Most of the collection items are typical “Late Victorian Leporello Albums” containing photographs and photo-lithographs printed on long accordion-pleated pages. The collection consists of more than 1,700 images that depict scenic views and historical sites in Europe, North America, and Micronesia. The collected images are valuable visual materials for academic research on photographic technology and techniques, geography, urban built environment, industries, transportation, tourism, landscapes, and world’s fairs in the modern era.

Most of the albums were published by European and American publishers, and the descriptions and notes were written in Western languages, such as English, French, and German, and, in some cases, in more than one language. The only exception is the “Memorial Photograph Book of South-Sea-Islands Inspection,” which was made in Japan; the notes in this work are written in Japanese. Some of its descriptions and captions include terms and names that are not currently used. They are presented on this archive without modification because they themselves are historical materials.

The Album Collection’s contents may have been valuable teaching materials in those days when visual materials such as photographs, paintings, and films were very rare. They may have informed students with lively images of harbors, railways, bridges, big waterfalls, high mountains, cathedrals, universities, and many other wonders in foreign countries. How were the albums brought to the Department of Geography? The inside cover pages of some of the albums contain handwritten Japanese words and people’s names. Supposedly, Japanese tourists bought the photograph albums as mementoes or souvenirs. Some albums might have been donated by such tourists directly to the Department of Geography, while others might have been purchased by the Department of Geography from used book shops. It would be an interesting future task to clarify the circumstances under which the Album Collection was acquired.

Our souvenir album project to build the digital archive was started in the 2017 Spring Semester as an ILAS Seminar (a small group seminar of Institute for Liberal Arts and Science) for first-year undergraduate students in all faculties. Professor Tanaka, who was in charge of this Seminar, set its theme as “Introduction to Regional Geography through the 19th Century Souvenir Albums.” Through photographs, photo-lithographs, and explanatory notes, the ten students who took part in the course learned about modern, urban, and natural landscapes and tourism since the late 19th century. They also tried to identify the detailed geographical locations depicted in the albums, and took notes on bibliographical information.

The archive includes a map of the cities and regions presented in the albums and a list of all the album titles with their full bibliographical information. The albums are classified by region, and the image of each album’s front cover is displayed on the web pages. On the digital archive, clicking on an album front cover opens the page, which contains all the photographs and/or photo-lithographs belonging to that particular album. The archive application, produced by the NPO Openconcierge, is designed to be user-friendly.

Our next mission is to classify all images contained in the albums. It will enable viewers to compare the appearance of an indentical and/or similar type of building across different regions and/or in different albums. Future improvements in the accessibility and research potential of our archive can be carried out through further research and information provided by our viewers.

The purpose of releasing our Souvenir Album Archive is to allow the public, including researchers and students, to use the results obtained during the 2017 ILAS Seminar to conduct academic analyses, or even observations just out of intellectual curiosity, about the “Late Victorian Leporello Albums.”

The following people participated in this project: Masuda Anri, Morishita Ryo, Kuroda Naoki, Ogawa Taisei, Inada Mizuho, Tsuchiya Natsunosuke, Watanabe Futaro, Deguchi Akira, Tsukamoto Mayuko, Tamura Kei, Mikami Junko, Hoshida Yukihisa, and Natsume Muneyuki. I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to them for their helpful cooperation.

March 2018

Tanaka Kazuko

Department of Geography

Graduate School of Letters

Kyoto University