Infrastructural funding of digitization and long-term preservation to save the cultural memory of a region

To preserve the cultural memory of the Free State of Saxony and to promote the treasures kept in numerous heritage institutions, the government provides additional budget funds to digitize collections of historical importance and outstanding items. The program aims to provide online access to information and objects of cultural and scientific tradition for purposes of research, teaching and for the general public. It is obviously necessary to make historic stocks online available to guarantee the visibility and use in the digital age. The Saxon State and University Library, Dresden (SLUB) has many years of experience in digitization and offers large digital collections of several media, including books, manuscripts, newspapers and photographs. Smaller libraries and archival institutions very often do not have the necessary infrastructure and resources to accomplish extensive digitization projects. The SLUB uses its long experiences to coordinate the state digitization program and to expand its existing infrastructure for digitization and long-term preservation all over the region. The whole workflow of production and presentation is accomplished with the open source software Kitodo which allows flexible processing of different media types and ensures the transfer to the national aggregator Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (DDB). Also part of the program is the long-term preservation of all digitized material using the existing interface between Kitodo and the SLUBArchiv, which has been expanded to fulfill the growing demands. After two years a first résumé proofs the success of this strategy. Several special collections are online, the program has helped to build up knowledge in participating institutions, to standardize workflows and to ensure constant high quality of the digital objects