Since its foundation in 1964 the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History has been intensively engaged in research into the history of private law in Europe. It therefore has a particularly rich store of literary sources on 19th century German, Austrian and Swiss private and civil procedural law. With support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) it has been possible to digitize this exceptional concentration of material and make it available to a wider scientific audience. In the course of the project, which extended from 1997 until 2002, some 4,316 volumes were digitized comprising around 1,350,000 pages. For the Institute library this venture into digitization represents a continuation of its long-standing initiative to maintain and conserve its collections.