After three years of international collaboration among RUB, Taiwanese scholars, and Stabi, the NTUE Photograph Database has been officially launched, marking an important milestone in the joint research and preservation of Taiwan's photographic heritage.

Since 2023, an international team of German and Taiwanese scholars has collaborated with the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Stabi) to establish a publicly accessible database of historical photographs from the National Taipei University of Education (NTUE 國立臺北教育大學), the oldest modern school established in colonial Taiwan under Japanese rule. The project team includes Prof. Ho I-lin 何義麟 (National Taipei University of Education), Prof. Dr. Christine Moll-Murata (Ruhr University Bochum), Prof. Chien Hung-yi 簡宏逸 (National Cheng Kung University), and student assistants from their affiliated universities in Germany and Taiwan.
Building on NTUE’s digitization efforts since the mid-2000s, the database was initiated by Prof. Chien during her postdoctoral research with Prof. Moll-Murata at RUB and was supported by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. The project provides a scholarly annotated dataset and stable digital infrastructure for the long-term preservation and dissemination of these valuable historical sources.
More than 2,900 photographs are currently accessible through the platform, covering the period from the 1920s to the 1990s. The collection documents pedagogical training, student and teacher extracurricular activities, the organization of the school, and its relationships with institutions in Taiwan and abroad.
On 27 August 2026, the database and its accompanying Themenportale (Thematic Portals) website were officially published.
Link to the database: https://iiif.crossasia.org/s/tap_ntue
Link to the Thematic Portal: https://themen.crossasia.org/ntue/?lang=en

Image: Students’ self-study time. (Source: The 30-Year Memorial Album of the Taihoku Normal School (1926) 臺北師範學校創立三十周年記念寫真帖)