Filming and digitisation of the Dutch parliamentary papers 1814-1995
Introduction
The National Library of the Netherlands together with the library of the House of Representatives started a project at the end of 2003 to film and digitise the Dutch parliamentary papers from the period 1814-1995. The collection contains all the records and supplements of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Dutch parliamentary papers are one off the most important collections for the research of the history of the parliament and of the history of the Netherlands in general. Historians, journalists, lawyers, politicians and researchers all use the parliamentary papers frequently.
The collection contains about 2,5 million pages. The paper, on which the parliamentary papers were printed, is of bad quality and is for a large part embrittled. From the point of view of research and of the preservation of our cultural heritage it is of great importance to try to safeguard the collection. In a pilot project that was executed from 1999 to 2001 a few years of the Dutch Parliamentary Papers were scanned. The purpose of the pilot was to figure out if the complete project would be feasible, both in terms of organisation and finance. The project team looked at ways on how the material could be made accessible and what it would cost to do this for all documents until 1995. It turned out that - although it would be a huge project - the complete project would be possible and is going to take about six years.
Goals of the project
In the project there are two main objectives. The first goal is to save the information for future generations. Microfilm will be used as a preservation tool for this. Metamorfoze, the national programme for the preservation of library material, has started with the filming of the period 1814-1950. The second goal is to make this important parliamentary information accessible to a large public with better search possibilities than the paper version has. This is going to be realised by digitise the material, convert it to full text and then to unlock the material in several ways on a website. The tiff files are stored in a safe way to ensure they can be re-used as long as possible.
Planning
The project is going to be executed in several phases. At the beginning of 2004 a special team has started with a profound analyses of the material. The filming of the period 1814-1950 is going to take two years. The total project is going to last six years. However the first results will be available on a website at the end of 2006.
More information
Projectmanager: Marg van der Burgh
Tel.: +3170-3140114
Projectleider digitalisering: Berry Feith
Phone: +3170-3140577