It was my guess that finding information on the history of the use picture postcards would be relatively easy. It wasn't. The Wikipedia entry on postcards gives us an overview of their development, but the focus is on their mechanics - what sort of paper was used, how the pictures were printed. Why these postcards became popular, and available wherever tourists went, isn't covered. But the strong relationship between tourism and the availability of postcards suggests that this should be a significant area of study - which is where Google Scholar comes in.

A Google Scholar search for tourism and postcards brings up more than 17,000 links. Certainly not all of these are articles that deal with the way various cities represent themselves to tourists on postcards, nor do they necessarily ask whether tourists collect them and why. But it seems that more than at least a handful do. Delving into those articles, however, is well beyond the scope of a Boidem column. Still, they show that there are academics who are asking questions along these lines.

Then again, a full blown academic search isn't necessarily called for. Sometimes the shortest route to interesting information is a simple Google search.