Description
The Municipal Library of Prague has in its collection, among other things, an extensive collection of documents - mostly Bohemian periodicals, important musical documents and books by Jewish and non-Jewish authors under the series of works called the Prague Jewish Literature. The very existence of these documents is threatened due to the bad environment and the degradation of the industrially produced, so-called acidic, paper. Their physical condition was adversely affected by the frequent use of by both library readers and researchers of this field. This project aims to protect and preserve Czech cultural heritage by safeguarding more than 200 000 pages of unique original documents from the period between second half of 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, written mainly in Czech and German. Thanks to the conversion into digital form the information contained in the documents will be saved, the original document safeguarded for future generations, and made available through a web interface with additional benefits of full-text search and translations. During twelve months 50,000 pages of fiction, 133,000 pages of sheet music and 40,000 pages of music files will be scanned. Afterwards, 158 000 pages will be available in the digital library Kramerius (kramerius.mlp.cz/kramerius). The objective of the project is to digitize titles which have not yet been digitized by other institutions and popularize the works of the important composer David Popper, composer, pianist and conductor Ignaz Moscheles, composer and pianist Julius Schulhoff and composer Josef Löw. A substantial part of fiction will consist of works by writers from group of Prague German-speaking authors - Max Brod, Egon Erwin Kisch, Hugo Salus and Franz Werfel. The Czech writers will be represented by works of Otokar Fischer and Karel Poláček (for example). Selected works of Karel Poláček will be also published as e-books.
Summary of project results
The Municipal Library of Prague has in its collection, besides other things, an extensive collection of documents (Bohemian periodicals, important musical documents and books) of Jewish and non-Jewish authors, which belongs to the series of works called the Prague Jewish Literature. Due to the inconvenient environment, the very existence of these documents was threatened by degradation of the industrially produced, so-called acidic, paper. Their physical condition was further adversely affected by the frequent use by library readers and researchers and other stakeholders. The object of the project was conversion of these documents into digital form in order to save the information contained in them, to preserve the original documents for future generations and to increase availability of the documents through a web interface. The expected outcome of the project was to take appropriate measures to fulfil the project’s object by modernizing digitization centre, by purchasing necessary equipment, by training staff and creating work-flow and, finally, by digitalization of the focus literature. Achieved: The Municipal Library of Prague modernized the digitalization centre and obtained new equipment through a procurement procedure, created functional work-flow for digitalization and carried out the digitalization process. Outputs delivered: Modernized digitalization centre; New staff hired and trained; New equipment for digitalization of document acquired 65 241 pages of documents were scanned (target 65 000); 187 543 pages of documents were digitalized (target 165 000); 178 533 pages of documents were accessed through digital library at library’s web (target 165 000). The main benefit of the project has lied in preserved selected documents focused on Jewish topics from the music section, deposit fund and rare books and their complete availability to stake holders and the target group in a digital format at the web interface.
Summary of bilateral results