Image & Sound

More than 200.000 items

Our collection Image & Sound includes over 200.000 photos, albums, slides, postcards, film, video, negatives and sound recordings.

The basis of the collection has grown from the image bank of ‘Caritas Contact’, the house magazine of the Congregation issued since 1908. Regularly the redaction of Caritas hired a professional photographer to take pictures to illustrate the magazine showing the works and the word of the sisters both at home and abroad and make them known.

Almost every week we receive further additions to the collection through transfers or individual donations.

Three classifications

The collection Image & Sound is divided into 3 classifications:

  • Geographical classification in which the photo albums and pictures are classified by country and city where the sisters worked. View here the available sub collections.
  • Classification according to topic where we list the photo albums and pictures according to the activity done by the sisters (travelling, recreation, missionary exhibitions, spirituality,).
  • Classification according to persons where we classify photos of superiors and individual sisters alphabetically.

Religious images

The religious images (prayer cards and memorial prayer cards) are a special sub collection within the department of Vision & Sound. They are kept and classified separately.

(Photo: Prayer card for the Sacred Heart)

Online on “Erfgoedinzicht”

We describe and provide our collection Vision & Sound online  via Erfgoedinzicht, a database in which museums and archives from East and West-Flanders register and present their heritage collections in a uniform way.

At this moment, you can only consult online a fraction of our photo collection on Erfgoedinzicht. The bulk of the collection is still not online and can be consulted in our reading room.

Interested in helping?

We are looking for volunteers to help us to scan and/or describe photos. Are you interested in old photos and are half days or a whole day a week free? Please contact us via info@erfgoed.zvl.org or tel. 09  235 82 32.

You will receive the necessary training and will join a friendly team.