World libraries: Rarities on history of Prussia and Brandenburg go digital

History of the Brandenburg-Prussian state will soon become freely available for Internet users. Rare books of Brandenburg used to be available only at historical libraries, but from now on access to rarities will be offered to all Net-surfers.

The Potsdam City and State Library (Stadt- und Landesbibliothek Potsdam), located in the capital city of Brandenburg – Potsdam – has announced its intentions to convert into digital format pearls of its collections. A case in point, one of the rarities to be digitized is a valuable biography dated 1840 which provides a detailed account of life and activities of King of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg Frederick William I (1620-1688). Being fragile a rare copy can’t be taken home. Researchers are the only ones to have an opportunity to work with the treasure at the library’s reading room. However new technologies will enable all concerned to familiarize themselves with the content of this edition.

“The library provides access to a rich collection of historical books which cast the light on the history of Brandenburg and Prussia”, announces the librarian Marion Mattekat. She mentions that the library’s holdings feature 50 editions of 16th c., over 400 books written in 17th c., roughly 1 500 of books dated 18th c., and over 20 000 of books created up to 19th c. After World War II the Potsdam library became home to many other collections and is still growing today.

Digitization of the Potsdam library’s treasures, expected to pay contribution to implementation of the German Digital Library’s federal initiative, will be carried out by the Potsdam publishing house Potsdamer Verlag Klaus-D. Becker, responsible for choosing rare editions which attract the keenest interest among the reading public.

The Digital Library of Germany (Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, DDB) is implementing a federal initiative, aimed at providing free access to resources collected from more than 30 000 country’s cultural and scientific institutions. The initiative undertaken by the digital library involves digitization of millions of books and periodicals, audio- and video materials of libraries, museums and archives countrywide and making them freely available on Internet. Conversion of old books into digital format will be implemented in stages. Organizers believe that the future portal will become a center for access to sources of culture and science for the German-speaking population.

In the initial stage the test version enables to access 150 digitized editions – treasures of Brandenburg. However digitization of such editions involves a problem. The fact is that these editions have been written in German letters which turn out to be rather hard to read for modern reading public. Therefore texts of library’s rare editions will be translated into Latin alphabet, which has been used since 20th c.