Holdings of the Department of Graphic Design (Broadsheets, Posters, and Ex Libris)

The Department administers some 400,000 objects (broadsheets, posters, ex libris). It offers source material principally on Austrian history and politics, and also the history of art and printing. After its foundation in 1912 inventories and catalogues on various groups of holdings were prepared to make the many collected objects accessible, and since 1990 there have also been databases.

• Single sheet woodcuts, patents issued by the monarchy, circulars, decrees of 16^th – 19^th centuries
  Place of printing mostly Austria and Germany – in process 
  Database: Katalog ab 1992 (Catalogue from 1992)
• Broadsheets of the Revolution of 1848
  More than 10,000 prints, mostly from the library of the executive committee of the Council of Ministers and the top ranks of the royal and imperial police authority. Places of printing: Vienna, the Crown Lands, Hungary. The broadsheets from Lombardo-Venetia (1810 – 1866) also have the Revolution of 1848 as their main focus. They came into the Court Library for the most part from the Helfert Collection that was bought in 1910. All of the broadsheets can be researched by chronology and also by place/country, and printed out as PDF’s. (Cf. Digital reading room).
  Database: Archives of 1848
• War Collection 1914–1918
  A comprehensive documentation of the events of the War. Objects: posters, broadsheets, postcards, extra editions, children’s drawings and school essays, “vivat” banners, postage and seal stamps, etc. – in process. Posters, “vivat” banners, and postcards are already catalogued.
  Database: HIDA
• Austrian posters acquired through the obligatory delivery set out by the Press and Media Law
  About 100,000 posters. The holdings from 1918 – 1955, the film posters from 1910 – 1955 from the collection of Joseph Gregor, the poster archives of the Association of Austrian Functional Graphic Artists, and some other special holdings (estates of graphic artists, purchases and donations since 1995) are already catalogued and digitised.
  Database: HIDA
• Lifetime and posthumous estates of Austrian graphic artists
  Alexander Exax, Wilhelm Jaruska, Rudolf Köhl, August Schmid, Kurt Schwarz, Emmerich Weninger and Catherine Rollier
  Database: HANNA
• Ex libris 15^th – 20^th centuries
  About 45,000 ex libris and graphics done for special occasions, Geographic main focus: Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and eastern Europe. Main time focus: about 9,000 ex libris from 1500 - 1850; about 34,000 ex libris from 1900 - 1960; about 2,000 ex libris from 1990 on.
  Partial collections: Sheets from the Court Library, ex libris collections of Rudolf Benkard, Hans Ankwicz-Kleehoven, Franz Kubat, Czech Collection, partial estate of Alfred Coßmann
  Access: local database on the Ankwicz-Kleehoven Collection and new acquisitions since 1996, historical card index catalogue on over 16,000 ex libris from the period of the Renaissance to the Jugendstil (Youth Style) - in process: picture database on new acquisitions and the Ankwicz-Kleehoven Collection.