Digital Resources and Tools in Historical Research

One of the characteristic features of modern life is the omnipresence of images - in public life as well as in the private surroundings. At latest with coining the term "Visual history" at the beginning of the nineteen nineties historical disciplines are dealing with this ever growing pool of pictorial sources. This is also true for educational history - especially when keeping in mind that the use of images in an educational context is common practice since early modern ages. This concerns the presentation practices, the design of didactic visual media and their use in educational practice as well as the illustrated traces of historical educational practice and historical educational knowledge (e.g. photographs of school buildings or educational scenes). There are various digital picture archives to address the research questions of many historical disciplines. These databases, though, differ widely in purpose and design - and of course they cannot serve every scientific demand. According to Gerhard Paul there should be at least four layers of information evaluation when analysing historical images (reality of depiction, genesis, use and impact). Thus, building up a corpus of image sources with sufficient accompanying information can be quite challenging. As major topic the Pre-Conference Workshop will focus on the impact of the discipline on developing and maintaining of a picture archive. (DIPF/Orig.)