Digitizing Collections: The Strategic Objectives of the Royal Library of the Netherlands

During the past few years, the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB) has gained considerable experience with digitization projects such as A Hundred Highlights from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Atlas Van der Hagen and Atlas Beudeker, Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts... All digitization projects are co-ordinated with the current national program on preservation of library materials: « Metamorfoze », and with the Depository of Dutch Electronic Publications. Both projects study issues such as storage formats and longevity of storage media. On a national level, the KB is currently involved in projects with the Rijksmuseum and DELTA (scholarly journals). On an international level, KB participates in the project Bibliotheca Universalis. Apart from digitizing special collections, KB's main objective for the coming years will be to provide users with significantly more content by digitizing large-scale cultural heritage collections from the nineteenth century.
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