Historical Survey

1983	In his publication, Buch, Bibliothek und geisteswissenschaftliche Forschung, Bernhard Fabian develops the idea of a distributed national library.
1986	The Board of Trustees of the Volkswagen-Stiftung adopts the plan of a collection of German printed works.
1987	The Volkswagen-Stiftung begins discussions on the realization of the plan.
1989	In a joint statement, the directors of the participating libraries define a detailed plan for the realization of the project and establish the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sammlung Deutscher Drucke (AG SDD).
1990	The Volkswagen-Stiftung grants each of the participating libraries 5 million DM for a period of five years.
1995	At the end of the initial phase supported by the Volkswagen-Stiftung, the AG SDD publishes an interim report: Das deutsche Buch. The German National Library is brought in as the sixth member of the AG SDD. Responsibility for the funding for the Sammlung Deutscher Drucke is accepted by the funding bodies of the participating libraries.
1999	AG SDD celebrates its tenth anniversary with the exhibition Kulturen im Kontext (Cultures in Context), first shown in Berlin, afterwards in several other cities.
2002	Memorandum "Auf dem Wege zur Gesamtdigitalisierung des gedruckten Kulturgutes im deutschen Sprachraum"
2005	Participation in the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) project, "Zentrales Verzeichnis Digitalisierter Drucke" (zvdd)
2009	20 years Sammlung Deutscher Drucke! The anniversary was celebrated with a lecture and a symposium titled "National Responsibility for Cultural Tradition" in cooperation with the Volkswagen-Stiftung and The Frankfurt Book Fair on 16 th and 17 th October 2009 in Frankfurt am Main.