by the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion or the Swiss Armed Forces.

² One edi­tion per avail­able lan­guage of each doc­u­ment of gen­er­al pub­lic in­terest pub­lished by the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion or the Swiss Armed Forces must be sub­mit­ted to the BiG without be­ing re­ques­ted to do so and free of charge; these in­clude in par­tic­u­lar stud­ies, bro­chures, an­nu­al re­ports and reg­u­la­tions.

¹ The BiG ex­pands its col­lec­tion through:

a.

ac­quis­i­tions with­in the lim­its of the re­spect­ive cred­its;

b.

ac­cept­ing doc­u­ments pub­lished by the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion and the Swiss Armed Forces;

c.

dona­tions from third parties in terms of Art­icle 64 of the Fin­an­cial Budget Or­din­ance of 5 April 2006²;

d.

ex­cep­tion­al ac­quis­i­tions of col­lec­tions or par­tic­u­larly im­port­ant single items.

² In or­der to ac­quire col­lec­tions or par­tic­u­larly im­port­ant single items the BiG may:

a.

ac­cept fin­an­cial sup­port from oth­er of­fices of the Con­fed­er­a­tion or can­tons;

b.

seek the sup­port of a wider gen­er­al pub­lic;

c.

use con­tri­bu­tions that have been provided un­der Art­icle 64 of the Fin­an­cial Budget Or­din­ance of 5 April 2006.

³ At the re­quest of oth­er in­sti­tu­tions, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may in­teg­rate col­lec­tions in­to the BiG that are rel­ev­ant to the BiG.

¹ The BiG is re­spons­ible for main­tain­ing the hold­ings, in par­tic­u­lar their tech­nic­ally cor­rect res­tor­a­tion and con­ser­va­tion.

² To spare and pre­serve the ori­gin­als the BiG may trans­fer its hold­ings to oth­er in­form­a­tion car­ri­ers and me­dia.

¹ The BiG lists its hold­ings in the on-line cata­logue of the Al­ex­an­dria Lib­rary Net­work, which is ac­cess­ible to the pub­lic.

² In ac­cord­ance with the terms of the user reg­u­la­tions, items may be lent to or viewed in the rooms the lib­rary by:

a.

em­ploy­ees of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion;

b.

mem­bers of the armed forces;

c.

aca­dem­ics and the gen­er­al pub­lic, in as far as the re­sources of the BiG per­mit.

³ Ac­cess may be re­stric­ted if re­quired to con­serve the work.

⁴ For cer­tain spe­cial­ist lit­er­at­ure, the BiG may is­sue per­son­al sub­scrip­tions to em­ploy­ees of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion and the Swiss Armed Forces or provide them with the ma­ter­i­al in the form of ser­vice cop­ies.

¹ In re­sponse to re­quests for doc­u­ment­a­tion, searches and sci­entif­ic re­search, the BiG provides spe­cial­ist ser­vices to:

a.

the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion and the Swiss Armed Forces;

b.

aca­demia and the gen­er­al pub­lic, in as far as the re­sources of the BiG per­mit.

² It sup­ports its cli­ents in ad­vanced re­search by provid­ing:

a.

the in­fra­struc­ture for us­ing its hold­ings;

b.

ac­cess to the fa­cil­it­ies of ex­tern­al in­sti­tu­tions and busi­nesses;

c.

spe­cial­ist lit­er­at­ure through in­ter­lib­rary ex­change.

³ The BiG may pub­lish sci­entif­ic work in its own pub­lic­a­tion series.

In con­sulta­tion with the ad­min­is­trat­ive units in­volved, the BiG man­ages the archiv­al ser­vice of both the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of De­fence, Civil Pro­tec­tion and Sport and the Swiss Armed Forces.

¹ The BiG su­per­vises the lib­rar­ies of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

² It en­sures co­oper­a­tion with­in the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion re­gard­ing the safe­guard­ing and pro­vi­sion of in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments.

¹ The Fed­er­al Doc­u­ment­a­tion Com­mit­tee (FDC) is the co­ordin­at­ing au­thor­ity of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion for the spe­cial­ised areas of in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ment­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 55 of the Gov­ern­ment and Ad­min­is­tra­tion Or­gan­isa­tion Act of 21 March 1997. It serves in par­tic­u­lar to:

a.

lend tech­nic­al sup­port to the BiG;

b.

ini­ti­ate joint pro­jects in the spe­cial­ised areas;

c.

reg­u­larly share in­form­a­tion.

² The FDC con­sists of:

a.

the head of the BiG as chair of the FDC;

b.

one rep­res­ent­at­ive from each de­part­ment and from the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery.

³ One rep­res­ent­at­ive from each of the fol­low­ing may par­ti­cip­ate in a con­sultat­ive ca­pa­city at the meet­ings of the FDC:

a.

the Swiss Na­tion­al Lib­rary;

b.

the Par­lia­ment­ary Ser­vices;

c.

oth­er in­ter­ested ad­min­is­trat­ive units.

⁴ The BiG runs the Sec­ret­ari­at of the FDC.

With­in the frame­work of the Al­ex­an­dria Lib­rary Net­work, the BiG has the fol­low­ing tasks:

a.

It sup­ports its part­ners in tech­nic­al mat­ters.

b.

It man­ages the pub­licly ac­cess­ible on-line cata­logue.

c.

It de­term­ines and man­ages the use of IT ap­plic­a­tions.

¹ To ful­fil its du­ties the BiG may co­oper­ate with Swiss and for­eign in­sti­tu­tions that pur­sue sim­il­ar or sup­ple­ment­ary tasks.

² It con­trib­utes to the de­vel­op­ment of lib­rary is­sues in Switzer­land.

This Or­din­ance comes in­to force on 1 Novem­ber 2013.