Basing his arguments on Ranganathan’s tenets of librarianship, the writer challenges art librarians to question many of their attitudes to users, and the effect of these on the universal availability of art documentation, from the ‘user friendliness’ of libraries, through practical techniques of librarianship which assist users, to implications for interlibrary co-operation worldwide. This is a slightly revised version of a paper delivered to the IFLA Section of Art Libraries Preconference in Chicago, August 1985.

A report of the first European Conference of the IFLA Section of Art Libraries held in Geneva 13-16 March 1985. The theme ‘Iconographic collections and libraries’, was explored in some forty papers from speakers of seven nationalities: Teaching iconography; Iconographic collections; Users and means of access to documents.

This paper traces the development of the study of the history of design, from problems of definition to the organisations and publications which have appeared to support this area of study. This is a revised version of a paper delivered to the IFLA Section of Art Libraries Preconference in Chicago, August 1985.

This paper was read at the Planning Conference for the projected Artists’ Papers Index, held at the British Library in September 1985. Dr. Brown discusses some problems inherent in the definition of such an index or register of artists’ papers. The author, who is responsible for manuscripts and archives relating to artists and art history in the National Library of Scotland, goes on to outline the resources for art-historical study to be found in one large general manuscript collection-a major collection that is part of an institution with a long-established and very active acquisitions policy in this field.