The University Library Freiburg will make a larger proportion of its collection of modern manuscripts available online, providing scholars and the public with contemporary access to sources for regional, municipal and university history. Of the rich collection of 598 manuscripts from the 16th to the 20th century, only 88 documents have so far been digitised. An additional 120 manuscript reference numbers, comprising around 50,000 pages, have been selected for digitisation as part of the project.
The collection is composed of university literature, holdings acquired through secularization, and various donations and purchases. While mainly consisting of German and Latin codices, the collection also includes manuscripts in English, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Its importance for regional and local history is reflected in a diversity of disciplines and genres, such as theology, law, medicine, historiography, religion, monasticism, geography, and military history, alongside lecture notes, family registers, and doctoral theses.
The geographical origin of the manuscripts extends from Freiburg, the capital of Further Austria, to regions well beyond the Black Forest. Notable monastic origins include the Jesuit College and the Dominican Monastery in Freiburg, the Jesuit College in Rottenburg, the Benedictine monasteries of St. Georgen and St. Peter in the Black Forest, and the Augustinian Canons' monastery in Waldsee. The modern-era manuscripts include donations from the estates of the philologist Franz Karl Grieshaber (1798–1866) and the theologian and orientalist Johann Leonhard Hug (1765–1846), both of whom spent much of their professional lives in Freiburg.
The modern manuscripts of the University Library provide a vivid account not only of 'big history' but also of the many 'small stories' of Southwestern Germany, the current state of Baden-Württemberg, the city of Freiburg, and its university from the 16th to the 20th century.
The digital surrogates are discoverable via all relevant databases, cultural portals, and digital libraries.