Welcome to the new homepage of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek!
By Wiebke Hauschildt (Online Editor)
We are pleased to present the new homepage of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (DDB – German Digital Library).Since the full version went online in 2014, our homepage was one thing above all: rather unobtrusive. The reason: the focus of our visitors should be on the possibilities of searching for digital cultural heritage contributed to the DDB by the many hundreds of German cultural and knowledge institutions with their holdings and collections. A brief optical reminder:
Nothing has changed in this focus – it is, after all, our main task. What has changed, however, are the many additional possibilities of searching, browsing and discovering that we can now offer.
We have not only expanded and improved the search, but we have also set a second focus: our editorial content – articles, virtual exhibitions, calendar pages etc. – is now immediately available on the homepage with some scrolling.
Our search function: search better, browse faster (and vice versa)
Our slim, white search field has now become a red one, which opens a large red window when you click on the field. Besides the standard and advanced search, “Discover” has been added as a new option: we have selected the most diverse holdings here and bracketed them together according to topics to present them to you: from pictures of harbours from all over the world via photographs and films posters of Marlene Dietrich by Josef Fenneker up to cats, hats, insects or champagne. We are adding new discover entry points as we go along – whether on special occasions, jubilees and anniversaries or when new holdings are uploaded into the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek.
Those of you who do not wish to browse according to topic, now have the additional possibility to discover certain objects or persons – namely a little further down on the homepage at “Explore the German Digital Library”. Browse illustrations and postcards of musical pieces, aerial photographs or buildings; find composers, scientists, saints, inventors, photographers or journalists. We also regularly add new suggestions here.
Our editorial content: exhibitions and stories in the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek
That which was anchored visually rather inconspicuously on the homepage so far, now gets more space: our editorial content. Five current highlights at a time from our articles are displayed on the homepage as sliders. Clicking on the title sends you directly to the story.
Our articles on the topic “Entdecken” (“discover”) are presented directly under this. It is the different objects and collections in the DDB that can be discovered, but in the form of stories. Once a month, our DDBspotlights deal with a particular topic – e.g. hairstyles, bricks, bicycles or photographs – and tell their stories with the aid of selected objects. By contrast, on our #DDBwerkbank, we try out finds from the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek for you: an old recipe for baking bread from 1817 or making sticker sets based on old graphics and illustrations. We hope that you like our stories from the DDB and we would be pleased to receive your kommunikation [at] deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de (feedback)!
In our articles it is a matter, above all, of showing the diversity of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek: not only the diversity of the objects, but also the diversity of the cultural and knowledge institutions which show their holdings with us. The newest institutions also present themselves in their own words in the format “Wir sind die DDB” (“We are the DDB”). They tell about themselves and their history, their collections and what focal points are particularly important to them (including, among others, in the area of digitisation). For our part, we go into more depth in the holdings and stories behind these in our formats “Neue Sammlungen” (“New Collections”) and “Aus den Sammlungen” (“From the Collections”). Our calendar page also deals with the story and tells what happened on the respective current date - but in the past. Something pleasurable, interesting, unexpected…
More than 100 virtual exhibitions have already been curated and placed online by the cultural and knowledge institutions registered in the DDB. Scrolling through old manuscripts without endangering them, viewing ornate bindings from all sides as a 3D object or exploring images by zooming – virtual exhibitions can make it possible to experience the holdings of libraries, museums and archives in a new way. Come on in…
Whether discover entry points, searching for persons and objects, DDBspotlights or virtual exhibitions – we hope that you’ll have just as much fun with the new possibilities as we do!
Finally: do you already know the Deutsches Zeitungsportal (German newspaper portal)? If not, then this way please.