European Treasure in the Jagiellonian Library Core Facility
(World Heritage in the former Prussian State Library: Digitization – Interdisciplinary Research)

Completion period: 2022-2026

Project value: 6,803,613.00 PLN

The collections from the former Prussian State Library (PSB) stored in the Jagiellonian Library constitute a unique library resource on a global scale, which cultural, scholarly, and social value goes far beyond the framework of one institution and one country.

These items found themselves in Krakow during World War II entirely by accident. Starting in 1941, 41 convoys of trucks left Berlin to transport the most valuable assets of the Prussian State Library out of the bombarded city. They went in part to Fürstenstein Castle (today's Książ), and then in 1943 to Grüssau (today's Krzeszów). At that time, these towns belonged to the Third Reich, and then, after shifting the borders in 1945, they became Polish.

After the recovered and secured collections were moved to Kraków in 1946, they have been stored ever since in the Jagiellonian Library. They still bear original call numbers from the former Prussian State Library.

In order to consolidate the numerous scholarly studies on these collections and to further explore them in depth, the Jagiellonian University decided to appoint, as part of its flagship project programme, a team that would deal in particular with the collection of autographs.

The Autograph Collection (Sammlung Autographa) contains rare and unique materials of fundamental importance to European culture and the humanities. It comprises original manuscripts of a number of eminent artists who played a significant role in European culture, literature, and science. We can find here also  thousands of manuscript artefacts, only few of which have been thoroughly examined so far, and many of them have not even been identified. These are mainly letters, but also original literary and scholarly works.

Project goals:

• Researching and providing a scholarly description of the Autograph Collection (over 190 boxes with manuscripts from all over Europe in different languages): identification of texts, authors, dating of manuscripts, determination of the place of origin. In the outcome, the Jagiellonian Library will publish detailed catalogues of the Autograph Collection and disseminate scholarly works dealing with its selected aspects.
• Development and implementation of artificial intelligence tools to support manuscript research.
• Establishing a research platform integrating existing and new research on the collections from the Prussian State Library carried out both within and outside the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.
• Securing the collections by digitizing them and making it available to researchers from all over the world.

The outcome of the project will serve as a starting point for further detailed research on the culturally most important parts of the Autograph Collection. Furthermore, the research methods developed within in the project can be adapted for the purpose of investigating any other collections of manuscripts.

Project structure:
The Flagship Project (Polish acronym - PF) is coordinated by three units of the Jagiellonian University: the Faculty of Philology, the Jagiellonian Library, and the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science.

PF consists of three platforms:
1. R2R platform directly related to autograph research and collection research integration;
2. R2R and R2B platform dedicated to the implementation of artificial intelligence tools for manuscript research;
3. An infrastructure platform based in the JL dealing with the preservation and digitization of resources.

Flagship projects are ambitious undertakings implemented under the Excellence Initiative programme, which task is to significantly enrich the research ecosystem of the Jagiellonian University, introduce innovative forms of scholarly activity, combining research with education, and cooperation with the socio-economic environment.