Europeana

Wheels within wheels: one of Europeana's contributors is Culture Grid, subject of my last blog post.

(C) Europeana

 
Europeana is work in progress, but already has nearly 6,300 hits for ephemera, mainly so far from The European Library and Hispana.   Additionally, there are over 35,000 entries under postcard (nearly 27,000 under Postkarte), many part of Europeana's major 1914-1918 project.

(C) Europeana

The list of Europeana participants includes the University of Ghent, which will contribute Posters of the late 19th century and ephemera. 

This will be a major resource. Developments can be followed on Facebook, on a blog and on Twitter.

Valentines: more resources

It is valentine season again and time to highlight collections both here at the Bodleian and elsewhere.

This year, I have joined with the National Valentine Collectors Association to focus on the valentines of Eugène Rimmel.  My own contribution is a small virtual exhibition about Rimmel's advertising and his association with the Theatre on my blog: The John Johnson Collection Now and Then.  Nancy Rosin has devoted the winter issue of The Valentine Writer (the journal of the National Valentine Collectors Association) to an excellent article on Rimmel (available as a pdf) and Malcolm Warrington has created a beautiful online exhibition.  There are also posts about Comic valentines (and the 200th anniversary of De La Rue) on the UK Ephemera Society's Facebook page.

Also from the other side of the Atlantic, many thanks to Nancy Rosin for recommending The Virtual Museum of Canada, which has a virtual exhibition:  Valentine's Day:  love and romance through the ages, complete with the facility to open and rotate three-dimensional pop-up valentines (in QTVR files) and to create and send valentines from a museum object, card or artefact  for electronic delivery.  A lot of fun, but also solid information about the history not only of valentine cards, but of other love offerings.There are 1229 hits for valentines from various Canadian institutions in the image gallery.

(C) Virtual Museum of Canada

Back in Britain, The Museum of London has put online 1788 valentines, manufacturers' sample sheets and related material, mostly from the prestigious Jonathan King Collection. Jonathan King was a valentine maker in Essex Road, London and this collection gives a wonderful and invaluable insight into the manufacturing process. As well as complete valentines, there are proofs with annotations made in the workshop, relating to design and price, stock number etc. Each item is captioned and dated.  There is also a blog: The more unusual valentines in our collection.

(C) Museum of London

 The Discover pages of the (new) Library of Birmingham include introductions to the history of valentines, and to Comic valentines, with two galleries featuring sentimental and comic cards from their collections.  Similar pages are devoted to Birthday cards, Greetings cards illustrated by Kate Greenaway, Silk embroidered postcards, First World War song cards, and Miscellaneous greetings cards.

(C) Library of Birmingham

Hull Museums also have a large collection of valentines.

(C) Hull Museums

(C) The British Postal Museum & Archive

The British Postal Museum and Archive has a fascinating online exhibition Passion through the post highlighting its collections and outlining the history of the valentine, from the perspective of the postal historian.Their valentines are catalogued, with 892 hits for a  simple search for valentine, some accompanied with thumbnail images.

Postcard exhibition in Boston

(C) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston www.mfa.org

 
Many thanks to John Sayers for alerting me to the exhibition The Postcard Age at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which runs until April 14 2013. Although sadly I won't see the exhibition itself, there are screen shots of it online, and I am very much looking forward to reading the accompanying book The Postcard Age by Linda Klich and Benjamin Weiss, which we now have in the Bodleian Library.

The exhibition is a taster of the 100,000 postcards which Leonard A. Lauder (son of Estée) is gradually giving to the Museum. The cards are arranged by themes such as urban life, the changing role of women, sports, celebrity, new technologies, art nouveau and WWI. 

There is an online slideshow of 10 cards from the exhibition and you can send a virtual postcard from the exhibition. I particularly like the moving images of the display (together with the other current exhibitions), which can be seen from the museum's home page.  Postcards, by virtue of their size, present challenges for display and it is good to see how the museum has approached these.


An online article from the New Yorker, The pleasures of postcards gives the background to Lauder's passion for postcards as miniature works of art.  Other online articles are Wild cards (New York Times), MFA exhibit showcases postcard marvels (Boston Post) and Cards to write home about (Wall Street Journal).

Japanese postcards from the MFA's website: www.mfa.org

Nearly 22,000 Japanese postcards from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection are already at the museum and can be seen online (most with images).

 This is a serious postcard collection, acquired over many years and representing the height of the postcard craze from the 1900s to the beginning of the First World War.  Leonard A. Lauder has collected the jewels of this age, internationally.  It is a pleasure to see these cards given the status of a museum collection, with a dedicated exhibition, and elucidated in a scholarly volume.

Australasian ephemera: guest post by Anthony Tedeschi

I am delighted to open the new season of the John Johnson Collection's Ephemera Resources blog with the first of two guest posts by Anthony Tedeschi, Rare Books Librarian at Dunedin City Library. This post focuses on New Zealand ephemera . Many thanks to him for sharing his knowledge of ephemera collections on the other side of the world.

All images are courtesy of the Heritage Collections, Dunedin City Library, Dunedin, New Zealand

Programme for a show touring New Zealand to raise funds for the country's 

armed services during the Second World War

Australasian Ephemera Collections – Part 1: New Zealand

One of the four courses offered during this year’s Australian & New Zealand Rare Book Summer School held at the State Library of Victoria (SLVA), Melbourne, was ‘Ephemera: A Collector’s Key to the History of Books’. Each morning the course instructor, Emeritus Professor Wallace Kirsop, lead us on a highly informative tour through book dealer catalogues, type specimens, printers’ and binders’ bills and labels, prospectuses, and other bibliographical ephemera. In the afternoons, the class was treated to presentations by some of the SLVA curators and paid a visit to the rare books collection of Monash University.

Meeting my fellow classmates and learning about the ephemera actively collected by two of Melbourne’s many cultural / educational institutions piqued my curiosity: What other collections of ephemera – not only in Australia but in New Zealand as well – are ‘out there’? Of course most libraries and museums will have some ephemera in their collections, such as the programmes printed on silk, railway pass and phrenological chart of Sir George Grey’s head held in the Auckland City Libraries, Sir George Grey Special Collections. Rather than attempt to record every institution, this post (the first of two) aims to highlight those organisations that maintain dedicated ephemera collections. It is hoped readers aware of other collections in New Zealand and Australia will contribute to this list by way of comments.

Theatre programme, Oct 30 1926

DunedinCity Library, Heritage Collections

The City Library Heritage Collections holds a collection of over 400 pieces of ephemera relating primarily to Dunedin, but touching on some national topics as well. Pamphlets, menus, printed advertisements, brochures, all on a range of subjects. The collection is particularly strong in theatre and music ephemera, and in material related to exhibitions held in New Zealand and overseas.

In addition to this dedicated ephemera collection, Robert McNab, who donated his collection of 4,200 books to the library in 1913, also gave over multiple volumes of bound tracts and pamphlets.

N.B. The website states that the ephemera collection is uncatalogued, which is now outdated information. The collection has been fully catalogued and can be browsed in the library catalogue [select ‘Power Search’ – drop-down menu ‘location’ – DP McNab Ephemera Collection]

Hocken Library

There are 140.5 archives shelves and 125.5 book shelves of printed ephemera, not including material held in the posters collection or art ephemera.

The scope of the ephemera collection is to support those of the other Hocken collections and encompasses general New Zealand themes, and Otago and Southland in particular. It is representative rather than comprehensive and includes material for its informative and/or aesthetic value. Especial emphasis and priority is given to University of Otago and Hocken Collections ephemera. Music ephemera relating to the Dunedin area, and artists' and election ephemera for all of New Zealand are given priority. The collection is strong in classical music, fine arts and the performing arts, as well as educational and tourism material. Material ranges in age from the nineteenth century to the current day.

Like McNab, Dr. T. M. Hocken’s 1908 gift to the nation included bound tracts, programmes and book dealer catalogues.

[Description provided by Katherine Milburn, Liaison Librarian (Ephemera), Hocken Library]

Museum ofNew Zealand / Te Papa Tongarewa

As a national repository, Te Papa’s collection is one of New Zealand’s largest. Many of the museum’s separate collections, such as Artworks, Fashion and the First World War each actively collect ephemera.

NationalLibrary of New Zealand (general ephemera)

The National Library of New Zealand boasts the country’s largest collection of ephemera. The Manuscripts, Drawings, Paintings and Prints, and Special Printed departments all maintain ephemera collections.

NationalLibrary of New Zealand (printed ephemera)

In addition to the separate divisions mentioned above, the Alexander Turnbull Library (part of the NLNZ) holds a printed ephemera collection of more than 190,000 items from the 1840s to the present.

New Zealand NavalMuseum

Included in the Naval Museum ephemera are leaflets, menus, Christmas cards, event programmes, and fleet reviews.

University ofCanterbury, MacMillan Brown Library

Canterbury maintains three separate collections of ephemera: theatre and concert programmes, art files, and general ephemera.

Sir Edmund Hillary share certificate, issued to help support the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition

 

[Guest post by Anthony Tedeschi, Rare Books Librarian, Dunedin City Library]