The Centre for Retrospective Digitisation at Göttingen University Library
| Pages | 39-43 |
| Published date | 01 March 1997 |
| Date | 01 March 1997 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb040642 |
| Author | Norbert Lossau |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
The Centre
for
Retrospective
Digitisation
at
Göttingen University
Library
by Norbert
Lossau,
Centre for
Retrospective Digitisation, Göttingen
University Library
Intent
on
creating
a
distributed national digital
library,
the
German Research Foundation
has
funded Göttingen University Library's
establishment
of
a Centre
for
Retrospective
Digitisation
of
library
materials.
The
Centre
is
engaged
in
evaluation
of
tools
and
techniques
for
image capture
and
text
conversion,
bibliographic
description,
document
management
and
the
provision
of
remote
access.
Current
projects include
the
digitisation
of
important historical collections
of
Americana
and
mathematical yearbooks.
A new funding programme for
retrospective digitisation
The use
of
digital techniques
to
improve access
to
literature among the science community
is an
exciting opportunity
for
scholars and students
in
the broad field
of
electronic information. Nowa-
days,
we
see the increasing availability
of
new
publications both
in
genuine electronic form and
as
electronic versions issued
in
parallel
to
the print
editions. But, while describing this development,
we should
not
forget that the major part
of
our
library holdings
is
still printed material.
To facilitate electronic access
to
this material
and
to improve the conditions
for
scientific research,
the German Research Foundation (Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) launched
a
new
funding programme named 'Retrospective
Digitisation
of
Library Material'.
A
network
of
local digital collections shall compose
a
'Distributed Digital Research Library'
in
Ger-
many.
The overall goals of the program are
to
enable:
• online access
to
relevant research collections
in libraries;
• parallel access
to
frequently used literature;
• digital availability of collections with
difficulties
in
conventional access;
and
• advanced use
of
lesser-known library
collections.
Legal issues (copyright) will not allow us
to
digitise newer publications
at
the moment. Promot-
ing the digital conversion
of
older research
literature can
be a
promising way
of
increasing the
interest of publishers
in
making agreements
to
convert copyright literature too.
In preparing
its
new programme,
the
DFG estab-
lished two working groups, one dealing with
the
technical issues of digitisation, one evaluating
issues
in the
selection of contents.
The
final
reports of these working groups
are
available
at
URLs: http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ebene_2
/
vdf/einstieg.htm,
and
http://www.sub.uni-
goettingen.de/ebene_2/vdf/empfehl.htm. Printed
versions will
be
published
in
January 1998 by the
Deutsches Bibliotheksinstitut (DBI)
in
Berlin.
In the field of retrospective digitisation there
is
only little experience
in
German libraries.
To
coordinate the efforts
of
libraries
the
DFG decided
to support the establishment of two Centres
for
Retrospective Digitisation,
one
located
at
Göttingen University Library(1), one
at
the Bavar-
ian State Library Munich(2).
Establishment
of
the Centre
in
Göttingen
The Centre
for
Retrospective Digitisation
at
Göttingen University Library was established
in
May 1997, located
in
the historical building of the
library. The concept
for
the Centre was determined
as being
to
gather experience and knowledge
of
managing large-scale digital conversion projects.
At
the
beginning of the project, Göttingen em-
ployed
two
people
as
technical
staff,
with special
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