All the best for 2020!

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, dear partners, friends and supporters of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (German Digital Library), dear colleagues,

on 22 February 2019, suddenly and unexpectedly, Dr. Uwe Müller, Managing Director Technology, Development, Service, passed away. Still unbelievable for us, the gap he has left cannot be closed. We grieve for him and miss him a lot. Our deepest sympathy is with his family and friends.
 

2019 - A brief review of the year

With the project "DDB-Zeitungsportal" (“DDB Newspaper Portal”) funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) starting in early 2019, a national newspaper portal is to be set up as part and on the basis of the DDB. In the medium term, all digitised newspaper stocks available in Germany are to be presented and made searchable here.

The Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek was also successfully represented at the Leipzig Book Fair and the Library Congress in 2019 and could welcome numerous visitors at their booths. As in previous years, we have experienced strong interest and curiosity and the desire to get to know many other data partners and their cultural heritage with the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek.

Coding da Vinci, founded by the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek and digiS Berlin, the Open Knowledge Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland (Wikimedia Germany) and supported by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) since 2019, has had two versions this year: In spring Coding da Vinci Süd (South) in Munich and in autumn Coding da Vinci Westfalen-Ruhrgebiet (Westphalia-Ruhr) in Dortmund – and again it became apparent: Open cultural data encourage sustainable, innovative applications for memory institutions as well as for their audience.

In the DFG project ‘Weimarer Republik’ (‘Weimar Republic’), which already started in 2018, on the basis of our Archivportals-D (German Archives Portal) new thematic approaches to the ‘Weimar Republic’ are developed and thus discovery is facilitated – the first ‘going online’ is planned for the next year.

The framing litigation has reached a new stage: The Federal Court of Justice has stayed the proceedings and submitted to the Court of Justice of the European Union for interpretation. We are eagerly awaiting the verdict.

In September 2019 the time had come: We exceeded the magic 30 millions and can currently refer to over 32 million objects from our data partners from all cultural sectors – a result of the completed transition to the new system architecture – we are pleased that the work of many colleagues shows a visible result and thank our data partners from all cultural sectors for their trust.

Finally, since October we have been providing a free tool for our registered facilities for curating virtual exhibitions by means of DDBstudio. The idea of presenting data and objects in new contexts is already met with great interest – we are looking forward to numerous virtual exhibitions!

On our own behalf: A change of leadership is taking place at the top of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek: Frank Frischmuth, who has been the Managing Director for Finance, Legal and Communication Affairs since 2013, is to leave the DDB at the end of the year. Dr. Julia Spohr will succeed him from January 2020 – and we warmly welcome her!

At the end: Thank you so much!

We would like to thank all of our partners, friends and supporters as well as all of our colleagues for the good cooperation over the past year!
Special thanks to all of you, from many cultural and knowledge institutions in all sectors, who work together to build and expand the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek! Without your commitment to digital cultural heritage, the development of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek would not be possible.

Nearly 500 data partners – archives, libraries, museums, monument conservation institutions, media libraries and other knowledge institutions from all over Germany – make, with their digital stocks and collections, the wealth and diversity of cultural heritage visible through the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek. Over 32 million data records, such as certificates, books, museum objects, pieces of music, photographs, films, monuments and many other cultural treasures, are accessible online and can be found on our portal.

We wish you, your team and your family strength and stamina for the next projects, time and energy for the important things in life, as well as health and well-being for you personally.

We hope you will also stay with us in the future,

Your Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek