‘Delisted Titles’

Heidelberg, 21 March 2013

Provisional exclusion of books from Springer Book Archives

Springer has been publishing since the mid-19th century, including during the National Socialist era in Germany, as have a number of the imprints that have become part of Springer by acquisition.

While conducting the research necessary for the creation of the Springer Book Archives (SBA) – a massive digitization project – we came across a number of books from the early part of the 20th century, the content of which may be problematic with respect to their ideological foundation.

Springer has therefore appointed an external advisory committee to evaluate these works. This group is made up of science historians from various disciplines and is charged with re-examining the overall content of these potentially problematic titles with a critical eye. The goal of this committee is to assess whether the statements made in these books are relevant, and whether they provide – in spite of the ideological context – added value to contemporary history from the standpoint of scientific interest and historical research. From a list of selected books, the historians will recommend those which are appropriate for inclusion in the SBA, and based on these recommendations, Springer will make a decision on how best to proceed.

It is Springer’s mission to move science forward and help tomorrow’s researchers access the science of the past through the SBA. All the books in the SBA have been retro-digitized with the utmost care, and examined with the intention of flagging potentially problematic books for evaluation by this group of historians.

However, due to the sheer volume of books to be included in the SBA (roughly 100,000 when complete), we cannot rule out the possibility that one of these works may inadvertently be included, despite our extensive quality control efforts.

If, despite all of Springer’s efforts, readers discover any books in the SBA that they believe to be ideologically questionable or inflammatory from a contemporary point of view, they should contact us by e-mail at bookarchives.committee@springer.com. Please quote both the ISBN and the title of the book when doing so. If necessary, we will then submit the book for evaluation by our external committee of science historians and take any appropriate measures.