The Digital Collection of the Scrapbooks of Johannes Gennadius
The European Union funded Program Information Society allowed the American School in 2007-2008 to digitize about 300.000 items from its collections; these are now available to all at the cultural portal of the Library. 35 volumes of the scrapbooks of Johannes Gennadius have been digitized and their rare material is searchable and accessible to all. The digitization and cataloguing of a portion of this collection funded by the Information Society project awarded to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens covers a crucial need of the Library for the preservation and dissemination of this important material. Its publication on the internet provides a significant tool that can be used for scholarly research and for various educational purposes. The Scrapbooks of Joannes Gennadius represent one of the most important collections of the Gennadius library, because they contain invaluable information for the history of modern Greece. In his scrapbooks, Gennadius collected photos and other ephemera (clippings from newspapers and books, engravings, printed matter, broadsides, invitations and many other materials). The 116 volumes of the scrapbooks focus on diverse topics: historical, topographical, archaeological, ethnological (costumes), architectural, art historical, history of the book, journalistic as well as the Gennadius family. Each volume consists on the average of 60-70 pages of large size. Responsible for the cataloguing were historians Marianna Christopoulou and Anna Tsokanis under the supervision of Gennadeion Director Maria Georgopoulou. Asimina Rodi helped with the cataloguing of several rare and old journals that form an important scrapbook collection under the rubric “Journalism.” Several members of staff assisted them in their research: Aliki Asvesta, Leda Costaki, Eleftheria Daleziou, Leonora Navari, Katerina Papatheophani, Irini Solomonidi, Giannis Valourdos and Maria Voltera. The new digital library is accessible electronically on the website of the American School and the Gennadius Library.