Abstract
An initiative to develop a concerted national programme for the digitization of medieval manuscripts in Germany was launched by five German manuscript centres in January 2013. This new proposal aims at the development of a master plan for the digitization of nearly all surviving medieval manuscripts in Germany and at the establishment of a new funding programme of the DFG (German Research Foundation), the largest research funding organization in Germany.Besides this fundamental financial aspect, other objectives are the diffusion of technical standards and know-how to less experienced cultural heritage institutions and the creation of a nationwide network of competent partners, e.g. in the areas of digitization itself, long-term storage of digital data, the administration of persistent identifiers, and the internet presentation of digital collections. An important role will be played by the German manuscripts portal, Manuscripta Mediaevalia, which is intended as the central hub for both the presentation of digital collections of German manuscripts, but also of the relevant metadata, that is, digital and ideally searchable full-text versions of scholarly, in-depth manuscript descriptions. Of course, this centralization and aggregation will also facilitate the exchange of data with other institutions.The pilot phase will lead to the definition of a national digitization strategy with a clear prioritization of projects to be approached. It also aims at the creation of a sustainable technical infrastructure for the integration of both primary and secondary digital data. In this way, the current fragmentation of information in a plethora of local digitization projects is to be superseded by a unitary and complete virtual research environment for all those interested in medieval manuscripts from Germany.
Highlights
Background of the InitiativeAround 60,000 medieval manuscripts are preserved in German collections today, of which roughly 7.5 percent have been digitized so far
It is obvious that the know-how acquired in all these projects must be used for the systematic digitization of medieval manuscripts
Another important topic to discuss within this pilot phase is the impact of digitization on the current practice of scholarly cataloguing of medieval manuscripts in Germany, for which guidelines have been defined by the DFG.26
Summary
Around 60,000 medieval manuscripts are preserved in German collections today, of which roughly 7.5 percent have been digitized so far. For the 18th century, the creation of the national bibliography and the digital library started in parallel, and is just between the pilot phase and the main phase No such master plan has been established, but more than 7500 incunabula of the BSB (Bavarian State Library), which owns the largest collection worldwide, were digitized with financial support of the DFG. The organizational framework ensures that – in principle – only one copy of an edition (manifestation) is digitized with DFG financing, and the Google digitization project at the BSB is fully taken into account This provides a broad overview of German book production in digital form in a coordinated, straightforward, time effective approach, designed to make the best use of public money. These and other digitization projects allowed a number of institutions to gain experience in the field of digitization technology and workflows, which was incorporated into the DFG’s Practical Guidelines on Digitization, a widely accepted national standard in Germany. The DFG encouraged and financed the establishment of a central, standardized viewer to be used for all digital copies produced within these programmes. A central register of digital copies of printed books was built, even before Europeana or the German Digital Library (DDB) went online in 2008 and 2012, respectively.
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