DigiPortA – Digitizing and Indexing Portraits in Archives From the Leibniz Association

Project Description

DigiPortA was jointly run by nine institutions from the Leibniz Association, led by the Deutsches Museum Archives in Munich.

The project primarily aimed at increasing the visibility of the Archives of the Leibniz Association by using the the portrait resources. Therefore making biografic image sources accessible to researchers and the public at large, via an internet portal.They were indexed according archival standards. Further information regarding the persons portrayed and the photographers are given. The reference to individual provenance and a description of the respective collection of origin enable access of these collections for historical-biographical research.

Roughly 33,000 portraits of persons working in science, technology, engineering, industry, architecture, the arts, seafaring professions, mining, geography and pedagogy were compiled. Besides researching individual biography, it is thus possible to investigate the portrayal of professions and the social ranking of professional groups.

Chronologically, these collections of portraits and participating archives focus on photographs from the 19th and 20th century; but many engravings are also presented.

In the Framework of the project about 300 portraits from BBF archive were indexed, digitized und made accessible in the joint database via the internet. The protraits from private and professional contexts show teacher, pedagogues (e.g. Adelheid und Marie Torhorst, Hugo Gaudig, Berthold Otto, Adolf Reichwein), staff members of the Academy for Pedagogical Sciences of the GDR and group photographs of teacher associations.

BBF portraits in DigiPortA

Funding

The project was funded by the Leibniz Competition 2012, Funding Line Networks for three years.

Cooperations

• Deutsches Museum Archives (Munich)
• Archiv des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums (Bremerhaven)
• Montanhistorisches Dokumentationszentrum (montan.dok) beim Deutschen Bergbau-Museum (Bochum)
• Deutsches Kunstarchiv (German Art Archive) im Germanischen Nationalmuseum (Nuremberg)
• Senckenberg German Entomological Institute (Müncheberg)
• Archive for Geography at Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (Leipzig)
• Image Archive at the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe (Marburg)
• Archive of the Research Library for the History of Education (BBF) at the DIPF (Berlin)
• Scientific Collections of the Leibniz Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning (Erkner)

Project Management

Overall project management:

• Dr. Wilhelm Füßl (Deutsches Museum Munich)

Project Management at the BBF:

• Dr. Bettina Irina Reimers

Project Details