What an evening and what a party – thank you!

It is the result of the project “User-Oriented Restructuring of the German Digital Library”, which was funded by the Commissioner for Culture and Media (BKM) as part of the funding program NEUSTART KULTUR.

We thank all well-wishers for their congratulations and naturally everyone who's energetic support enabled us in our development.

Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth put it in a nutshell: cheeky, young, colourful and diverse – that's how we celebrated our birthday with our guests in front of the breathtaking backdrop of the Ishtar Gate in the Berlin Pergamon Museum and in the James Simon Gallery in Berlin. She encouraged us by saying, "access is the key. It enables participation in cultural life and in the democratic achievements of our society as responsible citizens. Let's use the unbelievable variety of opportunities digitalisation gives us for this and try once again, experiment more – maybe even fail – but not not try at all."
The newly appointed Berlin Senator for Education, Youth and Family and President of the Conference of Ministers of Education Katharina Günther-Wünsch emphasised the opportunities for schools and education offered by the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek: "Only accessibility creates equal opportunities, especially in education. And for me, this is one of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek's greatest strengths: it provides a very important building block for cultural education in Germany as a whole."

Greetings also came from Lower Saxony from Falko Mohrs, Lower Saxony's Minister of Science and Culture and Chairman of the Ministerial Conference on Culture: "Thank you for what you have done so far, all the best and much success for the relaunch. We are delighted that you continue to give us digital access to an incredible range of our cultural treasure in Germany."

Harry Verwayen, Director General of the Europeana Foundation, stressed the enormous importance of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek to Europeana as a digital European cultural memory: "Opening-up their local, regional and national collections to Europe enabled German cultural institutions to make a significant and concrete contribution to the European project: one with our shared culture at its heart. One decade later, we are proud to celebrate the relaunch of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek portal, centred even more on people, fostering more participation, and designed with the principles of open access right at its core."

Hermann Parzinger emphasised: "Thanks to its many partners and its competence, the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek has set standards in the digitisation of cultural heritage and in making this digitised cultural heritage available."

In the discussion round with David Kleingers (DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum [German Film Institute & Film Museum), Prof. Dr. Gerald Maier (Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg [Baden Württemberg Regional Archive]), Lisa Marei Schmidt (Brücke-Museum, Dr. Julia Spohr (Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek) and Katrin Stump (Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden [Saxon regional library – State and University Library of Dresden]), it became clear that the unique selling point of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek is its interdisciplinary and inclusive approach. All cultural institutions of all colours and sizes are networked in the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek. This creates an added value that is unique for digital cultural data of this kind in Germany.

We enjoyed the evening with our guests very much and would like to thank all those involved who made our development and this festival possible!

For those who could not be there, we provide the recording of the ceremony in the Pergamon Museum.