Massendigitalisierung deutscher Drucke des 16. Jahrhunderts - Ein Erfahrungsbericht der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek

Abstract

This article provides a detailed report of experience and knowledge gained in the context of the digitization of more than 20,000 16th century books from 2006 to June 2009 at the Bavarian State Library (BSB). The digitization of books printed in the 16 th and 17 th century in the German speaking area and catalogued in VD16 and VD 17 takes place in the context of an action line defined by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The BSB seeks to digitize a copy of each 16 th century edition available in its collection. In the course of the project the digitization process has been optimized in order to satisfy preservation and conservation requirements and to ensure a good quality digitization of each historical item in a reasonable time. Therefore a robot scanner has been in use since 2007.The authors provide detailed information ― in view of both the various features of the early printed materials and the effect of the adaptations and improvements in available scan technology ― and statistical data which enable a correct calculation of the costs for digitizing early book collections. In principle every early printed book can be digitized, but ― depending upon the individual features of the copy - this requires different procedures of varying efficiency to be employed which, hence, have an immediate effect on digitization costs.