About The Nansen Electronic Photographic Archive

In 1989 the University of Oslo Library launched a project called Conservation of and Access to the Fridtjof Nansen Photographic Archive. The project has led to in-house development of a HyperCard/Macintosh based picture database (Media-Finder). From 8.000 old pictures, 3.500 unique photographs, drawings, and some watercolors were selected, identified, dated, classified, catalogued, described and digitalized. (This English translation of the database covers 1.300 images.)

The originals have been cleaned, rehoused and transferred to an appropriately controlled environment in a strongroom. Damaged photographs were registered for future restoration. The collection as a whole is now far less prone to further deterioration.

To order, contact:

Billedsamlingen
Nasjonalbiblioteket, avdeling Oslo
Postboks 2674, Solli
N-0203 Oslo
Phone: +47 23 27 61 86
Fax: +47 23 27 60 10 (merket "Billedsamlingen")
E-mail: billedsamlingen@nb.no

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Guidance

Search

Enter the word or phrase you wish to search for in the appropriate search box. It is possible to truncate words at any position using the symbol «?» (e.g. «?ship?», as in «craftsmanship», «shipmate», «ship»).

Boolean AND/OR effects how the filled-in boxes are combined. In addition, you may use AND/OR/NOT inside the boxes.

When a search is executed, the retrieval system will show the hits in short format. This format may consist of a thumbnail and some text, thumbnails only or text only. The user may choose the format (thumbnail and some text by default). The user may also decide how many hits are to be shown at a time (10 by default). This choice decides how many hits will be shown in short format for each request to the database. The choices should reflect the size of your screen, and the speed of transfer. From the short format, the user can go on to full format.

Subject

The topics have been chosen to provide a limited but meaningful key to the classification of the most important aspects of the collection. Some cover only a few images, while others may relate to several hundred, as in «EXPEDITIONS AND TRAVELS, North Pole». In some cases several subjects are employed. There are no other phrases in this field than those listed in the pop up menu.

Location

This field contains the following: [Country, State, City] or [Country, Geographical name] or [Geographical name] where appropriate, or identified. Examples:

   USA, Washington, Seattle
   Norway, Akershus, Bærum
   Kara Sea
   Greenland

Motif

All images, i.e. maps, art and photographs, are described here in short simple terms, providing captions that include important search words. Try several synonyms or spellings if your attempts fail to give results. A truncation symbol «?» may be of help.

Photographer/Artist

The originator is represented as [first-name last-name] or [initials last-name]. In the full presentation format the rôle of the originator is indicated by «Photo» or «Art» (not to be entered in the search box).

Persons in the picture

A number of persons have been identified and, in most cases, their biographical dates are given. In some cases there is doubt as to the identity, and this is expressed in the Motif field. In this field, the names must be entered in inverted form, with or without comma (e.g. «Nansen, Eva»).

Date

You may search for a particular year (or decade by truncating the last digit) of origin. Years are consistently rendered with 4 digits. The presence of other date-parts is varying.

Search in all fields

Search for a word/phrase regardless of the field in which it occurs.

Index

This form offers the facility of scanning the selected field for all present completions of a term. For the options all fields and motif enter a non-empty (truncated) word to get a list of all matching words. For the other fields enter zero or more (possibly truncated) words to get a list of all matching phrases. Each list item will be presented with a link to the relevant search. Example: select place and enter «USA» to get a list of all referenced places within the USA.