Archive
kulturerbe.niedersachsen.de: Lower Saxony's cultural memory
Our publication "Federal Diversity – Global Networking: Strategies of the Federal States for the Cultural Heritage in the Digital World" (released in September 2016) for the first time...
Performance, Speed, New Usage Scenarios – Modernisation of Total Architecture Secures Sustainability of the DDB
The Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (German Digital Library) has put into operation a completely renewed system architecture on the basis of sustainable technologies and thus has...
The Digital Horizon 01: „Eventful Years – A Web Journal for the Exploration of Art Nouveau“
In a series of guest contributions, we will present exciting topics and projects of data and cooperation partners of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek in the future: be it a new way of...
100 years of women’s suffrage in Germany
The Pitcairn Islands are one of the last British overseas colonies, lying in the middle of the Pacific, 5,000 kilometres away from New Zealand and 5,400 kilometres away from South...
The history of the Christmas tree: From frost-plagued Northmen and gilded potatoes
By far the most popular Christmas tree in German living rooms is the Nordmann-Fir. Soft needles, dark green and beautifully grown, these are the features why the Fir is sold million of...
Congratulations! The Service Centre Digitisation of the Federal State of Berlin digiS is celebrating the 5th anniversary of its funding programme
The Service Centre Digitisation of the Federal State of Berlin is an institution for interdisciplinary advice on support and coordination of digitisation projects and – just like the...
Mobile Libraries: From the Serviceman Library to the Bookmobile
The idea of a mobile library already arose in the 18th century, when serviceman libraries took an elitist approach and were only available to soldiers. Then during the Franco-Prussian...
We are the DDB: The Museum of Art and Design Hamburg
With around 500,000 objects from 4,000 years of the history of mankind, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MKG) (Museum of Art and Design Hamburg) is one of the most important...
A Short Cultural History of Rain or Why Rain assists Democracy
In the history of mankind rain, as a cultural phenomenon, has had and still has the most diverse forms and influences: at this point we would like to talk about hydraulic empires, royal...
The invention of the postal service: about special deliveries, Hereditary First Postmaster Generals and what Thurn und Taxis had to do with it
When the American parcel service begins operating in 1913, customers and staff alike are not quite sure how the service should be specifically used. It is not known in its entirety what...
That’s going too far! – Papyrus, Parchment and Ancient Library Wars
In February 2016 Great Britain was shaken by a scandal. To save costs, the dual original copies of new legislative texts for Parliament and the National Archives were no longer to be...
A short history of microfilm and how it facilitated communication in Paris
The history of microfilm is also the history of some very heroic homing pigeons, whose working environment was not exactly one of the most attractive during the Franco-Prussian War of...
The history of the umbrella and its social consequences
It began with mockery, insults and pelted rubbish, when the Englishman Jonas Hanway came back from a trip to France in the early 1750s and went for a walk in London. His fellow citizens...
The selective story of some sailors, shipbuilding and the beginning of an era
When Carl Nicolai Christiansen is born on Sylt in 1864, it lasts only two years until the world would take its first step towards the global village.
Historical menus or The curious story of Frank E. Buttolph
In August of the year 1900, readers of the US “Hotel Monthly” magazine found this advertisement: “It is of great importance that the menus are well-packed and put between two large...
Beards or How Luther (almost) saved the hare
In order to finance the Northern War against the Swedish Empire in 1700, Peter I, Tsar of Russia, had a creative idea: a new tax was needed and so he introduced the “Bartkopeke” (beard...
The mysterious disappearance of the Vikings from Greenland
Theories on why the Vikings disappeared from Greenland are abundant: they range from epidemics to shortages of supply, from homesickness to climate changes. For a long time, it was...
Patent Drawings from the 19th Century: A Journey Back to the Future of Technology
"Looking through patent drawings is just like time travel," is a quotation from the American patent lawyer Kevin Price in an article in Der Spiegel. Price, whose fascination for patent...
Snakes, Dragons and Early Synthesizers: Historical Musical Instruments in the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek
Instruments that are so expensive that their inventors recommend that you build them yourself, Hector Berlioz delivers fatal marketing blows and Japanese dragons. While researching...
Metadata: Making Cultural Heritage Accessible and Visible – An Interview
The complex world of metadata is one of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek’s central fields of work and an area of work in which the processes and developments are virtually “invisible”...