About Kolonialbibliothek

During the second half of the 19th century numerous societies arose that concerned themselves with caring for German emigrants, and spreading of colonial ideas. The colonial library consists of the libraries of several colonial societies. The most important was the "German Colonial Society" (Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft, DKG) founded in 1887. For their propaganda activities its members collected not only books (ca. 15 000) and journals, but also more than 50 000 photographs, which were used to illustrate their publicity lectures in Germany. .
» Bildarchiv der Kolonialbibliothek

Frankfurt University Library already has digitised some parts of the colonial library:

  • Examples of titles on and from Africa were digitized in high quality. In 2013 a sub-selection on Africa (560 titles) was made available for in-house use only.
    Kolonailbibliothek
  • Further titles were digitzed for the purpose of inter-library loan and are available at the institutional repository of Frankfurt University library. :
    » Werke der Kolonialbibliothek
  • "Deutsches Kolonial-Lexikon", edited by Heinrich Schnee in 1914/1920 (Leipzig : Quelle & Meyer), with all pictures and cards, has been completely digitised. It is full-text searchable and the index words are linked by a hypertext linking. Go to Deutsches „Kolonial-Lexikon 1920“ at the website of the colonial picture archive:
    » Deutsches Kolonial-Lexikon 1920

The catalogue of the "Colonial Library" with the call numbers S 17, Sq 17, and Sf 17, is available also as a PDF file.
» Katalog der Kolonialbibliothek

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