The Free Library of Philadelphia developed the Fraktur Digital Collection with the support of a three-year project grant from the Barra Foundation. The primary goals of this project are to provide an up-to-date catalog of the Free Library’s fraktur collection and to make the collection accessible to the broadest possible audience using innovative research technologies.
This section of the website contains technical information about the production and design of the Fraktur Digital Collection, including:

• Recommendations for optimal viewing.
• Descriptions of each page and detailed information about searching the image catalog.
• Project workflow for:
• Description and cataloging;
• Digitizing fraktur documents (imaging).
• Information about the hardware, software and other tools used to create the pages, images and content for the Fraktur Digital Collection.
• Information about the fraktur collection and how to order reproductions of the images from the Free Library of Philadelphia Rare Book Department.

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The Free Library of Philadelphia creates archival images as the base components for all of its digital collections. All of the images for the Fraktur Digital Collection were scanned at the Free Library’s Digitization Center. These images meet standard requirements developed by the Free Library of Philadelphia to coincide with industry standards and best practices for image capture and storage.

Download a PDF of the Free Library’s standard requirements for digital images.

Resolution and file formats for access files and thumbnails were selected to facilitate speed of transfer via the Internet and to minimize the requirement for high-speed CPUs and a large amount of memory on the end user computers. All master files were saved as uncompressed TIFF files with appropriate header data, adapted from the Library of Congress TIFF header tag requirements. In addition, one-quarter of the fraktur can be enlarged through Zoomify.

Ordering Reproductions
Requests for reproductions should be directed by mail to:

Rare Book Department
The Free Library of Philadelphia
1901 Vine Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103-1189

• Note: All requests must specify the desired formats and give details of the intended use of the materials. Processing fees will apply to all requests. An additional fee may apply depending upon the nature of the intended use. Contact the Rare Book Department for more information at 215-686-5416 between the hours of 9:00am and 5:00pm, Monday through Friday.

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As a public institution, the Free Library of Philadelphia is committed to giving the broadest possible audience access to its collections. In 2007, the Free Library received a generous grant from the Barra Foundation to digitize the fraktur documents in our extensive Rare Books collection. The goal of this grant was to dramatically increase access to this collection for scholars, local historians and genealogists, and to give the general public greater awareness of this resource.

The Free Library of Philadelphia also aims to continue serving as a management model to other public libraries, providing guidance for expanding access to special collections through digitization. The project’s technical design incorporates industry standards and best practices for image capture, storage and metadata, as well as emerging digitization tools for the highest possible quality, sustainability and adaptability well into the future.

The Free Library of Philadelphia thanks the Barra Foundation for their support, without which this project would not have been possible.

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