With the Edition Club Daguerre, we are starting a new chapter in our digital preservation strategy. After rescuing endangered websites, we are now also making out-of-print specialist literature accessible again - with the authors' permission, of course.
"I am especially gratified to see the focus on preserving information that might otherwise have been lost."
- Jim McKeown Author, McKeown's Price Guide to Antique & Classic Cameras
What is so special?
Our claim goes far beyond the mere provision of PDF files. With AI-supported search, fast full-text search and a modern reading interface, specialised camera knowledge becomes easily accessible - search specifically and actually find it.
This is how it works:
You can find the available books at edition.club-daguerre.de . A short video introduction shows you how to get started:
00:01: ...Welcome to Edition Club Daguerre. In this tutorial you will learn the first steps in working with our digital book archive. What you see here is the second step of our digitisation strategy. In the first step, we began to rescue threatened websites and make them available in their original form. Now we are making important books that are no longer available digitally accessible - of course with the authors' permission and in compliance with intellectual property rights. More works will be added in the coming months.
00:35: The Edition Club Daguerre - a modern web app for historical camera literature. Optimised for desktop and tablet, accessible at edition.club-daguerre.de
00:47: We are now launching the Edition Club Dagger programme, you will see the start page please allow us to point out that our claim goes far beyond the mere provision of PDF files with search supported by artificial intelligence fast full text search and modern reading interface is specialised camera lenses and accessories Harald Goergens speech Borch from 2001 a total of 134 pages, he summarises the 41-year history of the W.
01:47: Nordenham from 1945 to 1986 from the wild box to the felita and felica to the small picture models we now take a look at how to make the most of this platform on the home page you can see the books currently available
02:05: Select the book you are interested in by simply clicking on it.
02:10: We show you the first steps on how to use the system easily and effectively.
02:16: You always land on the title page of the selected book. You can read the book as normal. Click "'Next" to turn to the next page. With "Back" you can, as the name suggests, simply turn back the page.
02:31: If you want to see more details, you can enlarge the view of the page by clicking "+".
02:38: Click "minus" to reduce the view of the page.
02:42: Click here to switch off the sidebar display.
02:47: Click again to display the sidebar again.
02:51: By clicking on the sun symbol, you can switch between a dark
02:57: and a light background.
03:00: In the sidebar on the left, you will see four tabs to switch between operating modes. "Contents" shows the table of contents of the book and allows you to jump directly to any chapter. Here we jump directly to the chapter: Normal lenses for the FUTURA.
03:18: Simply click and you are in the desired chapter.
03:22: In the page overview, each page is displayed as a thumbnail image.
03:28: You can jump directly to the desired page.
03:32: No annoying scrolling, you are immediately on the desired page
03:37: You can open the search function using the "Search" tab.
03:41: The search function works as a full-text search. It searches all available content for the term entered. Exact word matches and close matches are found. However, the search does not understand whole questions and does not evaluate meanings.
03:58: In our example, we are searching for "Elor".
04:01: As a result, you will see all pages containing the search term "Elor" with a short text preview. You can now jump to the desired page by simply clicking on it
04:13: The full-text search is based on Apache Whoosh, a powerful full-text search engine. When the digital archive was created, every page of the original document was recorded and saved in an optimised search index. The search supports fuzzy hits and also finds parts of words - for example, a search for 'camera' also returns results for 'Kamerawerk', 'Boxkamera' or 'Kleinbildkameras'. The text coordinates of each line were recorded during the import so that locations can be highlighted with pixel accuracy on the original page
04:49: - and here comes the special feature: All locations are automatically highlighted in yellow. This allows you to see at a glance exactly where your search term appears in the text. The info line at the bottom shows the number of hits on this page. You can use the arrow buttons to jump directly to the next hit."
05:09: The Edition Club Daguerre offers an intelligent AI search, powered by Google Gemini. This allows you to ask questions in natural language - just as if you were asking an expert.
05:22: Just type in your question - for example 'Why did Futura have to give up?' or 'Which Futura S-III serial numbers are known?
05:32: Click "Questions" to start the AI.
05:36: You will receive a detailed document-based answer. For example: "The company Fritz Kuhnert Optische Anstalt ran into serious financial difficulties at the end of 1950, as demand for the Kuhnert Futura fell well short of expectations", and so on
05:55: The answer is based solely on the contents of the book. All facts are documented with the exact page number - so you can check the source directly. A click on the page number takes you directly to the quoted passage in the document, so you can read the relevant passage immediately.
06:13: This allows you to check and verify the quality of the AI-generated answer. "Overview" takes you back to the start page of Edition Club Daguerre.
06:23: Here you can read every book published in the Edition Club Daguerre.
06:29: You have learnt about the basic functions of Edition Club Daguerre, including navigation, search and AI-supported research. If you want, you can explore more books and use the advanced search functions. Have fun browsing and discovering!
Two works are now available:
→ Efka und Futura - Produkte und Firmengeschichte Wolfgang Huller (2025, 201 pages) Die Fritz Kuhnert Optische Anstalt und das Futura Kamerawerk Freiburg - von der Efka 24 bis zur Futura S III, mit Fokus auf Seriennummern, Objektive und Zubehör.
→ Vredeborch Harald Goergens (2001, 134 pages) 41 years of Vredeborch GmbH Nordenham (1945-1986) - from the Vredebox to Felita and Felica to the 35mm models.
Further works will follow in the coming months.
This is how it works:
The video above shows how to use the site; when you click on a book, a quick guide is displayed.
Club Daguerre would like to thank Wolfgang Huller, Harald Goergens and Dr Stephan Baedeker.
This software is constantly being further developed. If you have any questions, suggestions or error messages, please send a message to [email protected]
Our "Preserve" page has a new look
We have redesigned our "Preserve" page to match. It now presents both pillars of our digital strategy - web archive and edition - and explains our principles. It's worth a visit: www.club-daguerre.de/bewahren
Do you know of an out-of-print work on the history of photography that should be preserved digitally? We only work with the authorisation of the authors or their heirs. Please send information to [email protected]
