The Castilla y León Digital Library (BDCYL) is a project from the Cultural and Tourism Department which belongs to the Castilla y León Regional Government. Its main aim is to allow people to freely access the bibliographic and documental collections from Castilla y León authors and topics that the regional libraries and archives hold. Thus our bibliography and documental heritage is spread and the preservation of the most valuable books is possible due to their digitalization.
The BDCYL has a wide digital collection, resulting from the digitalization of the main works about Castilla y León's History, heritage, science, language and culture. Therefore, each of the provinces of the Autonomous Region of Castilla y León is present in the Digital Library texts.
This project's aims are:
BDCYL collection has more than 26.000 items and more than 3.900.000 pictures, all digitalized and funded by the Cultural and Tourism department with the help of the Spanish Ministry of Culture. The digital collection has been regularly increasing since 2008 through a various step digitalizing program. In the following years it will be completed with the cooperation of other editorial entities and with the general public’s help.
The BDCYL includes the following contents:
The BDCYL includes all kind of digitalised printed and audio-visual material such as books, documents, newspapers, magazines, maps, engravings, photographs and other resources. The digitalisation of sound files and videos will also be included.
Together with the digitalized works, the BDCYL will also include original digitalised resources, which are starting to be more popular, preserving this way the digital heritage.
The BDCYL is intended for all kinds of users; from researchers who work in the university field to the population who are interested in knowing their local history.
The BDCYL offers the possibility of doing searches in the whole text of the digitalized works in order to help everyone who is looking for information. This service, based on the optical recognition of digits multiples the possibilities of information recovery and allows finding any author’s name, locality etc. that appears in any of the work’s pages.
The usual research system is also available through the Digital Library catalogue, where there is a wide variety of search options.
The option How to look for information? From the main menu can help you in the exploration of the catalogue.
The BDCYL has a technological platform, whose software has been developed by the Spanish enterprise DIGIBIS, which allows the management of millions of images and it is open for the future incorporation of new resources in any format.
This platform is an open project in which Castilla y León institutions and editor entities can collaborate .Thus public and private entities that are interested have the opportunity to preserve and spread their published works.
The BDCYL includes the different standard types applicable to this short of projects (MARC, DC, METS, PREMIS, ALTO, ESE, etc.). This allows the digital resources’ description international standardisation.
As a result, the BDCYL can participate in national and international digital libraries projects such as Hispana, a collection of Spanish digital resources and Europeana, the European Digital Library.
The BDCYL includes a repository OAI-PMH that follows the model of ISO 14721:2012 Reference model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS).
This allows the registration and recollection of the Digital Library by the most important national and international collectors, contributing to its content spread.