The objective of collection care is to preserve all the printed publications in the German National Library's holdings. It should be possible to access and use them in the long term.

Our collection preservation activities follow the principle of minimum intervention, i.e. the original substance of a media work is only handled as much as necessary and as little as possible.

Preventive preservation measures are therefore the focus of the collection care section’s work. The following measures are taken to prevent damage to media works on various carrier materials:

• Creation of optimum storage conditions
• Appropriate packaging of media works for archival storage
• Measures to safeguard information
• Mass deacidification
• Condition monitoring
• Preservation-oriented handling of media works

We implement conservation and restoration measures if a media work is severely damaged despite preventive measures or if it can only be used to a limited extent.

The objective of all digital preservation measures is to preserve and facilitate the use of digital objects through all advances and changes in technology.

This begins when the digital objects are accepted. Here it is decided what the optimum conditions are for storing the object in the long-term archive. The large number of formats and tools makes matters complex even at this stage. In keeping with the principles of digital preservation, the digital objects are backed up redundantly in several storage infrastructures at various locations. In the event of damage, we use standard restoration procedures for digital objects.

We work with the Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung Göttingen (Scientific Data Processing Association – GWDG) to ensure that our digital archiving system undergoes constant further development.

As Germany’s national library, we also assume supraregional responsibility by

• managing the office of the network of expertise in long-term storage of digital resources in Germany nestor
• supporting the creation and further development of collection care and digital preservation solutions,
• active involvement in standardisation.