Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the work being done at The German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) to make non-textual information, for example three dimensional objects, more easily accessible. The goal is to create workflows and develop tools that allow academic libraries to treat this data in the same way as textual documents within the library processing chain. This implies content-based indexing and the offering of new kinds of interfaces for searching and displaying results. Design/methodology/approach – The work of TIB on non textual information is described as well as DataCite and its launch in December 2009. Findings – That the launch of Datacite ensures that this agency will take global leadership for promoting the use of persistent identifiers for datasets, to satisfy the needs of scientists. It will, through its members, establish and promote common methods, best practices, and guidance. Practical implications – The work of TIB and the launch of Datacite will ensure that non textual data will become more easily available to researchers. Originality/value – The value of this work has been underlined recently with the controversy over the accessibility of climate change data.