About the Project

The VD18 project was part of the funding programme "Indexing and Digitisation" (now: "Digitisation and Indexing") of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). It aims to index all prints from 1701 to 1800 that have been either published in German or in the German-speaking areas in order to compile a rectrospective national bibliography for Germany in the 18th century. The works mentioned above are not only catalogued but also made accessible online in the form of digitised copies. Each title is assigned an individual VD18 number.

In preparation for the project, a feasibility study was conducted by Klaus Haller in 2006 and 2007, resulting in the publication "Digitalisierung und Erschließung der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 18. Jahrhunderts". Based on these results, the pilot phase of the VD18 project was initiated at the end of 2009, in which five libraries participated: the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Sächsische Landesbibliothek - Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt Halle (Saale) and the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München. During the three-year pilot phase, more than 110,000 prints with approximately 11 million pages were indexed. At the same time, the project's organisational framework was developed, workflows were set up, and standards for cataloging, digitization, and metadata entry were established.

In 2013, the project entered its main phase, with a total of 23 libraries participating. As of the beginning of 2023, the VD18 database includes about 242,000 monographs, 13,000 multi-volume works with 39,000 volumes, and about 3,700 journal titles. Further information on the VD18 project is provided here and by this article of the journal "Forum Bibliothek und Information" (BuB).