Fluxus is a radical art movement, started by George Maciunas and others in 1962, which is still having a profound effect on advanced art movements of the 1970s and 1980s. By using excerpts from publications; an early essay by George Brecht; and unpublished letters by George Maciunas to several artists drawn from the collection of Gilbert and Lila Silverman, we are able to trace the development of Fluxus publishing concepts and also sense the political foundation of the movement. The article is prefaced by Gilbert B. Silverman’s introductory remarks on the formation and purposes of his collection.

Optical videodisc technology is a very effective tool for art research, archival preservation and the presentation of visual materials. In fact, this new technology has the potential to revolutionise the current methods of conducting research and the storage and retrieval of art documentation. There are, however, many issues concerning videodisc technology which should be identified before disc can become a practical reality for the art world.

This paper outlines:

(1) How a videodisc works, including specific advantages and limitations of the technology for the field of art librarianship, and, (2) How the videodisc may be applied to visual resources and art documentation from the collection manager’s point of view. Various art related videodisc projects completed between 1980 and 1983 will be used as illustrations, and the videodisc done at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) will be used as a case study.

The paper was delivered to the IFLA Section of Art Libraries, Munich, 1983.

Information technology has until quite recently tended to favor alphanumerics as the medium of communication. This emphasis on text militated against those application areas in which the visual image was a crucial factor. Recently, technical developments in two related fields have created a fresh potential for incorporating the visual image into large-scale information systems, namely linking computer databases with optical videodiscs. As a consequence, design, architecture, and both the fine and the graphic arts have become state-of-the-art application topics in the area of large-scale data storage and retrieval technology. This paper reports on two case studies one based in modern architecture (ARCHFILE), and one based on the work of a particular artist. (PICAS-SOFILE). It was first delivered to the IFLA Section of Art Libraries, Munich, 1983.