Initially conceived as a three-year project, "Orient-Digital“ was a DFG-funded project aimed at establishing a union catalogue and a portal for Oriental manuscripts. Cooperation partners were Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Forschungsbibliothek Gotha of the Universität Erfurt, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München and Universitätsrechenzentrum Leipzig. The project’s objective was to centrally gather data on Oriental manuscripts which are currently scattered throughout German collections and to develop a uniform data model. This was achieved through retro-conversion of older print catalogues and data transfer from existing applications. The focus was on Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish language manuscripts. In a second project phase, South Asian languages are the central focus.

One of the major objectives was to create a uniform data structure in accordance with library standards. This included review, improvement and creation of authority records within the application as well as in the integrated authority file (GND) of Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB).

The project developed the portal Qalamos which is available online since June 2022.