St Gallen Abbey Archives to digitise millions of historic records

By the end of 2028, the archive plans to digitise 1.5 million pages and 700,000 images. The St Gallen Abbey Archives has launched one of the largest preservation programmes in its history, opening a path towards digital access to records that have shaped the study of eastern Switzerland for centuries.

The material includes account books, correspondence, minutes and legal collections from the medieval and early modern periods. Together, these records document the administration of the abbey, its economic relationships and the legal structures that governed communities around St Gallen.

The project will also reduce the need to handle fragile originals. Researchers have traditionally depended on supervised access to unique documents, many of which cannot be safely consulted repeatedly. Digital copies can support preliminary research and allow scholars to compare materials without bringing every original into the reading room.

The archive’s work carries particular weight in a canton whose cultural identity is closely tied to the former Benedictine monastery. The abbey was founded in 612, while the first records of a library date to 820. Its holdings connect local history with wider European traditions of writing, administration and manuscript culture.

Two scanners can process up to 2,800 images a day. To manage the volume, Frauenfeld based firm GBL Gubler AG has installed a digitisation studio in the archive’s former reading room. The setup brings industrial scanning capacity into a historic research environment, where preservation remains the first constraint.

David Kastlunger, the archive’s conservator restorer, is overseeing the process. His role is essential because the collection contains books and records with different levels of fragility, binding structures and paper conditions. A standard scanner cannot safely accommodate every item.

For particularly delicate volumes, technicians use a scanner fitted with a V shaped book cradle. The support holds the book open without forcing its spine flat, allowing images to be captured while limiting pressure on the binding. That approach matters for documents that may have survived for hundreds of years but cannot withstand repeated opening.

Before the main project began, the archive used the former Pfäfers Monastery collection as a pilot. The smaller but varied group allowed staff and contractors to test handling procedures, image capture and workflow management. The pilot has now been completed, giving the archive an operating model for the larger holdings.

The records span the practical machinery of society, from accounts to court documents. Their value lies in their range. Account books can reveal prices, wages, transactions and the movement of goods. Letters preserve personal and institutional relationships. Minutes record decisions, while legal texts show how authority and obligations were interpreted across generations.

For historians of St Gallen and northeastern Switzerland, the digitisation programme could make it easier to trace connections across collections that are currently consulted separately. Researchers will be able to work with high resolution copies, search catalogue information remotely and compare documents before travelling to the archive.

The Abbey Library and Archives form part of a longer cultural history in St Gallen. The abbey became a major centre of writing and manuscript illumination, and its Baroque library hall was built between 1758 and 1767. The library today holds 2,100 manuscripts and 1,650 incunabula, according to background material cited by Swissinfo.

The archive project concerns historical records rather than a single exhibition collection. Its significance will emerge through sustained research: economic history, religious institutions, law, local communities and the daily administration of power all leave traces in these pages.