German Digital Library (DDB)

The German Digital Library (DDB) – www.ddb.de – is Germany’s central national access portal for culture and knowledge, operated entirely under public responsibility. The DDB’s goal is to network and make freely accessible the digital offerings of German museums, archives, libraries, and other cultural heritage institutions. This aims to enable and improve access to, dissemination of, and preservation of scientific information about cultural heritage in the digital age.

The DDB was founded in 2012 and offers a wide range of digital resources, including books, manuscripts, images, audio recordings, and other cultural artifacts. On March 31, 2014, the first full version of the DDB was launched.

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• Central Access Point: The DDB serves as a central access point to digital collections from various German cultural institutions.
• Preservation of Cultural Heritage: It contributes to the preservation and dissemination of cultural heritage.
• Research and Education: The platform supports research and education by providing access to digital resources.
• Collaboration: The DDB promotes cooperation between libraries, museums, archives, and other cultural institutions.

The DDB is publicly accessible and offers a user-friendly interface for searching and navigating through digital collections. Users can filter by various categories such as topics, time periods, or institutions.

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Germany, through the DDB, has the opportunity to present its cultural wealth in all its diversity both nationally and internationally. Digitalization fundamentally improves the conditions for information in research, teaching, and business by making widely available what was previously accessible only in individual libraries, archives, and museums—creating access to the full range of information via any internet connection, regardless of location and time. The DDB connects databases and portals from more than 30,000 cultural and scientific institutions under a single national access point.

At the European level, Europeana (www.europeana.eu) exists as a digital library. The establishment of the “German Digital Library” (DDB) was jointly decided by the federal government, the states, and municipalities as a contribution to Europeana, but also out of national interest.