ETH-Bibliothek
Dr. Franziska Geisser
Project management e-rara.ch
+41 44 632 35 96
geisser@library.ethz.ch

Online platform for digitised rare books from Swiss libraries

On the "e-rara.ch" platform, Swiss libraries make digitised books from their holdings available online worldwide and so provide a new way for academics and the general public to access rare and valuable books from the 15th to 19th centuries.

The main focus is on:

• Swiss prints from the 16th century
• Themed collections covering various scientific subject areas

The digitised prints are in colour, in high resolution, and so can be easily read on the screen. The following functions are available to the user:

• Image navigation with a number of different viewing modes (scrolling, zoom function, miniature view)
• Structural metadata as a navigation aid ("virtual table of contents")
• Browsing in collections by author, title, year of publication etc.
• Different search functions
• Free PDF download of complete books or individual chapters

"E-rara.ch" is a national partnership project. Five Swiss libraries played an active role in setting up the platform and are now digitising their books locally using the latest technologies. Other libraries are making their holdings available for digitisation. In principle, any Swiss library can take part in "e-rara.ch". By the end of 2011, the platform will encompass several thousand titles, and it will continue to expand steadily even after the project has come to an end.