Science and Society Picture Library (SSPL)

The Science and Society Picture Library is the official print sales website of the Science Museum, National Railway Museum (see also post dated 30 January) and the Royal Photographic Society Collection. There are 40,000 images, divided into Vintage posters, Transport, Photography, Natural World, Places, Science & Technology, Society and Wars, and Other Collections. Each category is further subdivided. The Vintage Poster Transport section, for example, covers Railways, Aviation, Road Transport (shown in the screen shot), Water Transport and Other.

Ephemera can also be found through the search box. Advertisement, poster, trade, bill, programme, etc are all fruitful terms.

This is another excellent site where ephemera play their part in telling the overall story.  The images are accompanied by descriptions, often providing context.

Browsing if free but this is, of course, a commercial site, selling high-quality prints of an impressive range of museum images in various sizes, framed or unframed, on canvas, etc.  Users can log in, create My favourites, and a Basket.

(C) SSPL

Antique Spectacles

Antique Spectacles and other Vision Aids ('the online museum and encyclopedia of vision aids') is a site which caught my imagination from our first involvement with it and its very enthusiastic and knowledgeable curator, Dr Fleishman. It is a shining example of a site which uses ephemera to tell their part of the story (in this case of the history of spectacles) in conjunction with the widest possible range of other media. I thought I would look at it again to see if I could justify including it as an Ephemera resource, and I was amply rewarded. The new Quick links include pages aimed at librarians and curators. Of particular note is a discussion of the Edward Scarlett trade card: the newly discovered Bodleian version, 1714-1727  (not JJ Coll but Douce adds 139 (766)), with pop-up transcriptions and enlargements of details, and a scholarly comparison of the two known versions of the card (one of which is represented in two collections).

This is supplemented by a slide show of other optical trade cards from a wide range of collections, including the John Johnson Collection, all with mouse-over pop-up enlargements.

copyright © 2003-2012, antiquespectacles.com

The whole site is fascinating, but also of particular interest to ephemerists are three slide shows of spectacles on stamps, a slide show of paper labels rarely seen, and slide shows of spectacle peddlers, and International currency showing spectacles.

A site to enjoy for itself as much as for its ephemera!

Smithsonian's Instruments for Science

The Smithsonian Libraries Instruments for Science, 1800-1914: scientific trade catalogs in Smithsonian Collections, is a digital resource searchable by company (with drop down list), type of instrument, title, keyword, etc. (try theodolite, for example). It is international, with British, French and German firms as well as American. The screen shot shows catalogues for Negretti and Zambra of Holborn Viaduct, London. Trade catalogues have rarely survived and contain a wealth of information.  The introduction page contains two essays on scientific trade catalogues, by Steven Turner and Jim Roan.

(C) Smithsonian Institution