Where old knowledge finds new clarity.
The Glass Database is a free, open-access project built to preserve and organize the history of glassmaking across the world. We’re here for collectors, researchers, makers, restorers, and anyone who’s fallen in love with the way glass holds time.
At its core, this site is about discovery—making connections across centuries and styles, linking people to places, techniques to traditions, and objects to origin stories.
🌱 Built on Something Beautiful
This project continues the spirit of the Glass Lovers Glass Database (GLGD), a beloved online resource that helped countless people identify, collect, and appreciate all types of glass over the years. GLGD built a remarkable community and an enormous archive through volunteer effort and passion.
The Glass Database isn’t a replacement—it’s a reimagining. With a new structure, broader focus, and stronger tools for discovery, we hope to build on that legacy and make glass history even more accessible, interconnected, and enduring.
🔍 Why This Matters
Glass isn’t just collectible—it’s cultural. It carries art movements, trade routes, family traditions, and breakthroughs in chemistry and design. But much of its history is scattered, locked in books, fading catalogs, or lost in personal notes.
We wanted a place where all of that could come together.
🔗 What You’ll Find Here
- A linked data structure that lets you explore makers, distributors, artists, materials, techniques, and objects as one living network
- Confidence labels that give you context, not just content
- A way for anyone to contribute, improve, and expand what we know—guided by real people and real sources
- A system designed for low resource costs and long-term stability, so this doesn’t disappear just when it starts getting useful
This is a labor of love—and one we hope lasts.
If you’d like to get involved, explore the archive, or help support it, you’re in exactly the right place.