Project brief and expected deliverable: Background

The Royal Library in The Hague was founded in 1798. It is the Dutch national library and hosts approximately 7 million publications about the Netherlands and/or by Dutch authors. The mission of the library is to enable easy access to all of their collections, in order to further the development of new ideas, and to allow citizens, students, artists and researchers to build upon the ideas of their predecessors and create future cultural heritage.

The library has a large (circa 770) collection of ‘Alba Amicorum’ or ‘Friendship books’. In the 16th and 17th century it was custom for students to travel through Europe on academic trips in order to cement an international network as the foundation for a successful academic career. They would bring their Alba Amicorum with them, small books that contain a collection of often artistic contributions by friends, colleagues or even VIP’s, as a form of recommendation documents and invite people of importance to add to their collection. Not only were the Alba’s carried around on the owner’s travels, but they were often displayed at home for guests, to show the importance of the host’s network, professional success and social standing. In a sense they were the ‘Social Media’ of their times, albeit that this medium was restricted to a small, privileged, mainly white, male group. For more information on the history of ‘Alba Amicorum’: Dutch language https://www.kb.nl/themas/vriendenboeken (Google Translate is your friend J) English language https://www.kb.nl/en/themes/alba-amicorum-songbooks-and-correspondence

Assignment

As stated in their mission, the Royal Library would like to show young people, artists and students that their collection could be a source of inspiration and new creation. The collaboration between the KABK and the KB will use the Alba Amicorum as a casus to develop a product/installation/public program/workshop format, that could be a step closer to a method for making the digitized (and also physical) collection easier and more attractive to access