Depuis 1994, une grande partie des collections du Musée des Tissus de Lyon est accessible sur ordinateur. La Banque d’Images Textile propose, sur le site du Musée, des consultations écran, des impressions et des réservations pour les professionnels qui désirent exploiter un tissu faisant partie des collections. De la sorte les originaux sont préservés des manipulations trop fréquentes, et l’inventaire est informatisé, ce qui améliore grandement la connaissance des fonds.

The Axis database is the only national information resource on British artists and craftmakers. It contains visual-text data on over 2,500 contemporary British practitioners and is a rapidly growing source of data for researchers, students, curators, commissioning agents, architects, planners and patrons and purchasers of visual arts. Axis also has an important national role in promoting contemporary art and artists and widening access to visual culture.

DutchESS (Dutch Electronic Subject Service, formerly NBW) is an Internet guide for the academic community produced by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (the national library of the Netherlands) in co-operation with a number of Dutch academic libraries. The resources are selected by subject specialists who evaluate Internet information according to academic quality standards and make selections relevant to their own specific user groups. DutchESS has (as yet) no geographical restrictions, although it aims to cover Dutch resources as completely as possible. The service includes all disciplines, but the content depends on the contributions of individual subject specialists as well as on the bias of the participating libraries. A large number of art sites can now be found on the Internet, but many of them are superficial, lack substantial informative content, and/or are not relevant for academic research. Only a relatively small number meet the quality criteria of DutchESS and have been added to the database so far. Future developments of DutchESS may include participation in a European network of subject-based Information Gateways.

The Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) is one of the largest art documentation centres in the world. It maintains collections of millions of reproductions and press clippings, as well as housing a sizeable library of approximately 400,000 books. In the past decade the RKD has begun setting up various automated systems for the management of these collections. The major systems in operation are the automated library with some 30,000 records online and accessible for visitors, a database with bio- and bibliographical information on artists, and the recently initiated image database. Plans for the future include in-house and web access to all databases, continued improvement and expansion of the systems, retrospective conversion of parts of the collections and publication of CD-ROMs.

Recently it has become possible to get access, on the Internet, to a number of important items in CADENS, a work-in-progress project which is analysing the contents of all Dutch nineteenth-century exhibition catalogues of contemporary visual arts. As well as detailed information about the exhibition catalogues, a chronological compilation is available for each artist’s exhibits. In future it will also be possible, using keywords, to search the titles of the exhibits online.

In Spring 1999 the Art Libraries Society/The Netherlands (OKBN) plans to organize a conference on ‘Book & Image: Visual Resources and Art Libraries’, to discuss various aspects of the whereabouts, accessibility and use of visual resources in art libraries and other collections of art historical documentation. By doing this we hope to increase awareness amongst art librarians and visual resource librarians of the necessity of communicating questions and sharing their experiences. In particular we need to find new ways of co-operating in order to meet the challenges posed by new technological developments and future users. A small working group of ARLIS-NL members, joined by some colleagues from slide libraries and visual archives, already meets bi-monthly for brainstorming sessions aimed at preparing an attractive and challenging program for this event.

The BONAS database is the result of an initiative to gather and make easily accessible information about the work of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Dutch architects and related professionals. It gives details of their lives and works and of a large number of their buildings from about 1790 to the present. An extensive bibliography is being compiled at the same time, and the data is being published in a series of volumes on individual practitioners.

The Delft University of Technology Library, the oldest technical library in the Netherlands, is the national focal point for collecting literature on the applied sciences and technology. A major part of this collection covers applied and visual arts, with works from the sixteenth and seventeenth century based on Vitruvius, others by Palladio, Serlio or Dutch architects like Hendrik de Keyser, and contextual material on architecture and the fine arts. The Treasury aims to be both a nationally and an internationally known collection of technological literature.

As of the first of January 1997, Dutch museums have been able to hook up to the computerised service called Netwerk Collectie Nederland. The NCN is a closed network, an intranet on a subscription basis, meant for a limited group of professional users. It was created as a joint venture by several museum and governmental organisations and developed by the Instituut Collectie Nederland (Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage). Its initial aim was to facilitate mobility of collections, i.e. the exchange of objects between collecting institutions in the Netherlands. The experience of the first operational year has shown that this focus is too narrow to enable the service to become financially self-supporting within four years, which is the goal. An intricate combination of push and pull factors of a political, technical and cultural nature has contributed to a disappointing take-up of the NCN by its intended users. New directions are currently being studied to improve this situation. As a case study, the story of the NCN can serve as an example of the complexity of such endeavours.