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Regional or national centres of excellence: the unofficial and endangered Canadian art resource

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

Karen McKenzie*
Affiliation:
E. P. Taylor Research Library, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Abstract

Canada’s primary art libraries, centres of excellence by virtue of their specialized collections in Canadian art and architecture, support a readership geographically beyond their primary clientele. They have come about through the individual commitment of librarians or subject specialists, not because of institutional commitment. Consequently, many lack an appropriate share of institutional support and are threatened by shrinking government funding at all levels. Art librarians are isolated from each other, which makes it easier for institutional administrators to be unaware of their ranking among art history libraries, to impede the sharing of collections, and to ignore the potential for adding prestige to the institution through support of centres of excellence.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 1994

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References

1. Lerner, Loren R. and Williamson, Mary F., editors, with a foreword by Ramsay Cook; published in two volumes by University of Toronto Press (Toronto, Buffalo, London), 1991. Winner of ARLIS/NA’s Wittenborn Award, the 3rd Janet Braide Memorial Award (‘to recognize and reward an outstanding contribution to scholarship in the field of Canadian art history’, administered by the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, Kingston), and the 1st Melva J. Dwyer Award (‘honouring outstanding reference works devoted to the history of the visual arts in Canada’).Google Scholar
2. Preface, p.xx.Google Scholar