Stefanie Kollmann
Bibliothek für Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung, Berlin

Pictura Paedagogica Online. A Picture Archive Not Only for Educational Historians

Keywords: Pictura Paedagogica, educational history, online picture archive

The interest in iconographical sources related to educational history is ever growing. This interest is manifested by numerous private picture collections assembled by historians and the publication of these collections in illustrated books.¹ Images of children, at play or in school, and other teaching activities are most sought after; they offer some insight into daily life and education at home and elsewhere (Figs. 1 and 2). Images that were used as teaching aids, such as book illustrations and posters, are also of great interest because of their didactic aspect and the moral values they convey.

Fig. 1. Family education. The title page in: Nouvel ABC pour les enfans, 1780.

Fig. 2. Evening. In: Unverwuestliches ABC und Bilderbuch fuer kleine Kinder, [1819], p. 19.

Until now it was quite difficult for a researcher to find sources relevant to the subject of his study. Private collections are often closed to the public and publications generally show only a selection of the most important works. An idea for a virtual picture archive that would be accessible to everyone via the Internet was therefore put forward. Digital images from many collections would be assembled in such an archive, while the original picture would remain in the possession of a particular owner.

The Pictura Paedagogica Online (PPO) started in January 2000 as a joint project between the Bibliothek für Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung des Deutschen Instituts für Internationale Pädagogische Forschung (Library for Educational History Research, BBF) in Berlin and the Institut für Angewandte Erziehungswissenschaft und Allgemeine Didaktik (Institute for Applied Education and General Didactics) at the University of Hildesheim, and was funded by the German Research Council (DFG).

Two years into the project, the two participating institutions together contributed three collections of pictures:

• The BBF in Berlin owns a collection of about 12,000 old books and journals published between 1485 and 1830. Following a selection process, some 5,000 of the 20,000 illustrated book pages were digitised. These images were brought together in a new collection and made available to researchers for the first time.
• Students at the University of Hildesheim, guided by Professor Rudolf W. Keck, researched books from the libraries in Helmstedt, Göttingen and Wolfenbüttel. Illustrations that they selected were subsequently filmed and archived as part of the University collection.
• The third collection was originally brought together by the pedagogue, Otto May who collected historical postcards dating from 1870 to 1933.

In the PPO one can find about 10,000 illustrations on a variety of subjects. Apart from the postcards showing historical events and portraits and caricatures of important contemporary figures, there are also illustrations from various books such as Bibles and catechisms, school textbooks and children's literature. There are images of children playing or learning, scenes of daily life, as well as images of animals, plants, exotic countries and their inhabitants. Furthermore there are numerous maps, both geographical and celestial (Fig. 3). There are also scientific illustrations such as construction drawings of machines. Most of the illustrations are engravings, often of a very good quality and very finely coloured.

Fig. 3. Planiglobium Coeleste. In: Atlas Portatilis, 1724, p. 20/21.

All images were filmed prior to digitisation.² This was done for one main reason: films last much longer than CDs.^{ed. note} One will still be able to use the film regardless of technological advances, whereas digital data and CDs might be unreadable in the near future because of the development of new hardware and software. If future technological advances require better scans, we will be able to use the film instead of the original images in books. The collection at the University of Hildesheim consists of black and white photographic prints and negatives. But the pictures from Berlin and the postcards were filmed in colour, to give a realistic image of the original work of art. For the same reason the complete book page was filmed and later clipped. Both the clip and the complete book page can be viewed on the PPO. Figure 4a gives an idea of the quality of the PPO digitised image (the size of the original picture is 105 x 68 mm); figure 4b shows an enlarged detail.

Figs. 4a and 4b. Abraham at Moria, after Lievens. In: Joachim Heinrich Campe, Saemmtliche Kinder- und Jugendschriften, 1830, vol. 15, p. 40f.

The indexing of the data about the individual image in the PPO was one of the main tasks once digitisation had been completed. As most of the pictures came from books it seemed appropriate to choose a format compatible with the library database. Capriccio has therefore been chosen as a database system, as it is based on the system Allegro C used in the BBF Library catalogue. Thus, the user of the PPO is able to search for images and books at the same time.

What kind of information was included? We tried to incorporate as much information as possible. Firstly, details such as the date, technique and size, inscription, signatures and the artist's name (where known) were recorded. Every image was given a title. And last but not least every image record was linked to the full record of the book or journal from which the picture was taken. This source was also checked for any description of the print in order to show the context in which the image was to be viewed. The relevant texts in the book were copied or scanned, depending on the text length.

The next level of cataloguing was concerned with the image subject-matter. Iconographical details were recorded where possible, including the names of the depicted characters and other persons connected with the image content. A quotation from the Bible, if relevant, was given to the religious subject. We used the standard library thesaurus for indexing. It was decided not to use ICONCLASS or other specialist subject headings in order to make the PPO easily accessible to anybody and not just to educational/art historians.

Fig. 5. The homepage of Pictura Paedagogica Online.

Pictura Paedagogica Online was launched officially on the 125th anniversary of the BBF in May 2001. Access to the site at www.bbf.dipf.de/VirtuellesBildarchiv/ is free to all. The site offers further information on the project as well as on the participating institutions.

The PPO material can be searched by using several search engines. One can search directly for images with a standard or expert search, but the more advanced search can be used to look for illustrated books or journals, finding particular names or checking a time chart. An expert index search is also available.

Started by two academic institutions, the project is now in its third year. We hope to receive new funding for the next phase. There are three more institutions interested in joining the project with their collections of photographs, school posters and paintings.

November 2001

Notes

1. Most recently Schiffler, H. and Winkeler, R. (1991), Tausend Jahre Schule: eine Kulturgeschichte des Lernens in Bildern. 3rd ed. Stuttgart; Engelbrecht, H. (1995), Erziehung und Unterricht im Bild. Zur Geschichte des österreichischen Bildungswesens. Wien.

2.This work was sub-contracted to Herrmann & Kraemer in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (http://www.hk-gap.de/).

Editor's note: It is not clear what type of film the author has in mind but any analogue film is prone to deterioration and its longevity cannot match that of digital formats. Some discs currently used for storing digital images may indeed become obsolete making images inaccessible. For long-term preservation, image data should be transferred to an up-to-date storage format in a good time.