DaFo – data for research

The digital collections of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek comprise more than 2,700,000 digitised manuscripts, prints, sheet music, maps, photographs, newspapers and journals; many of them are relevant for research on Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe.

Download options

The Munich Digitisation Centre (MDZ) of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek offers DaFo (Data for Research), a free download service for the digital copies listed above. They can be downloaded as high-resolution images in JPEG format with 300 ppi and – if already available – with the accompanying text. Instructions can be found under this link:

DaFo – Data for Research

With the help of APIs (IIIF), it is also possible to download the automatically recognised text (OCR) as an XML file. Information on using the API can be found under this link:

MDZ – interfaces