The University of Ghent’s collection of ephemera documents daily life in Ghent (1865-1913) on the basis of more than one million advertisements, letters, and other seemingly banal paper documents.

The collection makes it possible for us to form an image of the evolution of a nationally known shopping district concentrated around Veldstraat in Ghent. A book, a film, and the exhibition ‘Gent Veldstraat’ established a link between the ordinary world of the shopping district and the extraordinary aspect of the university’s collection. Hotel d’Haene-Steenhuyse and Veldstraat, April – May 2005.