The Mundaneum houses thousands of posters, postcards, photographic glass plates and photographs.
This collection was started by the International Institute of Photography (IIP) in 1905. The aim of the IIP was to create an encyclopaedia of images. The collections comprise photographs, postcards, posters, and glass plates — negatives of photographs or slides used in magic lanterns (devices widely used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to project images). Along with a photography library, they form the heart of the picture collection held at the Mundaneum.
Its uniqueness lies in its diversity and the impressive number of assets it contains:
- 35,000 cultural, political and social posters and even propaganda posters, mainly dating from the late 19th to early 20th century;
- 200,000 postcards from the late 19th century to the 1970s depicting geographical areas, World Fairs and the World Wars;
- 50,000 glass plates, negatives and glass slides, including the negatives of the Belgian photographer Norbert Ghisoland, which cover varied subjects, such as the polar expeditions, art history, geography, science and cottage industries;
- several thousand photographs illustrating the history of the Mundaneum, the lives of Otlet and La Fontaine, and various subjects through anonymous photographs and press agencies;
- files from the Universal Repository of Pictures (encyclopaedia of images); and
- microfiche and microfilm produced for the International Museum.
