Adding content to the Letter Library platform

The Letter Library is open to submissions from anyone. For example:

• Font foundries can submit the type specimens they publish. 
• Libraries and archives can submit records to represent their collection of type specimens. 
• Volunteers with knowledge in the field of typography can create records to improve our databases.

Participate as Foundry

Type foundries are welcome to submit their type specimen materials, so the Letter Library can preserve them and make them easily accessible. 

PDF Type Specimens

Type specimens officially published as PDF can directly be uploaded to our website. Our system will present the PDF in an online viewer and also save the original PDF. Check out the FAQ for more details.

Send in materials to be scanned/photographed

In addition to the steps mentioned before, you can also send in your physical type specimen materials. We archive your materials in collaboration with the printing museum Pavillon-Presse in Weimar, Germany. Your materials will be added to the museum’s type specimen library and can be digitized for the Letter Library platform. The museum’s address can be found here:

https://pavillon-presse.de/preise-anfahrt/

Participate as Library/Archive/Collector

If you represent a library or archive, or if you are a private collector of type specimen materials, we are happy to show or link your content. There are three partner tiers available. You can freely choose which best suits your needs and services. 

1. Data
2. Data + Galleries
3. Data + Galleries + Downloads

Here is what each option means: 

Data

Your physical type specimen materials appear in the Core and Collector’s Objects databases. Our users will instantly see that you own type specimens listed in our databases. We also show whether you have already digitized the materials. 

Gallery

In addition to linking to your content, we directly show images from your type specimen materials in a medium resolution of up to 2000 by 2000 pixels. This allows our users to easily browse many type specimens at once, but they will still visit your website for higher resolution images and other services. 

Download

With this option, the high-resolution images for type specimens are stored as ZIP archives on our servers and can be downloaded by our users. 

Example

The “external” badge in the first and the third entry points to hi-resolution images being available on the linked websites from the Letterform Archive and Bibliothèque Forney. The green “LL Gallery” badge means that the second and third type specimens can be viewed in a medium resolution on our website. The beige “LL Download” badge means that a ZIP archive with high-resolution scans can be downloaded from our Downloads section. 

How can data be added?

Any registered member can create records on our website. Libraries and Archives can also add an entry in our Library & Collectors database. Type specimens can then be linked to the library/archive, independent from who is creating the records.  

Is there a bulk upload or API option? 

No. This is because of the various references between our content databases. For each type specimen, we have to manually check whether it already exists in our database and whether meta data about foundries, designers and so on needs to be added or linked. 

But we are happy to accept database files (e.g. CSV files) to help with the manual import.