How does „Digitisation on Demand“ Work?
1. Informal e-mail
The Federal Archives provides high-quality reproductions with a maximum resolution of 400 ppi. If you would like to take advantage of this ‘digitisation on demand’, please send an informal e-mail to the appropriate location with the corresponding archive signatures. Unfortunately, we cannot process links to individual archive signatures on our invenio research platform or from links from other research platforms. The contact person can be found below. A maximum of 10 files per subject item, in Freiburg 5 files per subject item, is allowed.
2. The request is examined by the Federal Archives
After receiving an order, we first check whether the files you have requested can be made accessible via invenio or whether individual provision is required. If they include large formats that require special equipment to be digitised, the processing time will be longer. We will inform you in advance if, in accordance with the BKM’s Special Fees Ordinance, fees are incurred during digitisation.
Processing currently takes several months. We appreciate your patience.
3. Providing digital copies
You can independently view the documents provided via invenio. Digitised documents, which for legal reasons cannot be made available without restriction, can be accessed by linking your user account with the eID of your ID card. Alternatively, documents subject to rights can also be made available to you for download within 20 days of digitisation via our exchange platform. If there are fees to pay for your order, you will receive a separate fee notification later.
4. Producing scanned copies in the reading room
At the current time, digital copies of documents that are only available as microfiches or microfilms can only be made using a microfilm scanner in the reading room. You can either print the copies (reimbursement of expenses in accordance with No. 4.1.3 of the Schedule of Fees and Expenses of the BKM Special Fees Ordinance) or send the scans to yourself digitally via our exchange platform. To do this, please contact the reading room service.
If you are unable to come to the reading room personally, you can commission a research service provider to take photographs or make prints or digital copies from microforms on your behalf.
In the reading rooms of the Federal Archives in Koblenz, Berlin-Lichterfelde and Freiburg, it is possible under certain conditions for users to make simple working copies of archive material using digital cameras. More information is available in the Reading Room Regulations of the Federal Archives.
Reproductions at the Berlin-Lichterfelde Location
It usually takes at least six weeks for documents to be legally reviewed, digitised and made available.
The digitisation of formats larger than DIN A0 is currently being done by the external service provider Lützow-Biene.
Serviceteam Berlin-Lichterfelde
Serviceteam Berlin-Lichterfelde
Phone: +49 030 18 7770 1147
Email: berlin@bundesarchiv.de
Reproductions at the Freiburg Location
The Freiburg location offers „digitisation on demand“. It has a limited capacity, however, due to high demand. Digitisation is therefore limited to 5 archival items per subject item. Processing times can take several months. This also applies to large-format archive material (site maps, building plans, sketches, etc.). Files with large-format sheets of all formats are always digitised together with the files, which may delay processing further.
We examine each „digitisation on demand“ order individually. After this check, we will inform you whether your digitisation order can be carried out and how long the estimated processing time will be. Thank you for your understanding.
We currently have a limited capacity, particularly in the area of large-format digitisation. Consequently, „digitisation on demand“ is currently not being offered for holdings with files that contain a large number of large formats (e.g. division files). We are hoping to improve this situation by the end of the year. Until then, we ask for your patience. It is possible, however, to commission a research service to digitise the large-format-free parts of a file. In addition, external companies are simultaneously carrying out the general digitisation of documents up to 1945. This is helping to improve the situation since this mainly affects the holdings that are currently excluded from „digitisation on demand“.
If you urgently need reproductions of archive records by a certain date, you can commission one of the research service providers working at the Freiburg location to produce digitised copies for you. This offer excludes archive material that originated in the Federal Ministry of Defence, the Bundeswehr or the National People’s Army. For legal reasons, this archive material can only be made available to you digitally by the Federal Archives on an individual basis via an exchange platform. This archive material can therefore not be reproduced by research services in the reading room.
How do I receive my digital copies?
Archive records that are not subject to any legal use restrictions are made available to you digitally online via invenio. This makes these archive records generally accessible. If you have commissioned a research service provider, you will receive your digitised material from them.
Archive material that is still subject to legal use restrictions will be made available to you individually for download via our exchange platform after digitisation.
Reproductions at the Koblenz Location
It currently takes at least six weeks for documents to be legally reviewed, digitised and made available.
Please note that formats up to a size of DIN A1 can be scanned in Koblenz. Formats DIN A0 and larger as well as bound formats larger than DIN A2 are scanned at the Freiburg location. This is why the waiting times there are significantly longer.
Reproductions at the Bayreuth location (Equalisation of Burdens Archive)
Please note that reproductions of archive material held in the Equalisation of Burdens Archive can only be made after a signed request form has been completed and submitted and the conditions for access have been checked. This is because most of this archive material is subject to legal use restrictions. The Equalisation of Burdens Archive therefore uses its own forms, which are sent out on request after the access requirements have been clarified.
Further information can be found in German on our page “Leitfaden zur Auflösung bei Digitalisierungsaufträgen”.
