450 Luxembourgish monographs digitised by the National Library have recently been added to the Library’s digitised stock. In this way, the BnL makes available to readers – free of charge – a large number of books mainly dating back to before 1900 and covering subjects as varied as history, religion, agriculture, botany, art, literature and economic management.

The new titles include a number of significant works, such as Essai sur la poésie luxembourgeoise (essay on Luxembourgish poetry) by Félix Thyes, a pioneer of Luxembourgish literature written in French who drew up in 1854 a report on cultural life in the Grand Duchy and offered a translation into French of the first literary texts written in Luxembourgish. The digitised books also include the anthology of songs and poems entitled Hiérschtblumen: Liddercher a Gedichten (1887) by the Luxembourgish poet Michel Lentz, the linguistics work entitled Die Sprache der Luxemburger by Peter Klein (1855), and the anthology Jong vum Schrek op de' Letzeburger Parnassus (1832) by Antoine Meyer, another writer well known for his poetry composed in Luxembourgish.

In addition to these works, there is also a number of medical scientific publications such as the medical thesis entitled De la phthisie laryngée (1875) by Paul Koch and a number of historical and heritage studies such as Les rues de Luxembourg du 16e siècle par rapport à celles d'aujourd'hui (1895) by the Luxembourgish engineer Constant De Muyser.

The digitising of a stock of 450 monographs in the public domain marks a new and important stage in achieving the objectives set by the BnL as part of its project for digitising the Grand Duchy’s heritage.

Where to find the digitised publications

The Luxembourgish publications digitised by the BnL can be accessed free of charge using the a-z.lu search engine or via the ‘eluxemburgensia’ portal, in the ‘Other documents’ msection. The ‘eluxemburgensia.lu’ portal, launched in 2009, follows on from the initial stage of the BnL’s digitising of the Grand Duchy’s printed heritage (2002–2008). Users will find digitised newspapers, including the Tageblatt, the Luxemburger Wort and d’Lëtzebuerger Land, as well as digitised magazines and old postcards, and a good number of reference works. More than 450,000 pages have been digitised and put online so far. More titles – both periodicals and books – are currently being digitised.
www.eluxemburgensia.lu allows remote access free of charge to the full text of these documents. iPad users can download the BnL elux application from Apple’s App Store; the application is particularly easy to use.

The digitised content available via the eluxemburgensia.lu portal can also be searched and viewed using the a-z.lu search engine designed to allow federated searches over all the collections at the BnL and at libraries in the bibnet.lu network. Using this search tool, it is possible to view not only content digitised by the BnL but also all the printed and digital publications of national and international origin available in seventy different libraries in the Grand Duchy.

Why the BNL is digitising luxembourgish monographs and periodicals

The National Library, in keeping with its statutory missions as defined in the Law of 25 June 2004 reorganising the State’s cultural institutions (Articles 9, 10 and 11), collects and conserves all Luxembourgish publications and is tasked with ensuring access to its collections by as many people as possible, including by means of remote consultation using the most up-to-date data transmission technologies. Its programme for the mass digitisation of the national heritage is fully in line with this mission, particularly in the context of the European Union’s objectives aimed at making Europe’s cultural and intellectual heritage available on-line. By digitising Luxembourgish periodicals and monographs and putting them on-line, the BnL is meeting a growing demand on the part of the general public and the scientific research community, which is increasingly interested in digital humanities methods. The mass digitisation and online publication of documents allow to raise the profile of the national written heritage and make it more easily accessible, while at the same time ensuring optimum conservation of the originals that time and/or frequent use have rendered fragile.