Joint project between FI TCH, heiCOLLECTIONS and the university library On the digitisation of university collections, the expansion of Heidelberg university's collection portal and the implementation of communication strategies

With the expansion of heiCOLLECTIONS as a digital portal for systematic digitisation, the project aims to network the collections of Heidelberg University and establish a dynamic, openly accessible research and education infrastructure.

In addition to collection holdings that are already publicly accessible in digital form and are now being merged as part of the project, as many objects as possible – those that have not yet been made accessible or have only been made accessible internally – are to be made available in open access. The offering will be supplemented by the newly digitised accession and inventory books of the Heidelberg collections.

In order to improve user-friendliness and increase visibility, the collections' and museums' website will be fundamentally redesigned and the digital collection portal will be integrated into it. An additional transfer concept with an interactive media installation will also enable the portal's content to be communicated in an innovative way.

In addition, a vision for the strategic development and use of the university collections in research, teaching and transfer is to be developed and tested.

The initiative is a joint project between the University Library, the Vice-Rectorate for Innovation and Transfer as part of the heiCOLLECTIONS project and the Flagship Initiative Transforming Cultural Heritage (FI TCH) and is partly funded by FI TCH. The initiative explicitly aims to fulfil a cross-cutting task.

Duration: 1 August 2025 – 31 December 2026