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wondarchive › Citing an archive

How do you cite a photographed archive?

An archive citation is made of the fonds, the shelfmark and the folio of the page, followed by the date you consulted it.

The form of a citation

Fonds, shelfmark, folio, date consulted: “Humboldt, Journal III (1799-1800), f. 45, consulted 1 October 2026”.

The folio, a stable number

Every page gets a folio at deposit, which never changes, even if the page later moves to another shelfmark: that’s what makes the citation durable.

What a citation carries

  • The name of the fonds or archive service
  • The shelfmark of the conservation unit
  • The folio of the page cited
  • The date consulted
  • A note of whether the transcription or the translation was used
  • A link to the page, when one exists
Alexander von Humboldt’s travel journal, handwritten in French, 1799-1800 · Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nachlass Alexander von Humboldt, Tagebuch III, Public Domain Mark 1.0
Manuscript, 1799-1800 — Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
All the featuresPricingCreate my free account

The account takes a minute to open, a hundred pages free for a year.

Does the folio shown while reading change if I move the page?

No: the folio is assigned once and for all at deposit and is never recalculated, even if the page changes shelfmark.

Is there already a stable link to copy for each page?

Not yet: one-click citation and the stable link are in the works. In the meantime, the fonds, shelfmark and folio are enough to cite a page.

Should you cite the transcription or the translation?

Either, depending on use, or both; both stay displayed side by side and accessible at any time.

What about exporting the cited page for a piece of work?

A PDF export of the page or of a selection is possible at any time; the dedicated page details the formats.

See it on your own pages

A hundred pages transcribed and translated, for a year, no card required.

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