The German Free State of Saxony has a high density of independent local and regional television broadcasters. From the antenna communities at the time of the GDR, private TV broadcasters developed after the reunification. In the period of the social transformations in the 1990s, these local TV stations documented the profound changes of the everyday life of the individual, of the local communities and the historical transformations in society and economy during the early years after the German reunion. These recordings are a substantial part of the cultural heritage of Saxony and of the highest interest for social, cultural and media research. Due to how the original material was produced on consumer videotapes, today the recordings are threatened by decay. In the next few years the recordings will be lost, if not acted quickly. Some state and private institutions are currently developing concepts for the preservation of the audiovisual heritage in Saxony In this paper, we discuss how these media objects should be scientifically investigated, in the sense of media and sociocultural dimensions, questions and categories. Based on our experiences and investigations, we present a technical concept which shows how to digitalize, index, describe and categorize copious amounts of videotapes for the preservation, archiving and public access of this important part of the cultural heritage of Germany.

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To preserve the cultural memory of the Free State of Saxony and to promote the treasures kept in numerous heritage institutions, the government provides additional budget funds to digitize collections of historical importance and outstanding items. The program aims to provide online access to information and objects of cultural and scientific tradition for purposes of research, teaching and for the general public. It is obviously necessary to make historic stocks online available to guarantee the visibility and use in the digital age. The Saxon State and University Library, Dresden (SLUB) has many years of experience in digitization and offers large digital collections of several media, including books, manuscripts, newspapers and photographs. Smaller libraries and archival institutions very often do not have the necessary infrastructure and resources to accomplish extensive digitization projects. The SLUB uses its long experiences to coordinate the state digitization program and to expand its existing infrastructure for digitization and long-term preservation all over the region. The whole workflow of production and presentation is accomplished with the open source software Kitodo which allows flexible processing of different media types and ensures the transfer to the national aggregator Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (DDB). Also part of the program is the long-term preservation of all digitized material using the existing interface between Kitodo and the SLUBArchiv, which has been expanded to fulfill the growing demands. After two years a first résumé proofs the success of this strategy. Several special collections are online, the program has helped to build up knowledge in participating institutions, to standardize workflows and to ensure constant high quality of the digital objects.