Cultural institutions the world over share certain key characteristics: the care of the items in their collection, the means of enabling access to these items, and the task of sustaining their ability to do both of these things. In the past decade, digitisation and supply of digital content has become increasingly important for museums and galleries wanting to disseminate their content to a global audience. What processes are involved in doing this, and how have they impacted on organisations and their working practices? What role do intellectual property rights play in this, and what are the associated challenges and opportunities in this area? This article will present the perspective of the National Portrait Gallery, London, investigating the history of its digitisation activities and its ongoing commitment to access and responsible IPR management through Picture Library licensing and image management activities.

The University of Brighton Design Archives, strongly embedded in the research context of the university’s design practice and history activities, has participated in a number of collaborative higher education initiatives to digitise groups of material for cross-collection searching or in learning packages. Such project-based activities, common to many archives, may not reflect the catalogue hierarchies of the collections from which they are drawn, and consequently the full evidential value of their context. But does this matter when we consider the myriad ways in which an ever-wider range of audiences may now engage with the material, thanks to recent technological developments both inside and outside the archival community?

The Courtauld Institute of Art, a college of the University of London, is one of the foremost centres to study art history in the UK. Like a giant Matruschka doll, the Book Library at the Institute is a specialist art library that contains within it special collections which, in turn, have individual bequests that also contain discrete rare collections. In addition to more than 7400 books catalogued online, it has a range of material that is yet to be catalogued onto the Aleph system, some of which remains inaccessible. The special collections also contain the research papers of several notable former members of staff, and a number of small archive collections that have been donated over the years. Without a dedicated reading room, the special collections feel more integrated into regular use within the library. This gives students a taste of research with historic books, but there are some inherent risks associated with such relaxed usage conditions. This article examines the origins of the Library and its place in the Institute today. It reveals the breadth of its special collections and some of its treasures, but also explains how the present funding crisis in UK higher education may harm the custodial role the Book Library has over this unique research resource.

The Barber Institute of Fine Arts is acknowledged as one of the finest small art galleries in Europe. It has a richly resourced library which functions both as a curatorial library for the Barber’s curators and as part of the University of Birmingham’s network of site libraries. Students of art history thus benefit from the combined resources of a specialist art gallery library and a major university library. The Barber also houses a visual resources library, music library and coin study room.

This article explores how our understanding of the materiality of knowledge has changed during the 20th century and how these meanings got incorporated into the concept of information. Special attention is given to Paul Otlet, the founding father of documentation, and to Norbert Wiener, the founding father of cybernetics. Furthermore, there is the question of what these changes that surround the notion of information imply for the architectural conception of the library. If the current discourse treats the library no longer as a space of books but as an information space, what implications does this evolution have for the architecture of the contemporary library? What is this information space that architects are required to articulate and to interpret?

The librarians of two important theatre libraries in the Russian Federation – the Russian State Art Library and the St. Petersburg State Theatre Library – here outline the histories of their institutions and give an idea of the coverage and use of their collections. They discuss how they are tackling the problems of preserving their unique material, much of it iconographic, and the principles by which they select contemporary acquisitions. They also consider the challenges and benefits posed by digital material.