vifanord (Virtual Research Library Northern Europe) is a research infrastructure provided by the Specialized Information Service Northern Europe (FID Northern Europe) at Kiel University Library. vifanord is supported by consultative committee of Northern European Studies representing all the different departments of this field as well as by many other cooperation partners.
The Search for Literature on Northern Europe contains scientific literature from and about Northern Europe that is relevant for the humanities. It is a search engine with a central search index and provides a register of primary as well as secondary printed or digital literature. Users can search different catalogs and databases to find articles, sources and other documents. Where possible, online access to the relevant literature has been enabled. Furthermore, the platform offers International Library Loans and Digitization on Demand.
The Nordeuopa-Blog serves as a communication platform mainly for the German speaking research community of Northern European Studies. It constitutes the ground for relevant ideas, projects and it gives insight into research information that concern the subjects of Northern European Studies. The main contributing sources of the blog are NORDEUROPAforum, the archive of NordicHistoryBlog, and Fundstücke aus dem FID.
FID Northern Europe offers a variety of Services for researchers within the field of Northern European Studies and libraries with a focus on Northern Europe. This also includes the support of scientific projects. For this purpose, vifanord provides an overview of information on Research Data and its management, Online Publishing, and Expert-Sourcing. In addition, vifanord affords researchers the opportunity to engage in the acquisition of scientific literature and gives them access to literature.
Proving these services, the FID brings together the (German speaking) research community of Northern European Studies and the relevant information resources.
Predecessor of vifanord
The earlier version of vifanord served as a platform for research on the entire Baltic Area and was financially supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) from 2006 to 2011. It was the product of a collaboration between three libraries:
- Kiel University Library
- Göttingen University Library
- Greifswald University Library
Since the middle of 2015, vifanord has been focussing on Northern Europe and is now the only supporter of vifanord. The complete history of the FID Northern Europe can be found on the website of Kiel University library.