The National Library of Luxembourg (BNL) has made 2,700 additional digitised titles available through eluxemburgensia.lu, although copyright restrictions mean the publications can only be consulted in the library's on-site reading room. The collection includes works published in Luxembourg and publications issued abroad that have a connection to the country.
Most of the titles remain commercially available and are therefore protected by copyright.
Under the applicable legislation, the BNL must limit access to the digitised documents to a dedicated space on its premises. This legal framework allows libraries to provide access to protected works for consultation without infringing copyright.
The initiative was carried out in collaboration with the Luxembourg Organization for Reproduction Rights (Luxorr), and the Federation of Luxembourg Editors. According to the BNL, the move will help improve the "accessibility, visibility, and preservation" of Luxembourg's "transnational documentary heritage".
The titles are now accessible through eluxemburgensia.lu, the BNL's portal for collections digitised as part of its mass-digitisation programme, bringing together Luxembourg newspapers, books, posters, and manuscripts.
A modernisation of the portal has improved the way users explore these collections. It offers simple keyword searches and more targeted advanced searches, alongside filters for different document types.
The BNL has additionally introduced optical character recognition, or OCR, in its digitised material. The technology converts scanned text into machine-readable content, allowing users to search the full text of documents rather than relying only on titles or catalogue descriptions.
By digitising the material, the library aims to serve both researchers and the general public, broaden international access to Luxembourg's written heritage, and reduce the need to handle original documents that may have become fragile through age or frequent use.
