Asked about how artists use libraries, art librarians confirm that artists gather ideas from a wide spectrum of subjects and sources, beyond the scope of the art library; they also need images and other, specific, information which art libraries often can supply. Their approach is typically exploratory and intuitive; they are compulsive browsers, but are likely to be impatient of catalogs and only occasional users of standard references tools. They expect a lot of help from specialist librarians. Art libraries serving artists generally provide access to a wide range of images, and invariably house their collections on open stacks. Photocopying, including color copying, is an essential service, and other visual and ‘studio’ facilities may also be provided. As more and more visual and other relevant information is made available through electronic networks, art libraries can provide artists with assisted, convenient access to it.

Iconclass is a classification of subjects, themes and motifs in Western art. It was developed and published in Holland, at the University of Leiden, with financial aid from both the Netherlands Organisation for the Advancement of Pure Research (Z. W.O.) and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Iconclass is used in a growing number of projects, whether computerised or not. One of these projects could be the Witt Library pilot project, discussed elsewhere in this issue of the Art Libraries Journal (pp. 27-31).

In this paper the classification as such is briefly explained, mainly with the help of two examples: scenes from the stories of St. Antony Abbot and Hercules. Information on the alphabetical index to the classification is given, mainly because this extensive part of Iconclass is something more than the usual index to a publication.

Applications of the classification are dealt with in diagrammatic form; one application, the Iconclass bibliography, is discussed in greater detail.

Library work structures intellectual worlds as library workers collect, organize, make accessible, and preserve materials for use. This work is not neutral. Libraries, like all institutions, are produced in and through systems marked by racism, patriarchy, and capitalist modes of production. Critical librarianship offers a framework for thinking about our work that asks how library structures came to be and what ideologies underpin them. Viewing librarianship through this frame allows us to imagine new and better worlds on our way to making them.

A typical morning in a typical art college library is described. Ways in which art students use libraries, and the materials they require, are summarised. The fact that art students can get by without using libraries is noted in discussion of advantages and disadvantages of decentralised art libraries and of the centralisation of art library resources in libraries of wider scope. This paper was delivered to the course on ‘The Literature of Art and Architecture’, organised by ARLIS with the Library Association, in London on 6th December 1979.

The origins and history of Visual literacy (VL) are summarized in this article, from the 1960s writings of John L. Debes, Marshall McLuhan and others of the Rochester School, to the influence of the Internet in the 2000s. ERIC and Google Scholar searches are used to analyse the evolution of its literature over time.

When a group of women artists decided to organise their slides to inspire others to document themselves and raise the visibility of women’s art, they could not have known that several decades later those slides would still be together, forming the core of an internationally significant research resource. How did this idea of gathering together images transform a women’s art group – in the 1980s these were almost as common as book groups are today – into the Women’s Art Library/Make collection? Historically rooted in gender politics and the subsequent emergence of a radicalised women’s art practice and feminist art criticism, WAL/Make is an exciting ‘work in progress’. Now based in Goldsmiths, University of London it is being developed as a key special collection by the Library.

This paper outlines some of the practical problems facing those involved with image collections, and the financial implications of the retrieval complexities allied to the scale of such collections, when computer-aided systems are considered. Projects carried out since the early 1970s are described, and existing classification systems such as ‘Iconclass’ are assessed, with emphasis on the need for compatibility. A realistic approach to making basic information readily accessible in a relatively cheap system which may later be expanded given the non-economically viable nature of this field, is recommended.

The planning and design of library spaces is changing radically in the light of increased expectations, developments in teaching and learning, and the growth of electronic resources. The need for physical space in the age of the virtual library has been questioned, but in recent years there has been a plethora of bigger and better library buildings. This paper considers the drivers for change in library building design, the importance of good communication between librarians and architects, and the underpinning criteria for good design both of the building as a whole and of the fixtures and fittings within. Modern libraries must respond to social, pedagogical and technological changes, and librarians, in collaboration with architects and institutional administrators, must design inspirational and practical buildings fit for 21st-century use.

As education and research institutions struggle to come to terms with networked resources, new kinds of organizations and partnerships are emerging to support the distribution of networked cultural heritage information. The Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) provides an example of how museums have collaborated, in a manner that respects the requirements of education and research, to enhance access to the digital multimedia documenting their collections. AMICO has responded to librarians’ concerns about administration, economics, access and use in this new information environment, leveraging resources and - it is hoped - providing cost-effective, unprecedented access to cultural multimedia.

The Virtueller Katalog Kunstgeschichte (VKK) is a specialized search engine based on the technique of the perhaps better-known Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog. It is an initiative of the working group formerly known as AKB, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Kunstbibliotheken, comprising the German art libraries funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The VKK has functioned since September 1999. Currently, almost all AKB members, in other words the most important German art libraries, are among the target systems. Together, the target systems already offer far more than 1.6 million bibliographic records. The newest participant is the union catalogue of one of the most distinguished art historical networks, the IRIS Consortium in Florence. The VKK, which has just received a new, multilingual interface, is intended to become a gateway to the OPACs of the most important libraries and networks on an international level, and thus a central tool for specialized art historical research. This paper is also an invitation for potential new international partners.

Can museums and libraries profit from sharing their information, visual or textual? Is direct access to digital archives a more logical or economic way to develop access to images for teaching and research than assembling local collections? Recent digital image library projects in the United States, and their impact on the teaching practices of art and architectural historians, show the advantages of focusing on issues such as licensing and intellectual property, metadata and evolving cataloging practice, image quality, and the different costs of creation and delivery. But there are other potential benefits such as document delivery and the dissemination of archival information, as well as the preservation of fragile illustrated texts through digital imaging.

Although there is a lot of digitised cultural heritage content online, it is still incredibly difficult to source good material to reuse, or material that you are allowed to reuse, in creative projects. What can institutions do to help people who want to invest their time in making and creating using digitised historical items as inspiration and source material?

The preservation of artists’ papers and other art source material has steadily increased since the Second World War. Art archives include national repositories, archives attached to museums and libraries, archives devoted to a single person or institution, and ‘multiple collection archives’. Archival materials range from manuscript and photographic records to original works of art. Some archival materials have been published in microform formats; many others have not, and potential users depend on being able to locate them by means of various finding aids. Unless supported by public funds, the archives themselves depend on grants or sponsorship. Art archives may be staffed by archivists, museum curators, or librarians; future developments require not merely cooperation but also a ‘harmonization’ of these three professions, and a critical approach to the application of new technologies.

Rather than developing its stock as a status symbol, the library at Falmouth School of Art aims to contribute actively to students’ continuing education by supporting and stimulating the whole spectrum of their activities, and by teaching the value of the printed word and ‘how to look things up’.

The PHAROS consortium is adopting the Linked Art data model to make its descriptions of photo archives collections available as Linked Open Data to further support scholars in their research. Linked Art is both a community and a data model. As an international community, it works together to create a shared data model to describe art. As a data model, it is a data profile of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model and using Linked Open Data techniques. The goal of Linked Art is to enable museums and developers to engage in LOD initiatives more easily by providing them with shared data modelling decisions and consistent design principles.

What challenges does metadata managers face when embarking on a Linked Data transformation? How can legacy projects be better understood to ensure such data remodels stay true to their original content? Current efforts made by the Getty Provenance Index elucidate how this task can be much more than simple data re-structuring, and how much manual and specialized labor goes into updating a 35 year old database.

Biennials have been central to the development of contemporary art for decades, but there is a paucity of published material specifically related to this subject. Documentation for these important exhibitions is not always made available and it is often difficult to acquire, posing an obstacle to current and future research across a number of areas within contemporary art, curating and art history. This article offers an overview of major current biennials and of the different sources of information they produce (catalogues, other printed material, online resources, archives), and surveys the secondary literature of the phenomenon. It also discusses specific collection development issues in libraries, from a research perspective, proposing a set of recommendations for best practice.

Showcasing work has always been at the heart of the arts community, whether it be through an exhibition, site-specific installation or performance. Representation of the original work has also been important and use of print-based options like exhibition catalogues is now complemented by websites and multimedia friendly services like Flickr and YouTube and Vimeo. These services also provide options for sharing born-digital material. For those working in higher education there is a need to profile both the personal and the institutional aspects of creative outputs. The KULTUR project created a model for arts-based institutional repositories and it is hoped that this approach will be useful for other arts institutions.