An index of printed material published in German-speaking countries in the 17th century. The aim of the project is to scan and store all imprints from the German-speaking world in the 17th century in a distributed digital database system (OMNIS/Myriad). About 250,000 titles with more than one million pixel images will be held on magnetic hard disc drives and optical storage media in jukeboxes. At present, six libraries with important holdings covering this period take part in the project (Berlin, Dresden, Gotha, Halle, Munich and Wolfenbüttel). The technical prerequisites have been developed by the Bavarian Research Center For Knowledge-Based Systems (FORWISS). Digitized images of key pages form an integral part of the bibliographic description.