The GitHub repository of the KU Leuven Libraries provides a space for sharing knowledge, raising awareness and inspiring the exploration of documentary heritage in KU Leuven Libraries’ collections. It makes available the Libraries' documentary heritage collections in the form of open machine-actionable datasets, for working with documentary heritage through computational methods, using and reusing the Libraries’ digitised heritage collections as a resource for data-driven scholarship.
In the context of documentary heritage a document is considered as a transmissive, reproducible, semantically rich form of mobile record that captures diverse aspects of social organisation, systems of thought and cultural agencies.
KU Leuven Libraries is an advocate for digitisation as a means of preserving documentary heritage and safeguarding it for the future. In the past the library contended with the loss of its building and its collections, being burned down twice before regenerating into its current form. Its digitised documentary heritage collections encompass a living database of more than 85.000 works within a 1200 years timespan, ranging from the Late Antiquity through the European, Mediterranean and Middle East geographies, to the 20th century world history of living memory.
The Digitisation Department of KU Leuven Libraries aims to promote open-access publishing and implement good practices for working with humanities data and cultural heritage assets that are well described and easy to access for researchers, students, GLAMs, creative bots and all curious minds. The GitHub repository is set up to increase access to digital cultural heritage resources and benefit from engagement and feedback from the community. In order to ensure reuse by means of openness and usability, the resources provided here follow open principles and standards, and are assigned with an open license and a code of conduct.
KU Leuven Libraries is a collective of 24 knowledge institutions extending over 10 satellite campuses in the Flemish community within Belgium. It is one of the custodians of KU Leuven’s heritage collections. The Digitisation Department of KU Leuven Libraries focuses on innovative thinking and open access, with expertise in imaging techniques and interest in open-access publishing of its digitised documentary heritage collections.