Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2014
This article, written by Ivo Vogel and Elisabeth Schrecklinger, deals with the efforts of German libraries to digitise historical legal sources and make them publicly available. Although the main focus is on two selected libraries, a general overview is included. Commercial products are not considered since their contents are likely to become increasingly less relevant due to German law libraries' own initiatives. More attention is paid to problems that have been identified during the implementation of digitisation projects such as the recording of full texts is highlighted. The retrieval of digitised legal materials and, eventually, the digitisation of historical legal gazettes or parliamentary literature is also discussed. This contribution focuses exclusively on the retrospective digitisation of historical legal materials.
1 The digital library of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History offers the title pages and dedications of more than 72,000 legal dissertations of the 16th–18th centuries, nearly 450 titles, eg. German legal literature from the 15th to the 16th century as digital facsimiles or partly in full text, approximately 20,000 pages of Legal sources of the Holy Roman Empire (digital facsimiles, table of contents as searchable full text), first results of the current digitisation project ‘Legal journals from 1703 to 1830’ and the ‘Legal journals from 1800 to 191’ collection of 75 journals containing 1.320 fully digitized pages volumes as well as a collection of 4316 fully-digitised volumes of ‘Source literature on German, Austrian and Swiss private and civil procedural law of the 19th century’.
2 ‘Fachinformationsdienst Recht’ <http://staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/recherche/fachgebiete/rechtswissenschaft/> accessed 26 March 2014
3 ‘Juristische Dissertationen des 16. – 18. Jahrhunderts aus Universitäten des Alten Reichs’ <http://dlib-diss.mpier.mpg.de/> accessed 26 March 2014
4 ‘Juristische Zeitschriften 1703–1830’ <http://www.rg.mpg.de/de/virtuellerlesesaal/zeitschriften1703-1830.cfm#i324> accessed 26 March 2014
5 Joachim Kirchner, Bibliographie der Zeitschriften des deutschen Sprachgebietes bis 1900’ vol 1 ‚Die Zeitschriften des deutschen Sprachgebietes von den Anfängen bis 1830’, p. 140–152 (nr. 2486 – 2709) and p. 365 (1969 Hiersemann)
6 ‘Legal journals of the 19th century’ <http://www.rg.mpg.de/en/virtuellerlesesaal/zeitschriften1800-1918.cfm> accessed 26 March 2014
7 ‘DFG Practical Guidelines on Digitisation’ <http://www.dfg.de/formulare/12_151/12_151_en.pdf> accessed 26 March 2014
8 ‘Preußische Rechtsquellen Digital’ <http://web-archiv.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/altedrucke.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/Rechtsquellen/> accessed 26 March 2014
9 ‘The “Deutsches Rechtswörterbuch” – Dictionary of Historical German Legal Terms’ <http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~cd2/drw/drw_english.htm> accessed 26 March 2014
10 ‘German Territorial Law’ <http://staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/en/about-the-library/projekte/deutsches-territorialrecht/> accessed 26 March 2014
11 ‘Digitalisierte Sammlungen der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin’ <http://digital-beta.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/suche/?DC=rechtswissenschaft> accessed 26 March 2014
12 ‘Zentralverzeichnis für Digitalisierte Drucke’ <http://www.zvdd.de/en/start/> accessed 26 March 2014
13 ‘Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek’ <https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/> accessed 26 March 2014
14 Example for direct recording: ‘DRQEdit’ <http://drw-www.adw.uni-heidelberg.de/drqedit/> accessed 26 March 2014
15 ‘Pilotprojekt zum OCR-Einsatz bei der Digitalisierung der Funeralschriften der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin’ <http://staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/die-staatsbibliothek/abteilungen/historische-drucke/projekte/funeralschriften/> accessed 26 March 2014
16 ‘Session Reports of the German Reichstag' <http://www.reichstagsprotokolle.de/en_index.html> accessed 26 March 2014
17 ‘Thüringen Legislativ & Exekutiv’ <http://www.urmel-dl.de/Projekte/LegislativundExekutiv.html> accessed 26 March 2014
18 ‘ALEX – Historische Rechts- und Gesetzestexte Online’ <http://alex.onb.ac.at/index.htm> accessed 26 March 2014