Textiles
Textiles, decorative and clothing materials are a kind of unique library stock. However many of them (or rather photographs documenting their look) are available in digital museums and repositories belonging to the Digital Libraries Federation. Big part of original Polish and foreign textiles can be found in the National Digital Museum in Warsaw. We can find there as well 18th century English silks (there and here), fabric with paintings (Picasso’s head) as a considerable amount of 20th century fancy prints on appropriable and clothing textiles (e.g. kangaroos, bathroom, girlhood, zoo, baloons). An interesting collection can be found also in the Digital Repository of the Scientific Institutes. There are documentary photographs of fabrics production in the Indian Rajasthan and also textiles theirself, often very colourful, with geometric or animal patterns. The Baltic Digital Library documented an old equipment used for textiles production – among others there are blocks for printing made from wood and metal, mainly with floral prints.
Many repositories shares also coursebooks and books documenting textile industry. In the Digital Library of Małopolska we can find a History of silk fabrics from 1915 ; in the Silesian University of Technology Digital Library there is a An outline of clothing history: containing the history of embroidery and textiles, whereas the Podkarpacka Digital Library shares an album Fabric: ornaments and patterns used on textiles since ancient times until beginning of 19th century. On the website Otworzksiazke.pl we can look over a contemporary book written by Irena Turnau: A dictionary of clothing involving the period since medieval times till 19th century.
