This page offers an overview of the (digital and digitized) resources the national library (KB) and national archives (NA) of the Netherlands offer for Wikipedians (as well as all other people) to improve Wikipedia, Commons and Wikisource. We try to make as clear as possible if (because of eg. copyright law) and how the contents (text and images) of each resource can be (re)used on Wikipedia, Commons and Wikisource.
Open datasets of the KB
Open datasets of national library of the Netherlands (KB) - (re)use on Wikipedia, Commons en Wikisource (in Dutch)
The data in the 4 collections/sets below can be freely reused without limitations on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource and other Wiki-projects.
There is no copyright on the scans (JPGs), PDFs, OCR-files and metadata.
Early Dutch Books Online(page on the Dutch Wikipedia) - 10,000 full-text books from the Dutch-speaking region from the period 1781-1800. Over 2 million digitized pages with many (more or less) hidden images, maps and drawings in the public domain.
Digitized radio news bulletins from the ANP press agency(page on the Dutch Wikipedia) - Typoscripts of radio news broadcasts of the ANP press agency: 1.5 million pages of full-text radio bulletins from the period 1937-1984. Because of the CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0-license on this data, the images (page scans) cannot be uploaded to Commons, nor can the texts (OCR) be uploaded to Wikisource. But of course the objects can be freely used as a research resource and for referencing and citation in Wikipedia articles.
Websites of the KB (with interesting content for Wikipedia, Commons and Wikisource)
This PDF-slidedeck shows the wide range of resources the KB has on offer to expand the article about Jan Floris Martinet on the Dutch Wikipedia
On the following websites of the KB you can find 1000s of full-text publications (books, newspapers, magazines) and images. The content in these sites might still be copyrighted, depending on the age of the material. For example, a newspaper from 1830 is in the public domain, but a photo from a newspaper from 1970 cannot be reused freely (eg. for upload to Wikimedia Commons), as the photographer and/or the newspaper publisher might still hold the copyright of the image and/or newspaper. As far as reuse of KB-content on Wikipedia, Commons and Wikisource is concerned, these copyright guidelines can be used for clarification. Please contact the KB when in doubt. Of course all texts and images can be used freely as a resource for research and for referencing and citation (with acknowledgement) in Wikipedia-articles.
www.kb.nl - the official (English language) 'home'site of the KB. Especially in the section "Exhibitions & collections" many interesting images, texts and background articles can be found. This part gives a good preview of the large diversity and richness of the KB-collection and expertise; a small selection:
The oldest newspaper of the Netherlands, 14-06-1618 (Source).
Historic newspapers 1618-1995(site in Dutch) - 9 million full-text 'Dutch' newspaper pages from 1618-1995. 84 million(page in Dutch). Editorial & general articles, news articles, advertisements and family notices in newspapers from the Netherlands, the Dutch East Indies, Surinam, the Dutch Antilles, the United States and the Second World War.
Given the terms of use(page in Dutch) not all objects in this newspaper database can be freely reused in Wiki-projects. Newspaper content (entire newspapers editions, individual pages, articles, photos, drawings, comics, ads, illustrations etc.) that are out-of-copyright (see these copyright guidelines) can be reused without limitations, including upload to Commons and Wikisource. Newspaper content that still carries copyright can not be uploaded to Wiki-sites. Of course (nearly) all newspaper content can be used for research purposes and for references and citations in Wikipedia articles, but with the following limitation: Do not reuse images, text and not even citations from the 'politically incorrect' newspapers from the period 1940-1945, the Second World War in the Netherlands. The Dutch government owns the copyright of these materials. These newspapers can be recognized by the warning message on the website.
Periodicals (magazines)
Magazines 1850-1940(site in Dutch) - on this site 1000s of digitized historic magazines (80 titles, 1,5 million pages) can be searched on the word level. The journals were issued in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. They include general, cultural, literary, religious, scientific, political, sporting and economical magazines. There are journals for the general public, such as de Hollandsche revue(the Dutch Review) and Ons eigen tijdschrift(Our own magazine), and there are professional journals like het Marineblad(the Navy Journal) and het Advocatenblad(the Lawyers' Journal).
Given the terms of use(page in Dutch) not all objects in this collection can be freely reused in Wiki-projects. Journal content (entire journal editions, individual pages, articles, photos, drawings, comics, ads, illustrations etc.) that are out-of-copyright (see these copyright guidelines) can be reused without limitations, including upload to Commons and Wikisource. Journal content that still carries copyright can not be uploaded to Wiki-sites. Of course all journal content can be used for research purposes and for references and citations in Wikipedia articles.
Books 1450-1700 - thousands of books from the KB collection from the 15th, 16th and 17th century. These books are currently (July 2013) being digitized by Proquest and are made available via Early European Books (background information about this collaboration). First all books printed in the Netherlands from 1450-1700 are being scanned, later on it will be decided which other books from before the year 1700 will be digitized. Eventually some 50,000 old books in total will be digitized.
These books are not full-text searchable, but can be searched via the metadata (at Source library select "Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Nationale bibliotheek van Nederland" to find all the books from the KB collection that have been digitized so far). Page scans and PDFs are available for every book.
The books are freely accessible for personal use for everybody in the Netherlands. Given their age there are no copyrights on the books, but because they have been digitized with private money (ie. paid by Proquest), there are a number of limiting terms of use: it is not allowed to upload (pages or parts of) these books to Wikimedia Commons or Wikisource (or other sites). But of course these books can be used as a resource for research and for references and citations (with acknowledgment) in Wikipedia articles; for this the site offers persistent (durable) URLs to the scans.
Books 1700-1870(site in Dutch) - on this site the books digitized in the KB-Google collaboration project are being made accessible for full-text searching. 160,000 out-of-copyright books from the KB collections from the period 1700 - 1870, scanned by Google. These digitized books are available on Google Books, but also on this KB-site.
Given their age there are no copyrights on the books, but because they have been digitized with private money (ie. paid by Google), there are a number of limiting terms of use(page in Dutch): it is not allowed to upload (pages or parts of) these books to Wikimedia Commons or Wikisource (or other sites). But of course these books can be used as a resource for research and for references and citations (with acknowledgment) in Wikipedia articles.
Catalogues
Opc4.kb.nl, the main catalogue of the KB, with information (metadata) about 100,000s of publications (books, journals, manuscripts, newspapers, digital resources, maps, sheet music) from the KB collections. Relevant as a research tool and for references in Wikipedia articles.
See also
Overview of online services of the KB(page in Dutch), an overview of all online services of the KB. Comprises both (metadata)catalogues and full-text discovery services.
Catalogues & Digital Collections, the most complete overview of all discovery services, e-journals, e-magazines and databases of the KB. Besides the freely accessible online KB services these also comprise
services that can only be consulted onsite (in reading rooms of the KB, because of copyright issues), eg. the Dutch webarchive
The website gahetNA serves primarily the broad public website where the National Archive domain has a focus on the business to business tasks and can be considered the corporate site. Collections, databases, pictures, maps and scans of records can be found on the public website. Selection lists, digitization, restoration & preservation and the public record- and archives legislation are subjects that can be found on the corporate website.
Archives: More than 6600 archival entries based on 125 kilometers of archives located in the depots of the Dutch National Archives are. Within these entries about 18500 inventory numbers contain one or multiple scans of the records.
Indexes: Around 109 indexes containing almost 2.5 million records which gives further access to the information in the more than 6600 entries
The Memory of the Netherlands, 830.000 images from 100 Dutch museums, libraries and archives, among which the KB and NA. Gives a nice peak into the diversity and range of the KB collections, see for instance
The terms and conditions for reuse (because of Dutch copyright law) of KB-objects for upload to Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource are not always clearly described on the Memory of the Netherlands. Therefore, please also consult these copyright guidelines of the KB. If in doubt, please contact the KB. Of course, all images can be used as a resource for research and can be referenced to and cited in Wikipedia-articles.
Europeana.eu, a European aggregator & website for cultural heritage. (Wikipedia-article) Because it is an aggregator, this site does not contain any content that can't be found elsewhere. In that sense it is an 'duplicator' of information. The thumbnail gallery-views can be handy however (example of KB-objects). The following KB-collections can be found in Europeana:
If you want to reuse KB-objects from Europeana in Wikipedia or upload them to Commons or Wikisource: please consult the terms of use of the originating collections/sets.
