Via REALonline – the image database of the Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture (IMAREAL) of the University of Salzburg – the visual cultural heritage in Austria and in regions of Middle Europe is accessible. The new version of REALonline is a result of a cooperation between the humanities and the information sciences.

For over 45 years, staff members of the Institute for Material Culture (IMAREAL) took photos of visual media – mainly 12th to 16th centuries – in museums, collections, churches and libraries. They are the basis for structured and comprehensive datasets that allow for a recording of a great number of depicted elements. REALonline is the most important long-term project of the IMAREAL. The Institute is situated in Krems and is part of the University of Salzburg. The number of datasets in the database is ca. 22.500 and new ones are added continually. In the past 15 years, since REALonline is accessible via internet, web technologies and the use of data on the internet have changed completely. Thus REALonline got a complete make over – from the database management system to the usability of the user interface. It is now available with a lot of new features which were designed for the use in the scientific community as well as for public use in general.

The relaunch of REALonline was carried out by:

IMAREAL: Ingrid Matschinegg | Isabella Nicka | Miriam Landkammer | Thomas Kühtreiber | Peter Böttcher

zedlacher.at & loveit.at: Stefan Zedlacher | Daniel Lamprecht | Stefan Krausler-Baumann

complement.at: Martin Stettner | Clemens Hafner | Sebastian Starke

We would like to thank everyone, who contributed to REALonline in the past – photographers, those who edited the images, research staff and those involved with the manipulation of data as well as those who were responsible for the development of the database and its online version:

Elisabeth Vavra, Gerhard Jaritz, Helmut Hundsbichler, Harry Kühnel, Manfred Thaller, Csaba Tarcsay, Gábor Tarcsay, Michael Malina, Angelika Kölbl, Birgit Karl, Gertrud Blaschitz, Kornelia Holzner-Tobisch, Christa Kucs, Ralf Heller, Barbara Heller-Schuh, Barbara Schedl, Andrea Riedel and many more.

You can access the old version of REALonline here. Please note that this version will not be updated any longer.