At a ceremony at the James-Simon Gallery in Berlin with Federal Commissioner for Culture and Media, Claudia Roth, the President of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation), Hermann Parzinger, and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (DDB), Elke Harjes-Ecker, the DDB celebrated its tenth anniversary and presented its redesigned online portal. A new user interface will enable a much more intuitive and targeted use of the virtual library in the future. The new edition of the DDB was funded with around 5.5 million euros from the special programme NEUSTART KULTUR (RESTART CULTURE). At the same time, around half of the funds made available were used to support digitisation projects.
According to Federal Commissioner for Culture and Media Claudia Roth, "The Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek stands for the democratisation of knowledge and culture like hardly any other federal-state project in Germany. Millions of digitised objects of our cultural and scientific heritage can be accessed free of charge anywhere, at any time and by anyone. At the same time, the database creates new knowledge by networking the digitised data with each other. This makes connections obvious that otherwise would not have been noticed from the individual collections of the participating cultural institutions. This particular strength of the DDB should benefit everyone and we want to appeal in particular to the younger audience. For this reason, the federal government has diligently supported its redesign".
Elke Harjes-Ecker, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the DDB said, "for the past 10 years, pupils, students, scientists and those interested in culture have been offered reliable digital information about cultural heritage in Germany. Continuously expanding this, improving information and communicating it to a wider user base is a constant challenge for the publicly-funded cultural and scientific institutions in the fast-paced digital age".
Hermann Parzinger, President of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz and spokesman for the Executive Board of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek: "Today, together with many companions, we are celebrating the ten-year anniversary of the German Digital Library (DDB) and celebrating the relaunch of the online portal with many new functions and offers – made possible by the project financing of the BKM as part of the Neustart Kultur funding programme. Users of the portal can now expect a rejuvenated, contemporary presentation of millions of objects from institutions in all cultural sectors in Germany. The DDB is meeting the expectations it has been set to the best of its ability and is also one of the most important data suppliers in Europe for Europeana. Congratulations Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek"!
The Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek is the government's central access portal for digital objects from cultural and scientific institutions in Germany. Museums, archives, scientific institutes, libraries and media libraries make their holdings available here in digital form – including manuscripts, films and pieces of music, but also books, pictures and archival documents. On 28 November 2012, the first public beta version of the DDB was put online. The DDB is jointly financed by the federal government and state government.
To the press release on the website of the Federal Government: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/bundesregierung/bundeskanzleramt/staatsministerin-fuer-kultur-und-medien/aktuelles/deutsche-digitale-bibliothek-praesentiert-ueberarbeitetes-online-portal-kulturstaatsministerin-roth-die-deutsche-digitale-bibliothek-steht-fuer-demokratisierung-von-wissen-und-kultur--2188978