The Cultural Heritage of Printing in the 15-18th Centuries as Digital Resources – a Reconnaissance

Abstract

Digitization as an element of technological development has contributed to the removal of many information barriers related to access to the achievements of writing and printing culture. Thanks to numerous programs of developing and subsidizing work on intellectual property, digital libraries, museums and archives have been created, offering access to their collections online. Digital forms of priceless manuscripts, old prints, documents of social life and other manifestations of culture are not only a way of conservation and preservation of the originals or the presentation of library magazines, but also sources for research. The content of the Digital Library Federation – DLF, which associates 138 data providers, will be used as an example of digitized old prints along with ways of describing, searching, displaying results and special addons that make their use simple and effective. As a result of the research, 38,629 items marked as old prints were found in the database, supplied by 38 institutions, the most numerous being those provided by the Jagiellonian Digital Library and the Lower Silesia Digital Library, with the predominance of 18th and 17th century and Latin and Polish prints.