MALVINE commenced in 1998 as an EU-Project co-funded within the 4th Framework Program "Telematics for Libraries". Project funding has now ended and MALVINE is organised and maintained by the MALVINE Maintenance Agency, located at Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz, and an independent consortium of libraries, archives and museums.

MALVINE offers new and enhanced access to holdings of post-medieval manuscripts and letters, kept and catalogued in European libraries, archives, documentation centres and museums. MALVINE's aim is to build a growing network of these institutions in Europe; a network which is independent of the heterogeneous technical solutions employed locally and is accessible from all over the world via Web based technologies. Although MALVINE searches across local institutions, the researcher will have access to a system with the functionality and features of a unified database. MALVINE not only provides improved access to modern manuscripts in Europe, but also enhances the data exchange between heterogeneous systems. It is to be hoped that the technical interoperability will have a harmonising effect on local cataloguing practices.

Additionally MALVINE enables users to provide feedback on catalogue records which can then be enhanced by library professionals at the relevant institution.

The technical solution enables all institutions, large or small, to present their own special holdings to a broad public. Due to the low costs of the system, an enthusiastic reception is expected, even in small institutions with limited budgets. This will, in future, have a positive impact on the integration and visibility of holdings which have previously been little known.

Further Reading:

Hans-Jörg Lieder, MALVINE - A Future Gateway to Manuscripts on the Internet (PDF – 33 KB)
This article presents on overview of the scope of the MALVINE project. It was first published in: editio, International Yearbook of Scholarly Editing, 13 (1999), pp. 215-222.

Hans-Jörg Lieder, MALVINE – MALVINE Project Information (PPT – 45 KB)
This presentation was initially delivered at the Final Conference of the MALVINE-Project. Please note that the screenshots used show the MALVINE website at the project stage and therefore slightly differ from the website as available now.

Jutta Weber, MALVINE. Manuscripts and Letters via Integrated Networks in Europe, in:
IFLA, Section on Rare Books and Manuscripts, Newsletter, Summer 2000.

Jutta Weber, MALVINE, LEAF and Kalliope: Some co-operation models, in: Digital access to Book Trade Archives (Papers of the 2001 Conference in The Hague), Academic Press Leiden 2002, p. 49-68.
The conference aimed to explore ways in which international access to book trade archives scattered around the globe could be improved. The co-operation model of MALVINE, LEAF and Kalliope was presented in this context.

The MALVINE Final Conference:
To mark the end of the MALVINE project a final conference was held in Berlin in December 2000. All lectures and presentations of this final conference are available here.