collections of images

September 27, 2008 1:05 PM

Beautiful, vintage children's books from the Netherlands. If you click on the cover you can get close-ups of the entire book, page by page. 655 picture books from 1810 to 1950. Some examples: The Willows l Bellaroontje l Flower Children l The Circus l The Sparrow and the Starling. There are 67 extraordinary collections in The Memory of the Netherlands.

The Memory of the Netherlands is a project of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands, that is responsible for digitising important sources of the Netherlands' cultural heritage. The website offers easy access to more than twenty digital collections from an equal number of heritage institutions.

Sometimes it's fun putting a word like "kameel" (camel) into the children's illustrated books section search box or even a number. Results for kameel for 2.

Previously.

posted by nickyskye (22 comments total)

This is lovely. Thanks.
posted by Ugh at 1:47 PM on September 27, 2008

Alle eendjes zwemmen in het water.
Very nice. Thank you.
posted by jouke at 1:56 PM on September 27, 2008

Awesome, as is the search suggestion :) The website was already somewhere in my bookmarks, but that was before this collection was added, I hadn't visited it for some time.
Though I was born some decades after 1950, there are quite a few books I recognise. Thanks for posting this!
posted by Ms. Next at 2:30 PM on September 27, 2008

Excellent! Thanks, nickyskye!

The verse in Bloemen-kinderen is very sweet.
posted by trip and a half at 2:51 PM on September 27, 2008

Beautiful goodness.
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 3:05 PM on September 27, 2008

Nice post.
Thanks very much.
posted by archaic at 3:25 PM on September 27, 2008

I really want to supersize the awesomeness, but I can't for the life of me get the zoom function to work.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:32 PM on September 27, 2008

Dear Sys Rq, let's see if I can help you with the supersizing thing.

Step 1. Click on this link.

Step 2. Click on the pic of the kitty.

Step 3. On the upper right of the pic of the kitty it says "Zoom", click that and you will get this.

Step 4. Below the enlarged pic of the kitty in the grey bar at the bottom of the window it says "1/5 volgende >>" On the first of the arrows right of the word volgende, click that > to turn the pages.

Does that help? It's the same process for any of the 655 children's books or the thousands of other images on that site
posted by nickyskye at 5:40 PM on September 27, 2008

Zoom window got stuck in a weird page-loading loop on Safari, but worked in Firefox.
posted by D.C. at 6:00 PM on September 27, 2008

I'm using Firefox, and I got the page-loading loop.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:05 PM on September 27, 2008

So sorry it's not working for you Sys Rq, I'm using Firefox too and no prob. Drat.
posted by nickyskye at 6:30 PM on September 27, 2008

Oh, good stuff! Thank you!
I just found 'The wonderful adventures of the knight Quichot from Mancha and his shield-carrier'. Pretty adorable.
posted by zusty at 8:32 PM on September 27, 2008

Very nice!
The archeological section in the Rijksmuseum claims to have an item that is 250,000 years old - but I can't track it down. Can somebody with with better Dutch and/or better navigation skills provide a hint?
posted by speug at 9:52 PM on September 27, 2008

speug, the item is a pre-historic stone tool. Here. Scroll to the bottom of the page to the red lettered link that reads "mooiste objecten". Click on that. In the page that opens it's the first object in the lower left-hand corner, which looks like a chipped axe head. You can click on the image to make it bigger. The explanation is in Dutch but I think it says that it's a multi-function tool of stone.
posted by nickyskye at 11:29 PM on September 27, 2008

PS speug, I'm so pleased you explored some of those other links.
posted by nickyskye at 11:29 PM on September 27, 2008

Having gone through a bunch of stuff on the site (still making my way through the children's books, advertisements, and earthenware), here're a couple of my favorites:
Animal Silhouettes book, Feodora, something I can't guess at the name of (but which has a lovely geometric style), Guus and the... little men(?), a pretty nice Gulliver's Travels, a lovely poster, set of pitchers...
I am doing a lot of saving out. This stuff is tee-riffic.
posted by zusty at 11:03 AM on September 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Oh. Apparently you have to Allow Cookies. Duh.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:21 AM on September 28, 2008

Dear Sys Rq, no "Duh"s allowed in my threads. Only "Ah ha!"s.
Some milk with your cookie. :)
posted by nickyskye at 1:36 PM on September 28, 2008

Awesome, nickyskye. Thank you.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:41 PM on September 28, 2008

speug, the item is a pre-historic stone tool. [...] The explanation is in Dutch but I think it says that it's a multi-function tool of stone.

Quick & dirty translation:

"The biface was the multifunctional tool of the early Stone Age. It was suited for felling, slaughter and skinning. It is one of the oldest man-made tools found in the Netherlands."
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:23 PM on September 28, 2008

And in nickyskye's earlier link:

"The Netherlands in prehistory

Objects from prehistoric times have been found in every province of the Netherlands. The oldest objects in the presentation "The Netherlands in prehistory" are 250,000 year old chert [flint] tools. Bronze and stone axes, a mysterious wooden figurine, a 6200 year old fish trap and beautiful amber and golden tools bring to life this era."
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:36 PM on September 28, 2008

Thanks so much for the translation goodnewsfortheinsane.
posted by nickyskye at 2:20 AM on September 29, 2008