Travel Collections: donate your materials

The history of travel is also a history of paper, ink, and images: guidebooks, tourist maps, postcards, railway timetables, airline and shipping brochures, travel-agency catalogues, luggage labels, inflight magazines, and posters. The Museum of Travel and Tourism is building a documentary collection for research, teaching, and future exhibitions. If you own a coherent collection and wish to donate it or place it on long-term loan, tell us about it: we will evaluate the best way forward together.

What we are looking for (priority areas)

• Books & guidebooks: historical guides (e.g., Baedeker and related), tourism monographs, yearbooks.
• Maps & itineraries: tourist maps, city plans, road maps.
• Postcards & photography: used/unused postcards, travel albums, slides/negatives, stereographs.
• Tourism ephemera: brochures, travel-agency catalogues, hotel rate lists, menus, luggage labels, tickets/itineraries.
• Transport: railway and shipping timetables, airline timetables, route maps, safety cards, inflight magazines, press kits.
• Institutional promotion: materials from tourism boards, fairs, official campaigns.
• Objects related to travel and tourism: suitcases, bicycles, transatlantic liners ;)
• One of the most important functions of any museum institution is the collection and preservation of materials. In this case, one of the missions of the MVT is to collect and preserve materials produced by amateur globetrotters. Such documentation is often created using technologies and services that are subject to rapid obsolescence. The loss of information, images, and texts in different languages is therefore significant. The museum thus aims to preserve these materials and make them freely accessible, always acknowledging the source.
• Preferred period: late 19th century to the 1970s; coherent contemporary holdings are also considered.

What we usually do not accept

• Common duplicates without variant/condition value.
• Materials without provenance or in compromised condition (active mold, extensive structural damage).
• Unidentifiable clippings or unauthorized copies.

How it works

• Propose your collection: describe it with a brief list and a few photos. Contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
• Curatorial assessment: interest, coherence, condition, provenance.
• On-site inspection or shipping (with appropriate packing; pickup may be considered for significant holdings).
• Agreement: donation (transfer of ownership) or long-term loan/deposit, with terms and credit line.
• Preservation & access: cataloguing, possible digitization, and online publication with credit to the donor/collection.