Cultural heritage as data and datasets
Many of our digital cultural heritage materials are available as open datasets and can be analyzed using digital research methods. Others can be provided upon request for research use. See all the options here.
You can access and use our collections as data in several ways:
Selected datasets from Royal Danish Library
We have selected a number of datasets for research or study with good descriptions, guides, and code examples, so they are ready to use, and we have made them available to you.
Archive of Danish Literature
Carl Nielsen's works
Denmark's Letters
Flora Danica
Copenhagen Diplomatarium
Freedom of the Press Writings
Important information when using our digital collections for research
Royal Danish Library has worked purposefully for many years to digitise the library's extensive cultural heritage collections. Digitisation has made many collections and types of material easily accessible and opened up new opportunities to use the collections as data - for example through OCR and HTR processing. Digitisation of the collections has, however, been carried out over a many years, and with different selection criteria and purposes. Some have been digitised for preservation reasons, others are the result of user-initiated digitisation, and yet others in connection with foundation-funded digitisation projects. At the same time, in many cases, digitisation has only taken place for parts of collections, which means that the digital content does not represent the entire collection or type of material.
It is therefore important to have a source-critical approach to the library's digital materials.
Royal Danish Library is working to create greater transparency about the library's digitisation and content in digital collections. In the library's Digitisation Strategy you can read more about how we work with digitisation of cultural heritage collections, and in the research program Cultural Heritage and Memory Technology you can follow how the library's researchers are investigating what digital transformation means for the collection, preservation, and dissemination of the library's cultural heritage collections.
