Sharing Photographs

By Dr. Antje Schmidt and Dr. Esther Ruelfs

MUSEUM FÜR KUNST UND GEWERBE (MKG) - Antje Schmidt, Head of Digital Cataloguing and MKG Collection Online, and Esther Ruelfs, Head of MKG's Photography and New Media Department, on the functions of sharing images, both historically and in the present. more

The Quirky, the Artful, and the Unexpected: Historic Photographs of Life in Australia

By Dr. Elycia Wallis

MUSEUM VICTORIA - Dr Elycia J Wallis, Manager of Online Collections, presents a few fascinating glimpses of late-19th- and early-20th-century Australia, and the photographers who documented its inhabitants. more

The Legend of the Divine Farmer

By Gillian Daniel

WELLCOME LIBRARY - Gillian Daniels, Graduate Trainee at the Wellcome Trust, explores the story of Shen Nong, born of a princess and heavenly dragon, and teacher to the ancient Chinese of agriculture and herbal medicine. more

Historic Oregon Newspapers: Preserving History While Shaping the Future

By Sheila Rabun

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON LIBRARIES - Sheila Rabun, Digital Project Manager at the Digital Scholarship Center, gives a tour of the rich and varied history of news media in Oregon. more

Jacob Sarnoff and the Strange World of Anatomical Filmmaking

By Miriam Posner

US NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE - Miriam Posner on what led a 1920s Brooklyn surgeon to remove the veins from a day-old infant, mount them on a board, and film them being pumped with air. more

Tempest Anderson: Pioneer of Volcano Photography

Pat Hadley, Sarah King, and Stuart Ogilvy

THE YORKSHIRE MUSEUM - Pat Hadley, Sarah King and Stuart Ogilvy present a fascinating selection of photographs from the collection of Tempest Anderson, the pioneering Victorian volcanologist. more

Daniel Nyblin’s Glass Negatives of Artworks

By Hanna-Leena Paloposki

FINNISH NATIONAL GALLERY - Hanna-Leena Paloposki presents a selection from the gallery's collection of Daniel Nyblin glass negatives, a collection comprised of the photographer's lesser known images of artworks. more

The Forth Bridge: Building an Icon

By Alison Metcalfe

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND - Alison Metcalfe, curator in the Manuscript and Archive Collections department, presents the library's collection of photographs recording the construction of the Forth Bridge, the first major structure in Britain to be made of steel and a milestone in civil engineering. more

Gallipoli: Through the Soldier’s Lens

By Alison Wishart

AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL - To mark the 100 years since Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) fought the Gallipoli campaign of WW1, Alison Wishart explores the remarkable photographic record left by the soldiers. Made possible by the birth of Kodak's portable camera, the photographs give a rare and intimate portrait of the soldier's day-to-day life away from the heat of battle. more

Strange Contests in the Netherlands

By Harry van Biessum

OPEN IMAGES - Harry van Biessum gives a little tour through some of the collection's stranger films, in particular those Dutch newsreels from the 1930s which centred on reporting a wide-variety of bizarre competitions. more

A Mongolian Manual of Astrology and Divination

By Michael J. North

US NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE - Michael J. North, Head of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts, takes a look at one the highlights of the Library's Turning the Pages project, a Mongolian manuscript concerned with interpreting the heavens. more

Autochromes from the Te Papa Collection

By Lissa Mitchell

MUSEUM OF NEW ZEALAND TE PAPA TONGAREWA - Lissa Mitchell, Curator of Historical Documentary Photography, explores the work of three photographers creating autochromes in early 20th-century New Zealand. more

Boys will be Boys: Playing Around in a 17th-Century Friendship Book

By Dr. Lynley Anne Herbert

WALTERS ART MUSEUM - Dr. Lynley Anne Herbert investigates a mysterious image and accompanying rebus found within the pages of a liber amicorum or "friendship book", an album for recording friendships and social connections that amounted to a kind of 17th-century version of Facebook. more

Armenians and Armenian Photographers in the Ottoman Empire

By Julia Grimes

GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE - Julia Grimes introduces a fascinating selection of images from the Pierre de Gigord Collection detailing Armenian life in the 19th-century Ottoman Empire, many from the studio of Armenian photographers Pascal Sebah and the Abdullah Frères. more

William Blake and Paul Mellon: The Life of the Mind

By Matthew Hargraves

YALE CENTER FOR BRITISH ART - Matthew Hargraves looks at Paul Mellon as a collector of William Blake and the impact of his lifelong fascination with psychology and psychiatry on his collecting. more

The Other Lives of Adam and Eve

By Sarah Toulouse

BIBLIOTHÈQUE DE RENNES MÉTROPOLE - Sarah Toulouse explores the mystery behind a couple of strange and unexpected images found in a 15th-century book of hours. more

Cabinet Card Photographs from the Harvard Theatre Collection

By John Overholt

HOUGHTON LIBRARY, HARVARD UNIVERISTY - John Overholt shines a spotlight on a few examples from the eclectic lot of cabinet card photographs found in the Harvard Theatre Collection, a series of images which are currently making their way onto Wikimedia Commons courtesy of the Wikipedian in Residence scheme. more

Markham’s Masterpiece

By Michael J. North

U.S. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE - Michael J. North, Head of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts in NLM's History of Medicine Division, takes a look at one of the most important books in the history of veterinary medicine - a seminal 17th-century work on the care of horses. more

The Wellcome Library’s Top 10 Open Images

By Catherine Draycott

THE WELLCOME LIBRARY - Catherine Draycott, head of Wellcome Images, gives a run down of the Top 10 most downloaded images from the collection of more than 100,000 that the Wellcome Library made available free from restrictions earlier this year. more

Cuttings from a Medieval Italian Choirbook

By James Freeman

THE BRITISH LIBRARY - James Freeman explores cuttings from a huge 14th century Italian choirbook and how digital technology is now helping scholars build a picture of the once intact original through virtually reuniting the "diaspora" of fragments. more

The Writings of J.F. Martinet (1729-1795)

By Marieke van Delft

KONINKLIJKE BIBLIOTHEEK - Marieke van Delft discusses some works by the prolific writer Johannes Florentius Martinet (1729-1795), digitized in the Early Dutch Books Online (EDBO) Project. more

Ambassadors, Milkmaids, and Hot Air Balloons

By Patrick Borer

ZENTRALBIBLIOTHEK SOLOTHURN - Patrick Borer picks out some highlights from their collection of 18th-century prints and looks at what they tell us about life in a Swiss city state. more

The History of the Ordinary

By Laura Bang and Ruth Martin

VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY - Laura Bang and Ruth Martin explore an early 20th-century scrapbook put together by Company 62 of the New York City Fire Department. more

Music Manuscripts from the 17th and 18th Centuries in the British Library

By Dr. Sandra Tuppen

THE BRITISH LIBRARY - Sandra Tuppen explores some highlights from their digitised collection of music manuscripts, including those penned by the hand of Haydn, Handel, Purcell, and a very messy Beethoven. more

The Manuscripts of Emily Dickinson

By Mike Kelly

AMHERST COLLEGE - Mike Kelly explores highlights from their Emily Dickinson collection, a huge variety of manuscript forms - from concert programmes to chocolate wrappers - which give us a fascinating insight into how the poet worked. more

The World According to Pitt

By Jo Pugh

UK NATIONAL ARCHIVES - Jo Pugh explores the newly digitised letters of former British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and his sister Hester, and how their contents shed an intimate light on one of the most politically influential families in British history. more

Visual Nation Making and Forgetting

By Henrik Holm

NATIONAL GALLERY OF DENMARK - Henrik Holm looks at the making of the Danish painting canon and its relation to the construction of a national identity. more

Carel and Abraham Allard in the Court of Momus

By Daniel Horst

RIJKSMUSEUM - Daniel Horst explores the controversial collection of satirical etchings published by Abraham Allard in Amsterdam ca. 1708 under the title 't Lusthof van Momus. more

Canada Through a Lens: the British Library Colonial Copyright Collection

By Dr. Phil Hatfield and Andrew Gray

THE BRITISH LIBRARY — Phil Hatfield and Andrew Gray kick off our brand new Curator’s Choice series by taking a look at the fascinating array of photographs in the British Library’s Canadian Colonial Copyright Collection. more