Austria from the Air
„ Österreich aus der Luft “ is the result of a crowdsourcing project carried out at the Austrian National Library from 2018 to 2021. The dataset contains over 4,700 aerial photographs, along with their corresponding metadata. The images are available as JPEGs via IIIF manifests and the metadata can be downloaded as a CSV file. There is also a sample of the dataset and an OAI-PMH set. Thanks to the localisation provided in part by crowdsourcing, the preview section now offers the option of opening the location directly in OpenStreetMap for the first time!
Origin and Quality of the Data
This dataset is based on 4,782 photographs taken by Austroflug between 1930 and 1935 (see Historical Background). In 2018, the ÖNB digitisation team launched a crowdsourcing project entitled ‘Austria from the Air’, in which interested parties could provide additional information on the photographs that had been digitised for the first time in the run-up to the project. In particular, the longitude and latitude of the photographed object are given for around half of the images. This information can be found in the downloadable metadata. As part of the project, registered users could also review information that had already been suggested. Therefore, this dataset has undergone a form of quality control. All photographs in this dataset are oblique images.
Historical Background
The original photographs were produced by Austroflug, a department founded in 1928 that belonged to the Österreichische Luftverkehrs AG, which was founded in 1923. Österreichische Luftverkehrs AG justified the inclusion of the aerial photographs with the argument that ‘the aerial photograph, in its various uses, will become considerably more important in the future — especially when economic conditions improve — and will soon develop into an indispensable factor in business and education’. As well as for documentary purposes, the photographs were intended for economic and educational purposes, which is why landscapes and transport facilities were also photographed, as well as cities.
Österreich aus der Luft