Old media that are rare, worthy of protection and in the exclusive possession of the TIB may often only be viewed under special conditions and on site. Also, many older items are not allowed to be borrowed from outside the library. TIB has been continuously digitising old stock since 2015. This is intended to improve access to these items, make the holdings better known, and safeguard the content of the the items. By using the digital items, the originals are significantly preserved.
We give you the opportunity here to propose items for digitisation that are in our holdings.
This service is free of charge. The digitised items are available in the TIB's digitised collections according to our normal working procedures. As a rule, the processing time is two to three weeks.
If you need the digitised item very urgently or in a special quality, use our fee-based digitisation order here. The digitised item will be available to you in particularlyhigh quality usually after 2 to 4 working days.
You can find all of the TIB's digitised holdings in our Viewer. The start page of the Viewer offers access options for content-related and subject-specific research and an overview of all retro-digitisation services. The central element is the virtual reading rooms, which provide a subject-specific introduction (such as mathematics, technology or natural sciences) or access to certain special collections (e.g. the Haupt or Max Planck collections).
Only complete, public domain volumes (monographs, anthologies, conference proceedings) are digitised, not parts or essays.
We digitise,
The final technical decision on digitisation is the responsibility of the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB).
The TIB checks the request with regard to copyright (public domain) and the condition of the item. If it comes to the conclusion that digitisation is possible, it will prepare a cost proposal for a digitisation ORDER. By accepting the cost estimate and the conditions listed here in writing (by e-mail), the customer accepts the contractual offer. Receipt of the written confirmation of the cost proposal is deemed to be the time of acceptance and will be confirmed by TIB by e-mail to the customer.
The customer must be of legal age.
We do not issue reproduction licenses. Authorization for the commercial use of copyright-free items is no longer possible/necessary since the last UrhR reform, as ancillary copyrights no longer arise from the reproduction service, Section 68 UrhG. In the case of copyright-protected item, the respective rights must be obtained from the rights holders
All of the TIB's digitised holdings can be found on a separate document server, where they can be displayed and used via a viewer.
Digitised items can be found using a subject search in our portal.