The aim of the project is the image and fulltext digitization of works that were printed in Helmstedt and can be found at the Herzog August Bibliothek. The Herzog August Bibliothek owns approximately 10.000 imprints published in Helmstedt up to the closure of the university in 1810. In the first two-year phase of the project imprints from the 16th and 17th century will be digitized, indexed with structural metadata for navigation in the document and catalogued in VD 16 and 17. In addition, a large sample of 120.000 pages will be experimentally processed by OCR software and offered in fulltext. In a second phase the imprints which originated in the 18th century will also be digitized, catalogued at a national bibliographic level and included in a future VD 18 database.
With the almost complete digitization of the production of one of the most important university printing places in Northern Germany (Helmstedt ranks amongst the ten most frequent printing places in VD 17) the project not only makes a substantial contribution to the complete digitization of German cultural heritage, but for the first time it also provides a survey of the printing output of an important early modern university. The project is in keeping with the long term objective of the library to systematically investigate the history of the university Helmstedt, and a good number of projects related to this field will benefit from it.