1 million digitised tables of contents in the catalogue of the German National Library - 5 years of catalogue enrichment
Press release: 5.12.2013
More than 1 million digitised tables of contents, representing a total of roughly 2.7 million pages, have recently been made available via the catalogue of the German National Library for free re-use and research and information purposes. And the number is growing daily!
Full-text searches can be made of the tables of contents in the German National Library's catalogue. This provides users with an efficient tool for assessing relevant literature before consulting individual books. The popularity of this service is revealed by the access figures: in the last twelve months alone the digitised tables of contents have been accessed roughly 22 million times, i.e. an average of 60,000 times per day.
“The steadily growing number of digitised tables of contents is very popular with our catalogue users - not only in Germany, but also worldwide. This has further heightened our resolve to continue expanding this form of catalogue enrichment,” explained Elisabeth Niggemann, Director General of the German National Library. “Furthermore, we will be providing the data required for integrating the tables of contents into users' own applications for downloading in the near future.”
Since 2008 the German National Library has been digitising the tables of contents of books and special editions of serials and journals newly published by the publishing trade and making them available via its catalogue and data services to users worldwide. The scanning work has systematically been expanded, both for new acquisitions and also retroactively, i.e. for library stocks which have already been archived.
The tables of contents of books from the publishing trade and other sources, plus university publications are now being scanned.This service also covers newly acquired publications from abroad, including foreign publications about Germany (“Germanica”) and translations of German works.
More than 60,000 tables of contents of older library stocks are being digitised each year in retrospective projects. The main focus here is on tables of contents of books acquired between 1913 and 1922 and between 1983 and 1989. In addition, the tables of contents of all monographs from the Leipzig Exile Collection and the German Exile Archive 1933 - 1945 have also been digitised and made available. The primary focus at present is on scanning tables of contents from the early 1990s.
Roughly a third of the digitised tables of contents provided in the catalogue of the German National Library have been adopted by library networks in Germany and Austria. Thanks to the reciprocal system for exchanging tables of contents, users from a wide range of libraries in both countries now benefit from the jointly conducted catalogue enrichment in their catalogue searches.
Background
The German National Library offers a comprehensive range of digital services. The Digital Services department is the point of contact for all clients and also for private users. The Digital Services include Deutsche Nationalbibliografie, New Releases, Data Service, Data Shop, SRU Interface, OAI Interface, Linked Data Service, URN Service and Catalogue Enrichment. Specially tailored solutions can be provided in addition to the Internet-based database services.
Further information
Catalogue Enrichment
Digital Services
Contact person
Contact: s.jockel@dnb.de
