IBM Launches Digital Library Initiative at Lutherhalle

WITTENBERG, GERMANY, August 1, 1995 . . . IBM today launched its latest
Digital Library customer initiative, at Lutherhalle Wittenberg, with the
announcement of a unique project designed to capture digitally the
museum's rare books and works of art, preserve them and make them more
accessible.

With more than 50,000 exhibits dating from the Middle Ages, the Lutherhalle
Wittenberg is the largest museum in the world dedicated to the history of
the 16th century Reformation. The museum houses old Bibles, a collection
of leaflets about the Reformation, as well as many graphics and paintings
generated during the Reformation period.

"Like any library archive and museum, Lutherhalle faced the problem of
safeguarding its historical material and making it available to scholars
and the public," said Jon Prial, manager of IBM Digital Library market
development. "Lutherhalle needed a solution that would make its
information obtainable at a reasonable cost, and IBM was able to
deliver."

By using IBM's Digital Library technology, image solutions and specialized
scanners, the museum's rare books and works of art are being captured
digitally. This solution preserves the material and allows it to be more
accessible.

Also, by digitizing the material, the museum's archivists no longer have to
depend on any one medium. Digital information can be stored on diskettes,
hard drives, CD-ROM, optical drive or magnetic tape. And in the future,
the information can be easily transferred to even more advanced
data-bearing media without losing any quality.

"Without IBM's Digital Library solution, the valuable treasures in our
museum might have remained locked away in vaults forever," said Dr. Martin
Treu, director of Lutherhalle. "This solution has proven to be
cost-effective and provides easy and fast access to our valuable exhibits
for scholars, scientists and the public all to appreciate."

IBM Digital Library is a technology solution that can store and protect
multimedia information from all over the world. It maximizes the value of
copyright assets and provides easy access to information via either public
or private networks.

The growing popularity of IBM Digital Library is illustrated by the range
of customers committed to these solutions, including the Vatican Library,
the Indiana University School of Music, Institute for Scientific
Information, DreamWorks SKG, and Multimedia Archive and Retrieval Systems
plc "MARS" and EMI Music Publishing.
 
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