Project description

Our culture of the written word shapes our thinking and our communication. Yet until now, a large part of this heritage has lain dormant in archives, museums and libraries. The German National Library (DNB), the Kunstbibliothek (Art Library) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (KB), the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Berlin State Library – Prussian Cultural Heritage, SBB) and the bibliography department of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (JGU) are cooperating in this joint project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The aim of the project is to digitise and catalogue typeface samples from the post-hand-printing period that began around 1820, and to make them accessible. The joint project is intended as a first step towards building a digital documentation portal and towards making the national typographic cultural heritage openly accessible. Three core goals are to be pursued over the next 30 months.
Visibility of typography as part of the written cultural heritage is to be increased, and approaches and perspectives of typeface-related research are to be broadened fundamentally.

The project aims to digitise the typeface sample collections of the DNB, SBB and KB from the German-speaking area in the industrial printing age that started in 1820, and to make them virtually available, permanently and without restrictions. Planning provides for a body of a total of 6,350 typeface samples, including 3,700 samples from the DNB’s collection, to be made openly accessible.

The second goal of the project is to devise a scientifically founded classification and registration system for typographic standard data, and the implementation of this system for cataloguing the digitised collections. The typographic content of the Integrated Authority File (GND), the biggest cross-disciplinarily used collection of standard data in the German-speaking area, is inconsistent owing to the data’s diverse contexts of origin. Their revision is beneficial not only for specific projects but also for improving the overall degree of data consistence of the GND and therefore its compatibility with automated font finder tools. The project offers an outstanding opportunity for improving the typographic standard data in coordination with the bibliographic and library science expert communities with involvement of the academic project advisory board, and to upgrade it in line with the current state of the art.

The third goal is also aimed at enabling better cataloguing of the project content by transcribing selected typeface samples for use as freely available training material (ground truth) for automated font detection using (generative) artificial intelligence, both in view of improving OCR processes for full-text recognition and for identifying identical fonts by means of pattern recognition methods. Identification of older typefaces in particular remains a challenge in automated character recognition, as their shapes tend to feature a greater degree of variation and such variations may even be intentional added for decorative purposes. OCR models that also integrate training data from typeface samples are more robust and reliable when it comes to recognising material beyond the most common font types.

Project framework

Funding body

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)

Participating institutions

• Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Stiftung preußischer Kulturbesitz
• Kunstbibliothek – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
• Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

Duration

1 October 2025 to 31 March 2028

Contact

Stephanie Jacobs
s.jacobs@dnb.de  

Helene Schlicht
h.schlicht@dnb.de