Die edel kunst der truckerey In the Internet era: Data bases and digitalization of antique books in Germany

Abstract

The article aims at demonstrating what Germany has achieved in recent years in the matter of digitalization and use of data bases of an historical-humanist nature involving incunabula and sixteenth century books. 
For reasons of space, preference has been given to more recently implemented projects that are still perhaps little known as against those which, although far from being completed, are better known. 
Although Google's creation of a universal library in the network caused a certain agitation among Germany libraries also, this article demonstrates how Germany has nothing to fear in regard to starting a concrete project of national digitalization, nor indeed should it feel inferior to other countries in terms of resources invested and efforts made for developing the most noble products of the art of the press with modern technologies. 
There are descriptions both of projects of individual libraries and of initiatives born from the involvement of a number of institutions, in the premises of which are preserved priceless bibliographic patrimonies which basically make them bibliothecae illustres.
Considering the aim of the article, it is obvious that it also refers to the body that has for years been promoting retrospective digitalization projects of the patrimony preserved in German libraries: the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. 
For each of the approximately twenty projects presented, it has been attempted to give in as much detail as possible a reconstruction of the phases that led to its birth and characterized its development, as well as an analysis of the ways for accessing the individual data bases. The article closes with a list of the German language web sites dedicated to antique books, to be used as a valid starting point for accessing other resources not only in the Germanic area. 
Seeing the results achieved up to now, it can be surmised that the initiative promoted by the DFG to create a web site entirely dedicated to incunabula in which to collect and render freely available for consultation digital reproductions of the items preserved in the libraries for a “virtual” reconstruction of a 15th century edition will certainly not disappoint the expectations of many.