Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T13:49:07.762Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Digital and tangible: The accessibility of sketchbooks in the UK's memory institutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 October 2019

James Hobbs*
Affiliation:
Library assistant, UCL Institute of Education Library, Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK Email: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

How are sketchbooks collected, organized, indexed and made accessible in the UK's memory institutions? My research is outlined, describing how, through interviews and a questionnaire sent to sketchbook-holding institutions, they are acquired, who they are accessed by, problems faced by those accessing them, the extent to which sketchbooks can be handled and examined physically, and the benefits and consequences of digitization and online access of sketchbooks. Finally, institutions offer ideas on how access to sketchbooks can be improved.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© ARLIS, 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. James Hobbs, Digital and tangible: the collection and accessibility of sketchbooks in the UK's galleries, libraries, archives and museums (Master's dissertation, City, University of London, 2017), accessed 4 May 2019, DOI: 10.17613/M6H240.

2. S. Britton, What we do is secret? A study of issues relating to the collection, care and accessibility of zines in institutional and alternative collections in the UK (Master's dissertation, University College London, 2017), accessed 4 May 2019, DOI: 10.17613/M6H33Z.

3. E. Alaluusua, Sketchbooks: a comparative analysis of the use of sketchbooks by contemporary artists (PhD dissertation, Chelsea College of Arts, 2016).

4. Alaluusua, Sketchbooks: a comparative analysis of the use of sketchbooks by contemporary artists, 10.

5. P. Ryan, Peirce's semeiotic and the implications for aesthetics in the visual arts: a study of the sketchbook and its positions in the hierarchies of making, collecting and exhibiting (PhD dissertation, University of the Arts London, 2009), accessed 4 May 2019, http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/5252/1/Peirce's_Semeiotic_509338.pdf.

6. Bartram, A., El-Bizri, N. and Gittens, D., eds. Recto verso: redefining the sketchbook (Burlington: Vermont Ashgate, 2014)Google Scholar.

7. Bartram, Recto verso: redefining the sketchbook, 159.

8. Alaluusua, Sketchbooks: a comparative analysis of the use of sketchbooks by contemporary artists, 166.

9. Artists’ Papers Register [online], London: Association of Art Historians, accessed 7 August 2017, http://www.apr.ac.uk/artists/home.htm. (Note: The APR is currently offline. More information can be found at https://forarthistory.org.uk/apr/).

10. Discovery: The National Archives [online], London: the National Archives, accessed 4 May 2019, http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk.

11. Archives Hub [online], Manchester: Jisc, accessed 4 May 2019, https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk.

12. “Radiant Affinities” (exhibition at Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives, London, 12 February-17 May 2015).