The New Brunswick illustration index is an index to the illustrations in the Legislative Library’s New Brunswick Collection. The illustrations include photographs, engravings, woodcuts, etc. and each is described in a database entry comprised of ten distinct fields. The project, begun in 1989, is not yet complete. The Index is designed to make the unique New Brunswick Collection more accessible.

With a detailed but not site-specific building program, the librarians at Rhode Island School of Design made the case for a new library three times the size of the existing facility. The site became specific with the donation of an early 20th-century grand banking hall. This paper addresses the role of the librarian in the design and construction process and includes an analysis of the way the new library meets the program objectives. In the early 1990’s after several early attempts to resolve the library’s space constraint at Rhode Island School of Design, the librarian was given a useful bit of advice: Stop trying to find the space. You must focus first on the program. What is it that you really need?

A time traveller visiting a British art school library in the 1840s, the 1970s, and the 1990s, would recognise a significant degree of continuity linking the library of the 1840s with that of the 1970s, but would be startled by the changes which have taken place in the last 20 years. Rapid change has resulted from several factors: increasing numbers of students; a growth in the demand from the public for art information; changes in the content and delivery of the curriculum; and not least, new technologies. This rapid pace of change is destined to continue into the foreseeable future, so much so that, instead of adapting to change bit by bit, librarians need to envisage and plan the new art libraries of tomorrow.

‘Universal availability’ of art publications, which depends on effective national coverage, cannot be left to chance; within particular countries much depends on co-ordinated or complementary acquisitions by art libraries and other libraries too, while at national, regional, and international levels there is need to ensure that no areas or categories of art are neglected, and to provide for the redressing of imbalances.

The loan and hire of contemporary original works of art has a long but littleresearched history. Its recent development, in and outside public libraries (particularly in the USA, Canada, Europe, and Israel) began essentially after 1945. Its nature and scope is strongly influenced by contemporary art. Art loans are worth promoting because art plays a lesser role in our cultural life compared to music and literature, because of the gulf between contemporary art and the public at large, as a means of securing and developing the role of the artist in society, and to foster discrimination and visual literacy in an age dominated by images of all kinds.

The musée du quai Branly, dedicated to the arts and civilisations of Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, has been open since 20 June 2006. Its holdings came from two pre-existing museums, and also from a number of new acquisitions. The museum’s library conserves and enhances the value of three heritage collections – the documents in the library itself, those in the drawings, engravings and photographs collection and the archive pieces and documents about the collections – and a miscellany of users is welcomed to its three dedicated research spaces, from museum visitors to internationally renowned scholars. An ambitious policy has led it to define and develop tools for consulting the collections, and to create a virtual collection in the form of a documentary web portal, through which the museum diffuses its research and heritage documents on the internet. The archives and the collections documentation described below perfectly illustrate how this works.

Although official censorship in the Soviet Union ceased over ten years ago, the effects in art and art libraries are still felt. Censored books were marked with a hexagon and relegated to closed stacks, which for many years were off limits to the public and library staff alike. Some of the banned material in the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature is analysed here in an attempt to establish the reason why certain items were seen by the authorities as too harmful to be acceptable for general circulation. The fate of the second “enemy” perceived by the Soviet censors, the original works of art and architecture, is also described.

Given the complexity and diversity of resources in art history, the research student needs a thorough and systematic programme to guide him through the range of information sources from catalogues and indexes to esoteric and elusive art works and individuals. Such a programme is described in detail and also a survey made of the literature on bibliographic instruction in art history.

Special thanks are extended to Phillip Heagy for bibliographic assistance and manuscript preparation and to Sue Ramage for manuscript review.

User education is a field of activity in which there are a number of problems that would benefit from detailed study, particularly because of its multidisciplinary nature. Such research must be initiated, reported upon, and not least communicated to librarians in the field who may subsequently be able to implement it.

(The text of a paper presented at the ARLIS Seminar on User Education held at Leeds Polytechnic, 7 – 8 April, 1978.)

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.

Every museum generates a considerable amount of printed and graphic ephemeral material, which provides first-hand information on its permanent exhibitions and temporary activities. These can be exhibition brochures, didactic material, activity announcements, cards, etc. and they are frequently the only source of direct information on the active life of the organisation which precisely reflects its public image. However, few museums are devoting effort to preserving this material, whose retention is not always guaranteed. This paper aims to establish a classification of the different types of ephemeral publications common in museums (informative, educational, commercial, of internal use, etc). It sets forth an elementary system for dealing with them which, by using the MARC format (in those libraries using a standardised system) or a database in ACCESS (for those lacking one), should result in the establishment of a secure system for storage, retrieval and diffusion of this data.

Art speaks with many tongues, the immediacy of the image requiring no translation. One does not need fluent Italian to appreciate Titian, nor French to enjoy the Impressionists. The art of China means a great deal to many who think of Chinese as the world’s least learnable language, and by whom a taste for Chinese music has yet to be acquired. The visual arts of different countries and culture-groups have had, and still have, enough in common for contact between them to be mutually stimulating; an interest in Man as maker of images and co-creator of the visible world, implies concern for art the world over.

Libraries and other information providers in the visual arts have had to adapt to an environment of changing research patterns, due to the widespread adoption of information technologies for personal use, the blurring of disciplinary boundaries, and shifting notions of geographical representation. As a small and independent arts organization, Artexte must navigate the obstacles and challenges raised by this dynamic environment. To do so, it has had to take into consideration the relevance of its original purpose – to focus on contemporary Canadian art within a national arts community. How can Artexte become more active in bringing Canadian art practices and critical discourses to larger, international networks? This article looks at the factors that define the current situation, and the ways in which Artexte bridges the gap between ‘local’ and ‘global’ contexts.

By the 1990s, fashion studies’ relegation to the marginalia of art historical discourse had greatly diminished. During the same period, US fashion itself emerged from European domination, with the action centring on New York City. Conveniently, New York’s art, design and fashion libraries, archives and special collections were already the most wide-ranging anywhere and, propelled by multi-disciplinary-, multi-media-driven interests, they have continued to expand their collections in all areas of fashion research and design, as well as in fashion’s innumerable contiguous fields. While discussing the multiple research resources available to New York-based historians of dress, fashion designers and clothing industry affiliates, this article examines issues of choice and magical serendipity in the context of an at-times overwhelming plethora of information.