Reading Traces: Visualising Fontane's Reference Library

The aim of this project is to research explorative ways of acquiring and communicating knowledge in the digital space and to develop a prototype for Theodor Fontane's digitised reference library. In its current state, the reference library in the Theodor Fontane Archive in Potsdam comprises around 150 works and is supplemented by a bibliographic database of the "virtual library", which includes works that were received by Fontane but are not (or no longer) in the archive's collection. In a future digital presentation of the collection, the current and virtual library will be combined and the approximately 63,000 individual pages of the reference library will be made available in their entirety for the first time.

The aim is to create an interactive visualisation that opens up new and insightful perspectives on a unique author's library and makes it usable and explorable for both researchers and the public. The aim is to visualise Fontane as a reader, but also as a commentator on the works of other authors. After all, the numerous annotations and commentaries that Fontane added by hand as marginalia in the margins of the works are one of the collection's greatest attractions and values.

In view of the large data space, albeit limited in part by the reference library, this project not only raises questions of visual exploration of the data, but also of the communication of Fontane and his reception habits. In interdisciplinary collaboration with the Fontane Archive, these questions will first be concretised and then, in the development of a concept, will be grounded in cultural studies and philosophy. In the prototype, these theoretical findings will ultimately be realised in the form of a new type of graphical user interface, which will invite users to explore a multi-layered author library.

To the prototype: https://uclab.fh-potsdam.de/ff