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The collections of more than 30,000 archives, libraries, museums, and other institutions will be made available online.

(© Colourbox)

Rummaging through archives, visiting museums, or learning about the latest research results – you can do it all from the comfort of your home.  The German Digital Library, whose creation the German Cabinet approved on December 2, will make it possible.

The stocks and collections of more than 30,000 archives, libraries, museums, and many other institutions will be digitally recorded in the German Digital Library and made available online.

In order to tap into these resources, developers plan to use the latest search and presentation technologies, making virtual museum visits just as possible as 3D images of scientific models.

The People’s Library

The German Digital Library – in German, Die Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek or DDB, for short – will give the general public, not just specialists, access to culture and science.  The new portal will make scientific information and cultural documents accessible to everyone from home through a mere mouse click.

The new portal is to be launched in 2011.  The German Digital Library will then be permanently integrated into the European Digital Library, called "Europeana."  Its access portal has been online since the end of 2008.

Quantum Leap in the World of Digital Information

The German Digital Library represents “a quantum leap in the world of digital information,” said Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media Bernd Neumann, following the decision by the Cabinet.  It will ensure permanent access to art and culture without being tied to a purely commercial purpose.  Moreover, Neumann added, it will secure cultural documentation  and scientific information in digital form for generations to come.

Neumann was especially pleased that, with the German Digital Library, digital control over German cultural heritage would remain in the hands of the public sector.  Also with a view to preserving copyrights, he said that the German Digital Library was an appropriate response to the move by Google to permanently acquire the digital rights to large library stocks for a one-time sum.

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The German Digital Library is a joint project of the federal, state, and local governments.

(© Colourbox)

Joint Federal, State, and Local Project

The German Digital Library is a joint project of the federal, state, and local governments.  The Federal Government is financing development of the main infrastructure with funds from Stimulus Program II.  The funds for the continued operation starting in 2011 will be provided on a matching basis by the federal and state governments.