BA Collection on the Development of Labour Services

For the 100th aniversary of the death of Josephine Levy-Rathenau, founder of career counselling:

In his guest contribution, Dieter G. Maier gives us an insight into the life of a woman whose dedication drove forward the emancipation of women , paving the way for the foundation of career counselling. Link to the article (only available on the BA intranet).

Tasks and Aims

The SEAD-BA was established by the then president of the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit (National Employment Agency) Heinrich Franke in 1987. The University of Applied Labour Studies library is responsible for building and maintaining the collection. The SEAD-BA magazine can be found on the Mannheim campus in room 312.
The collection acquires, develops and stores documents, objects and media which are of lasting value to understanding the creation and development of German labour services. The aim is to gradually provide access to the collection to interested persons of the public and to academic research. Historical educational activity by way of publications, smaller exhibitins and presentations is a further field.

Collections

The collection is mainly made up of works from agencies and (former) BA employees and their predecessor instituion respectively. 500 metres of shelves contain, amongst others

• photography
• reports from job centres, labour market reports, chronicles, commemorative publications, laws, regulations, organisation directories, information brochures, studies, monographs, specialist magazines
• estates, collections, recordings from former employees 
• stamps and other tools, signs, marketing material
• unemployment cards, registration cards, workbooks, official forms
• films and recording media (currently unavailable)

The catalogued part of the collection is listed in a finding aid. The electronic version of the finding aid enables full-text and index searches in the catalogue entries and contextual information. Part of the printed material can be searched for in the University of Applied Labour Studies library catalogue (which can only be accessed from the BA intranet). The SEAD-BA holds the archives of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) / Internationalen Vereinigung für Bildungs- und Berufsberatung (IVSBB) in trust. Use of the archive (currently only in paper form) is possible for IAEVG members. Requests for use should be directed to ljctaylor1(at)btinternet.com (Ms Linda Taylor, Secretary General IAEVG).

Use 

Anyone can use the collection and the finding aids who can prove a justified interest, especially of an academic nature. After registering and making an appointment, the library on the Mannheim campus is open for use during its opening times. Written enquiries as to the collection may be answered in writing to a certain extent.

Literature

• SEAD - historical collection of the National Employment Agency / Stefan Pabst. In: Archiv und Wirtschaft (Archives and Economy). 47(2014)2, p. 68 - 77