Approximately 8,000 hymnbooks of the Christian confessions from the 16th to the 21th are stored in the Collection of Hymnbooks. In addition to this there are choral books, anthologies and small publications. The works have been gathered by the Interdisciplinary Working Group on Hymnbook Research which was merged into the Research Center Hymn and Hymnbook (founded in 2017) at the Catholic Theological Faculty of FB 01–Department of Liturgy Science.
The hymnbooks were put together through antiquarian purchases, copies, film, reproductions, donations or as permanent loans from private collections. The collection is being continuously and systematically expanded.
The Collection of Hymnbooks is accessible as a reference library and is fully indexed by the catalog of the German Research Foundation (DFG) project, Hymnal Bibliography. In addition, a song catalog database called “Catalog of Songs” was developed, allowing users to trace the dissemination history of individual songs; it is currently being expanded into a comprehensive hymnal database.
The Collection of Hymnbooks is used at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and worldwide for research purposes.
The Gutenberg Capture website provides digital access to 39 original works from the 18th century and two from the 16th century.
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