Established in 1747, the library was already robbed of its possessions in 1794 during an uprising against Prussia and Russia. The collection was moved to St. Petersburg and the Biblioteka Narodowa a Waszawie was only reinstated as the National Library again in 1928, losing its collection once again during the German occupation, where Nazis set the National Library’s special collections ablaze in 1944. But by now, the National Library has over 800 employees and shares all digitized data via the websites Polona and Academica.
Project background
And there’s more to come: From 2017 to 2020 the National Library and the Jagiellonian Library of Krakow plan to digitize over a million unique objects.With about 8 800 000 objects in its collection, the Biblioteka Narodowa a Waszawie (National Library in Warsaw) is the biggest Library in Poland and holds great ambitions: until 2020, over a million objects are to be digitized in the course of the Patrimonium Project.
Book2Net Action
In February 2017 book2net expressed openness to deliver customized solutions in response to a tender– in September and November 2017 we agreed on the custom solutions “book2net Lizard” and “book2net Dragon”. The “Lizard” is dual camera system that easily fits on a table. Adjustable to every book and equipped with our own X71 Megapixel camera, the “Lizard” is optimal for the Library’s aspirations of digitizing a million objects in only three years’ time.
Results
In total, 17 “Lizards” and two “Dragons” were delivered to Poland’s National library and set up in April 2018. All are in frequent use ever since to achieve the goals of the Patrimonium Project.
book2net remains happy to have contributed its share in digitizing unique and precious objects for the use of the Polish public and guaranteeing further preservation of the objects for future research!
Book2Net ‘s intention is to develop practice-orientated book scanning solutions for the use in archives, libraries and museums by covering hardware, software and services . The book2net focuses on the requirements and needs of the end users of the digitization equipment. These needs are reviewed and incorporated into the development and ultimate design of our scanning solutions.