Digitization of medieval manuscripts of the Gotha Research Library

• Applicant: Dr. Kathrin Paasch
• Subject Area: German Medieval Studies (Medieval German Literature) ; Art History ; Medieval History
• Term: from 2019 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 428862925

The Gotha Research Library of the University of Erfurt contributes to the digitization of the manuscript heritage in German libraries by digitizing 247 manuscripts from its significant collection encompassing a total of 525 Medieval manuscripts and making them available for research. A total of 83,800 digital images are to be produced. From the total holdings of the library, those collections of manuscripts are to be digitized which have been in particularly high demand by researchers in the past decades and thus catalogued through funds of the German Research Foundation (DFG) or which have been described within the parameters of the standardized short version according to the inventory list procedure. The corpus to be processed consists of (1) the collection of Latin Medieval paper manuscripts, (2) the collection of German-language Medieval paper and parchment manuscripts, (3) a Medieval manuscript belonging to the collection of Reformation manuscripts and (4) the collection of Maugérard manuscripts. According to the guidelines of the DFG and the Master Plan for the Digitization of Medieval Manuscripts in German Libraries, the digitized manuscripts will be provided with metadata and structural data and presented in the Digital Historical Library Erfurt/Gotha. The images and information will also be transferred to the German Digital Library (DDB), the Europeana, Manuscripta Mediaevalia and the Manuscript Portal currently being developed. All results of the project will be freely and permanently accessible (open access) and long-term preserved.With this project, the Gotha Research Library is continuing the research-oriented digitization of its most important and unique holdings.

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