ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The Database of Scientific Illustrators 1450–1950 (DSI) ‒ a fruit of the digital revolution

• In Event: The Impact of the Digital Revolution on the History of Science and its Social Implications-4

English Abstract

In 2009, Klaus Hentschel and his small team in Stuttgart started to work on the Database of Scientific Illustrators 1450–1950 (DSI), which is freely accessible at https://dsi.hi.uni-stuttgart.de/index.php Our idea was to compile basic information about illustrators working in natural history, medicine and the various natural sciences which emerged during the 500-year time span starting with the advent of book printing, omitting still living illustrators. Whereas the authors of books and articles in which these illustrations appeared are easily searchable and historiographically often well-studied, their illustrators very often remained ‘invisible hands’ of which nothing more than their last names at the bottom of their plates was known. We wanted to change this. Our initial expectation was to compile a few thousands, but today our list counts nearly 14000 persons active in 114 countries worldwide and in all kinds of fields. From the start, our platform was designed as an interactively expanding website, not as a printed dictionary. DSI provides quick and reliable, systematically structured reference information. It permits searches for illustrator names, aliases, and abbreviations of artisan names, the names of fathers, children and other relatives, of clients for whom they worked and of collaborators as well as of regions of activity. One can also search for specific individuals, for all illustrators born in a certain town or working for specific clients or institutions. From the start, the project was designed as a collaborative project to which outsiders can contribute. Aside from 8 team members, several dozens of users from 4 continents have contributed valuable information or even full entries. The rapid development of DH-techniques allowed more and more additional features such as a world map of their places of birth and death, created via Geo-Dariah. Currently we are working on the visualization of social networks among the illustrators.

Authors

• Klaus Hentschel, University of Stuttgart, Germany

• Torsten Himmel, University of Stuttgart, Germany