National Library of Denmark (Royal Library) Launches Experimental Digitization of Books on Demand Service

From The Royal Library:

The Royal Library opens an experimental service, which will be available until the end of 2014.
The offer is primarily directed at scholars, but is open to everybody. Books from the National Collection of Danish books, is normally only available for use in The Royal Library’s reading room. But now, a digital copy can be ordered with just a few clicks, and at no charge. The project has to purposes:
– to make older Danish prints available for everybody;
– to minimize wear and tear on the original.
Books, that have been digitized, is available online for everybody, so that everyone can have access to their own digital copy of Danish classics, such as the printed works H. C. Andersen or Søren Kierkegaard.
And it is easy: you find the title in REX (the OPAC of The Royal Library), ask for it to be digitized, and when it is ready for use, you will receive an e-mail with a link. Note that only monographs are included in the offer, not periodicals or newspapers.
With this initiative, several collections of Danish books are available digitally:
– Danish books printed until 1600, are already digitized and available for free from Danish IP-addresses (outside Denmark, they are available through EEBO, Early European Books Online; read more (in Danish));
– Danish Books printed 1601-1700 are in the process of being digitized and will gradually be made available for free from Danish IP-addresses (outside Denmark, they will be included in EEBO, Early European Books Online);
– Danish books printed 1701-1900 can be ordered – and made available without restrictions – free of charge (see above).
Books printed 1900 cannot yet be made available in digital form, but we are working on this problem.

Read the Complete Announcement

Filed under: Digital Preservation, Libraries, National Libraries, News