Digitization and cataloging of 1.000 printings for a retrospective German national bibliography for the 18th century

• Applicant: Konstanze Söllner
• Subject Area: History of Science
• Term: from 2018 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 406259625

The aim of the project is to display about 1.000 digitized copies of significant printings of the 18th century. These printings are going to be digitized within two years according to the "DFG Practical Guidelines on Digitization" and indexed with bibliographic and structural metadata.The digitized printings will be made accessible via the VD18-database as well as the Bavarian Union Catalogue and the catalogue of the University Library. They will also be included in the German Digital Library (DDB) and the Europeana by OAI-interface.About 110 printings to be digitized within the project are part of the “Trew Library” and another 154 printings are part of the “Masius Library”, as a first analysis has shown. The library of Christoph Jacob Trew, an 18th century physician and scientist of Nuremberg, is supposed to be one of the most important natural history collections in Germany. The entire Trew Library including his collection of scholarly correspondence was transferred to Erlangen University in 1818.The library of Christian Masius (1711-1787), extraordinary professor of philosophy in Erlangen, was bequeathed to Erlangen University Library in 1787. It contained about 5.000 books dating from the 16th to the 18th century and became an essential part of the library’s collection of philosophy books. Masius mainly collected works about natural right, but also works of contemporary philosophy, theology, history and Hebrew literature. The library of Masius focusses on works of Enlightenment with important core literature and a lot of complementing works.Based on their historical shelf marks, bookplates or other indications of provenance, the printings of the "Trew Library" and the "Masius Library" will be virtually united in the OPAC as well as in a specific digital collection. The proposed project is going to add important printings to this collection.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)