You decide how you research, write and edit your contribution. Please note that you are responsible for the accuracy of the articles you write. If, for example, you write your article with the help of artificial intelligence, you should label adopted text passages as quotations and always provide quoted content with references and links.
Editorial guidelines for the German Digital Library
A brief overview of our editorial formats, a list of legal notices and our aims when publishing articles
A brief introduction to our editorial formats
1. blog posts...
- tell the story(s) of artists, artworks or objects or alternatively answer a question for readers
- can also refer to a current topic of the present or shed light on the history of a particular topic
- are between 600 and 800 words long
- contain several images from the German Digital Library (at least 3 - 5 objects)
- have titles that make the topic clear
- contain a short introduction of around 40 words describing what readers can expect in the article
- Examples of successful blog posts include The history of the umbrella and its social consequences, Kusakabe Kimbei - Images of Japan in the late 19th century, Off to New York! A history of emigration in the 19th century in pictures
2. picture galleries...
The same applies to picture galleries as to blog posts, but with less text and more visuals.
- have a meaningful title, a short introduction (approx. 70 - 80 words) on the topic or content of the picture gallery
- contain around 50 objects from the database of the German Digital Library
- Examples of successful picture galleries are Berlin-Ost: A photo album in colour, Early mangas in the German Digital Library
Legal information
- Blog posts and galleries may contain any digital object from the German Digital Library database
- we encourage authors to use openly licensed content where possible, i.e. objects that are either in the public domain or have a Creative Commons licence
- all contributions are published under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International licence, authors are named in the blog posts and galleries
- in order to promote the blog post or gallery on social media, we require at least one freely licensed image (public domain or CC-licensed)
- there is no claim to publication on our pages (Please follow good scientific practice and label sources clearly, refrain from racist or discriminatory formulations). The timing of publication also depends on the editorial schedule of the German Digital Library.
- No fee is paid
What are our aims in publishing blog posts and galleries in the German Digital Library?
- to encourage users to discover and engage with German cultural heritage collections
- to tell exciting stories about collections, people and objects
- present the German Digital Library as a diverse and rich resource