What are the cross-border intellectual property and copyright issues faced by PHAROS, an international consortium of photo archives, in the creation of an open access research platform? How does the consortium define open access? Are approaches to copyright in reproductive media across the US, UK and EU compatible, and can 14 partners from six countries agree to assess and express rights in the same way? Developments in the field and the consortium's 2020 International Copyright Workshop project have helped PHAROS define and address these issues.

ARt Image Exploration Space (ARIES) is a free, cloud-based dynamic environment offering art historians and others an extensive array of practical tools for analysing images. It is the product of a successful collaboration between art historians, librarians, computer scientists, and engineers from the Frick Art Reference Library, New York University's Tandon School of Engineering, and Brazil's Universidade Federal Fluminense. ARIES is a powerful tool for art historians, both replicating and augmenting traditional methods they have long-used to study images.1 With the advent of the prevalent use of digital photos, art historians lacked the technology capable of replacing what they had previously been able to accomplish in the analogue world. Wood Ruby and Deutch realized that art historians needed an out-of-the-box solution that didn't require extensive knowledge of other disciplines (computer science and engineering). The result of successful collaborations and a generous donation, ARIES is now available in BETA form at www.artimageexplorationspace.com.

Gustavo Grandal Montero (ALJ):Could you give an overview of the main aims and context of the project?

Ami Clarke (AC): The Digital Archive of Artists’ Publishing (DAAP) is an interactive, user-driven, searchable database of artists’ books and publications, that acts as a hub to engage with others, built by artists, publishers and a community of creative practitioners in contemporary artists’ publishing, developed via an ethically-driven design process, and supported by Wikimedia UK and Arts Council England. The project is inspired by the site of Banner Repeater's public Archive of Artists’ Publishing on Hackney Downs train station, with 11,000 people passing a day, in response to the need for a similarly dynamic approach to archiving in an online context.

In the fall of 2019, I received the ARIAH-RIHA Professional Exchange Fellowship, which gave me the opportunity to spend time in New York City, working on a project that aligned with my research and practice interest in emergency preparedness. The Frick Art Reference Library hosted me for three weeks, during which I could apply some of my theoretical knowledge and gain practical experience, while contributing to their preparedness by assessing risks related to an impending move of the collection. Working on prevention and preparedness in my own institution at the time, I wanted to get a sense of the steps that another library, similar in size and scope, was taking to ensure the integrity of its holdings in preparation of such a complex activity as a relocation of the entire collection.

Like most librarians, when I have a research question, I go to the databases to search the literature for comparable questions and possible solutions. The onslaught of COVID-19 and its impact on libraries (let alone every other aspect of life) has thrown librarians for a loop and disrupted all our standard modes of enquiry. In a matter of days in the spring of 2020, librarians went from business as usual to locking the doors behind us and trying to figure out how to run a Zoom research support session from the dining room table.