The plan for a joint presentation of picture books on the website The Memory arose on the occasion of a meeting between the administrators of picture book collections. Since 1991, the administrators have conferred to discuss new developments and promote their common interests during their meetings. A presentation on the Internet seemed a good way to bring the available material together.

Prior to this initiative, picture books in the Bibliotheek Rotterdam collection had already been transferred to colour microfilm as part of the Metamorfoze preservation programme. These microfilms were used to produce the scans that are on view here. The other participants’ picture books have been scanned directly from the originals. For this reason the images in the present collection are not all of the same quality.

The participants made the following agreements concerning the method of scanning and presenting the picture books:

- The pages of the picture books have been scanned two at a time because the illustrations are often spread over two pages.
- Spreads featuring neither printing nor writing have not been scanned. In such cases, the description explicitly states: “De keerzijde der bladen / illustraties is onbedrukt” (“The other side of the pages / illustrations is blank”).
- All bibliographical entries have been made complete and publication years have been checked and accounted for as necessary. In order to enhance ease of use in searching for images, content notes have been incorporated.