Division V · Documentation and digitisation Abteilung V — Dokumentation und Digitalisierung
The youngest division, established in 2011 as the documentation group and a division since 2013. Since January 2026 it consists of its head alone: a technical post fell vacant in December 2025 and a second in March 2026, and neither may be filled while the recruitment freeze lasts. The division accordingly keeps what exists — the eleven card indexes, the authority files and the image archive — and has stopped everything else. What has stopped, and what it means for anyone who applies for material, is set out below before anything else.
What has stopped, in plain terms. No images are being captured; no images are being accepted from partner institutions under the exchange agreement; the darkroom is closed and the microfilm readers are maintained by an outside firm; the documentation room has no public counter and no member of staff free to receive visitors; and the revision of the reference numbers, prepared since 2022, has been set aside. Image files already captured are still supplied on application, but the academic office now does the despatch and Mrs Lindemann the technical checking, so an application takes longer than it did. Nothing in the card indexes has been given up, and the indexes are still searched by hand on application.
And one thing that has not stopped. The division does not offer a search facility, and has not since January 2013, when the experimental card-index search of 2006–2012 was withdrawn and its pages removed. There is no search box, no form and no database behind this website. Applications are made by post or telephone and the cards are searched on the applicant's behalf; rather more than seven hundred such enquiries were answered in 2025 and about four hundred in the first eight months of 2026, each now taking up to twenty working days.
1. What the division does now
| Task | Status | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Keeping the eleven card indexes in order | continues | New entries are filed as the other divisions make them; the numbering and the three-part form are unchanged. The stock is counted twice a year instead of four times. |
| Maintaining the authority files | continues, on request | Entries are made where a division needs one for current work. The systematic clearing of variant spellings stopped in 2025, the places having been done and the personal names not begun. |
| Checking the negatives and microfilm | continues | The only project still running at its old pace, being a matter of the safety of the material: 1,240 of 1,340 reels checked, the mouldy ones first. To finish in 2027. |
| Supplying images already captured | continues, more slowly | The academic office handles the despatch and Mrs Lindemann checks the files; expect several weeks rather than days. |
| Capturing new images | stopped | Ceased with Mrs Krahmer's departure in December 2025. An object not already photographed cannot now be photographed. This is the division's most serious loss, and it is stated here so that nobody orders an image that cannot exist. |
| Accepting images from partner archives | stopped | The image exchange agreement stands, and the partners have been told that the Institute cannot take in their material for the present. The first batch of 2023 is catalogued and in use; the second is stopped with 2,400 images checked. |
| Microfilming and darkroom work | closed | The darkroom has been shut since March 2026. The two film readers still work and are serviced annually by an outside firm at a fixed charge. |
| Revising the reference numbers | set aside | See the note under the table of indexes below: the existing numbers stay exactly as they are. |
| Technical care of the server and of these pages | continues | Mrs Lindemann of Division III took this over in 2024 and keeps it; the pages are revised twice a year rather than four times. |
2. The eleven card indexes
| Ref. | Name | Entries | From | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KI-1 | Charters (Overbeck index and supplements) | 90,180 | 1901 | The oldest index. Part of the original stock was burnt in 1943; what survives is the duplicate set and its supplements. Growing by about 100 entries a month. |
| KI-2 | Duplicate cards, for exchange and loan | 4,860 | 1923 | Sent out on request; each sending is entered in the loan book. Little used since the partner archives stopped asking for duplicates in 2024. |
| KI-3 | Coin descriptions | 41,640 | 1911 | Coincidentally close in size to the binding index; the two have nothing to do with each other. |
| KI-4 | Dies and seal impressions | 8,030 | 1938 | Companion to the objects in SG-1; unchanged since the condition survey closed in 2025. |
| KI-5 | Authority file, personal names | 22,300 | 1951 | About a third of the entries are cross-references from variant spellings. The clearing of these, begun for places, has not been carried further. |
| KI-6 | Authority file, places and institutions | 10,260 | 1951 | Cleared and made consistent in 2025: 410 variant entries removed and 260 cross-references made. |
| KI-7 | Scribes and hands | 2,014 | 1974 | Companion to Division IV's register of scribes. |
| KI-8 | Manuscript bindings | 41,206 | 1998 | Three supplements; unchanged, the examination of bindings in partner institutions having been suspended. |
| KI-9 | Old signatures and archive wrappers | 1,940 | 2012 | Entries supplied by Division II, entered here. |
| KI-10 | Test records | 18,860 | 2009 | Every record issued by Division VI is entered here; fewer are being issued, for want of a second person in the laboratory. |
| KI-11 | Enquiries received | 16,240 | 1996 | Records the subject of an enquiry, what was asked for and the substance of the answer, so that the same search is not made twice. |
On the reference numbers: the revision prepared under WI-2022-21 has been set aside, and the existing numbers remain in use without alteration. A number quoted in a publication of 1990, or written on a card in 1935, still finds the same card. What the abandoned revision would have added was a field for the source institution within the number itself; that information now has to be written in a separate column of the card and in the covering note sent with any image, which is more work for whoever is describing the object and no loss to the reader.
3. Images and media
| Item | Number | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Digital images | 161,100 | Of these 97,400 at 1200 dpi and 63,700 at 600 dpi. The total includes the images taken with the last of the working stock in 2025. |
| Silver negatives | 61,415 | Made between 1958 and 2007. Scanning stopped at about seventy per cent when the post fell vacant; the unscanned negatives are stored in the strongroom and are not at risk. |
| Microfilm | 1,340 reels | Unchanged, no third run having been made. 1,240 reels checked for condition, the remaining 100 to be done in 2027. |
| Total volume of image data | about 4.7 TB | Held in two places, the server array and mobile media in the strongroom; the two directories are compared monthly instead of weekly. |
| Captured in 2025 | 2,360 images | January to November 2025. None since. |
| Rotation of media | every 8 years | Under § 5.1 of the data rules; last assessed 2021, next due 2029. The assessment will be made by the head of division alone unless the post is restored. |
Capture parameters (in force, though nothing is being captured)
| Material | Resolution | Colour | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charters and manuscripts | 1200 dpi | colour | With a grey card and a colour card; one additional frame in raking light where there is a fold or a seal. |
| Cards and single sheets | 600 dpi | colour | Raised to 1200 dpi where there is a seal or a fold, and noted in the file name. |
| Coins | 1200 dpi | colour | Obverse and reverse, with a grey card; thickness and diameter shown against a paper scale. |
| Bindings and fragments | 1200 dpi | colour | Must include one general view of the position from which a fragment was taken. |
| Microfilm transferred to digital | 600 dpi | grey | Only as a rescue measure for deteriorating film; not used as a working image. |
4. Supplying material
| Application | How to make it | Time allowed, and remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Search of the card indexes on your behalf | By post, fax or telephone (extension 16) | Up to twenty working days, against ten before 2026. Give the date, place of issue, a name, or a reference number if you have one. |
| Image files already captured | In writing, stating the purpose and the resolution needed | Several weeks, the despatch being handled by the academic office. Free for research and teaching within reason. |
| New photography | — | Not possible at present. No images are being captured. An application will be kept on file and answered if capture resumes; the Institute would rather say this than take an order it cannot fill. |
| Copy of a microfilm frame | In writing, with the reel and frame number | Fifteen working days, unchanged, the readers still being in working order. Prints are on thermal paper and must be copied if they are to last. |
| Whether a reference number exists | By post, fax or telephone | Three working days, unchanged. This is the commonest enquiry of all and the quickest to answer. |
| An error or a dead link on this site | To web [at] winddew.lab | Entered in the page register on arrival; corrected at the next revision, which is now twice a year. |
The holdings figures on this page, the annual figures on the home page and the catalogue on the research data page all come from the division's stock-taking, which is now made twice a year rather than quarterly. Where the three appear to differ, the stock-taking book (archive, ref. IDX-3) is the authority. The figures on the home page for 2024 have been left as they were published, for comparison.
Compiled by Division V, which is now one person, and edited by the academic office. Questions about a search, about image files or about the data rules should be put to the head of division, Dr Andersen, extension 41; questions about an application already made may be quicker to the academic office, extension 0.
Page WI-ABT-05 · compiled by S. Andersen · edited by the academic office · last modified 18 September 2026