Expansion of the Gotha Research Library into a Research and Study Centre for the Cultural History of Protestantism in the Early Modern Period

The Gotha Research Library preserves an outstanding collection of sources on the cultural history of Protestantism in the early modern period. It forms the core of the early modern library, which was an early centre of research on the Reformation around the anniversary of the Reformation in 1717. The collection forms the basis of the six-year infrastructure project funded by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft - German Research Foundation), in which the library combines coordinated activities for the cataloguing and preservation of this important and hitherto largely unexplored material with the further development of its digital services and transfers the results of its work to the scientific community and the public. To this end, the library has networked with numerous partners in research, culture, church and politics.
The aims of the project are to significantly strengthen the profile of the library as a place of work and meeting place for the historically working sciences, to create permanent structures for its digital services, to expand collection-related research on early modern collections and to create a centre for source-based research on the Reformation in Gotha.