As a heritage institution, the KB manages and preserves a lot of heritage. Much of it is also available digitally. This page contains an overview of what we do in the field of digital heritage.

The importance of digital heritage

Heritage is of great importance. It shows where we come from and is a source of stories about ourselves and our surroundings. Heritage brings people together. At a time when divisions seem to be increasing, the unifying power of heritage is important.

Digital heritage and the KB

It is important for as many people as possible to be introduced to heritage from an early age. By experiencing heritage, being involved in it and critically reflecting on it. Digitising our heritage makes this knowledge accessible to more people. This broad involvement also creates more diversity in the stories being told.

The KB makes the heritage in its collection available in various ways:

  • Delpher has millions of digitised Dutch newspapers, books and magazines. You can search these all word for word.
  • The Digital Library of Dutch Literature (DBNL) is a digital collection of texts from and about Dutch literature, linguistics and cultural history, from the earliest times to the present day.
  • Het Geheugen (The Memory) is an online image bank with collections from museums, archives and libraries.
  • We store Dutch websites in the web archive. Are you a member of the KB? Then you can peruse the web archive in the KB reading room.
  • Digital publications can be deposited with the KB via the web portal, which (if open access) can be viewed via the KB catalogue.

The KB is also part of the Dutch Digital Heritage Network. We are doing our best to develop this network even further to make digital collections more visible, usable and sustainable.

Using our digital heritage

Millions of people use our digital heritage services every year to carry out academic research, dig up their family history or find source material for their lessons or articles. Whether you are doing a targeted search or just want to browse, these services will always teach you something new about Dutch history and literature.  

Our experts

  • Delpher: Sarah D'Huys
  • DBNL: Myrna Vossen
  • Web archive: Sophie Ham
  • Het Geheugen: Mirjam Raaphorst
  • Netwerk Digitaal Erfgoed: Elsbeth Kwant
  • Curators digital collections: Sophie Ham en Steven Claeyssens

For press: would you like to know more?

Helen Johnson
Press officer
06 - 42 26 88 11

More expertises of the KB

Preventive preservation

In the KB, we do our best to ensure a book is not damaged. We do this through preventive preservation.
To preventive preservation

OCR

How do we make scanned text searchable for readers? We use special software to convert the scans to computer-readable text.
To OCR

Metadata

In the KB's collection, you can find millions of books, newspapers and magazines. They are all carefully described according to a specific standard and structure. These descriptions are known as metadata.
To metadata