Digitising the UB collections

A large number of books from the collection of the University of Groningen Library, not in the possession of other libraries, is selected for digitising and digital access by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB, the Dutch national library). Another number of titles has been selected for digitisation by Google. Free digital access to these publicly financed titles results in them being conserved for the long term. It makes the titles digitally and physically available for the future.

This digitisation project consists of two subprojects:

1. Metamorfoze: 20.604 titles
   Metamorfoze is the national programme aiming to conserve the vulnerable paper heritage; it is maintained by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek.
   It concerns titles from 1900-1940, produced in the Netherlands or in the Dutch language, and not yet digitised elsewhere.
2. Google: 14.684 titles
   Heritage libraries, among which the University of Groningen Library, get the opportunity in this project to make available large parts of their (copyrights-free) collections. Several tens of thousands of volumes from other Dutch university libraries, the Rijksmuseum and Tresoar are digitised also. Here it concerns books published until 1900, produced in the Netherlands or in the Dutch language, and not yet digitised elsewhere.

Optimal services

The more than 35,000 titles from Groningen are being digitised between 2017 and 2020. The books were transported to the KB in several batches, and in 2019 have already been returned to the UB.

Avantages

The University Library finds it very important that this collection of unique titles is being digitised. When this project is finished, hundreds of thousands of books will be available to the library user nationally and internationally without restrictions, among others on platforms like Delpher and Google Books.

Links

• Metamorfoze
• Delpher
• Google Books
• This project was co-sponsored by Stichting Pica