Joint management of the German Digital Library is complete

Press Release of the German Digital Library
Berlin, 3 February 2020

As of February 2020, Gerke Dunkhase will be taking over the management of the fields of technology, development and service at the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek. He succeeds Dr. Peter Leinen, who had provisionally taken over the management of these business fields.

As a result, the joint management of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek is complete again: Gerke Dunkhase is responsible for the fields of technology, development and service based at the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (German National Library) in Frankfurt. As head of the Berlin business office, Dr. Julia Spohr has been in charge of the fields of finance, law, communication and marketing, which are based at the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation), since January 2020. Along with twelve other members of the competence network of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, both institutions are striving to make digital cultural heritage freely accessible to all citizens on a cross-sectoral portal. 

Gerke Dunkhase studied German, Spanish and educational science at the Universität Hamburg (University of Hamburg). Initially, he was head of department at Axel Springer in Hamburg and in 2002, he founded his own media office, with which he has developed various digital products since then. Here he worked for, among others, the Axel Springer publishing group, the DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum (German Film Institute & Film Museum), the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek as well as the Deutsche Telekom, Google Germany or the Gruner+Jahr publishing house. He took over the project and team management for the conception of databases and their components, website launches and was, amongst others, concerned with market research studies. Since 2012, Gerke Dunkhase has been involved in various project branches of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek. He managed the working group on presentation and the task force on usage statistics and accompanied the further development of the search functionality on the web portal of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek.

“I have known the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek since its beginnings and look forward to the upcoming tasks. It is the goal to further develop the technical basics of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek in order to make our cultural heritage accessible to the public in various forms, and I and the entire team of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek want to continue working towards this goal.” Gerke Dunkhase

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Hermann Parzinger, Spokesman for the board of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek and President of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz: “With the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, we have established a project that covers various areas in a complex way. It is essential for the further expansion of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek to continue to advance the technical development of the online portal and the associated data processes. We are delighted that we have been able to win Gerke Dunkhase as a competent expert on the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek for this vital and challenging task.”

Ute Schwens, Director of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek in Frankfurt am Main: “It is a great pleasure for us to have found a manager for such a significant network project like the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek who will bring together and coordinate the technical business fields. Mr Dunkhase will assume this task with his proven expertise and his extensive experience – we are delighted to make our contribution to the expansion of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek in this way.”

Dr. Julia Spohr, Manager of the Central Office of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek in the fields of finance, law, communication and marketing: “I look forward to working together with Gerke Dunkhase on the aim to further establish and expand the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek for the public.”

Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek
The Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek networks the digital resources of cultural and knowledge institutions in Germany and makes them centrally accessible. It offers everyone free access to digitised museum objects, books, pieces of music, monuments, films, certificates and many other cultural treasures via the Internet. The Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek acts as a network, linking and presenting the digital offers of its partners and contributing to the democratisation of knowledge and resources.

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Downloads & materials

Downloads & materials

Press Release (PDF): 03.02.2020 Joint management of the German Digital Library is complete

Images (.zip): Portrait Gerke Dunkhase

(Image Credits: Gerke Dunkhase, Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, Manager of the fields of technology, development and service Photo: private)

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