Slides present problems of retrieval which have not always been solved by those responsible for their organisation. Each image can be seen, sought, and labelled in a variety of ways. Organisation of the slides themselves according to subject is essential to facilitate browsing, which is the normal method of selection on the part of borrowers, and which generates ideas and reveals new or alternative material. The borrowing of slides is a major problem which tends to be solved most effectively by relatively informal systems. The slide collection should be conveniently located so far as the user is concerned; even when this can be achieved the development of private collections by individuals or teaching departments should be regarded as complementing the central collection. An ‘ideal’ organisation is proposed, based on conclusions drawn from a survey of slide collections which included interviews with curators, users, and non-users (British Library R.&D. Report no. 5309, 1976)

Due not least to its inter-disciplinary breadth of scope, design history has not developed an adequate methodology for identifying (or cataloguing) artefacts or for placing them in their context (classification). Yet design history is essential to design scholarship and to design itself because these are its tasks. (A paper presented to the ARLIS Annual General Meeting on April 1st, from A Framework for Design Scholarship by Bruce Archer, to be published in 1978).

Which libraries do you use and how do your use them? Having lived rather isolated I have felt the need to build up my own library. In younger days I used the local public library quite a lot. Their collection of art books was rather meagre, but it was still a strong inspiration. They had got several current art magazines as well, both Norwegian and international. I still use’ public libraries, especially their collection of fiction, poetry, philosophy, etc., which is quite good. They provide the information they have not got themselves through inter-library lending, and the services have been quite satisfactory. Apart from the library of the Statens Kunstakademi (National Academy of Fine Art) I have never used a ‘professional’ art library.

Although art librarians began to join together in North America in the 1920s, they did so in two distinct strands — museum librarians and public librarians. Art librarians of all kinds, including, significantly, art librarians in higher education, formed national associations from the late 1960s, and almost immediately began to establish the international links which culminated in the coming into being of the IFLA Section of Art Libraries. International cooperation, including networking of resources, is helping art libraries to serve users worldwide. Art librarianship is now so well established as an international enterprise that it can afford to admit other arts information professionals; nonetheless it needs to continue to work towards becoming a genuinely multi-cultural professional community which does not privilege any country, region, language, culture, gender, or point of view.

AACR2 encourages specialist and archival libraries to “use the rules as the basis of their cataloguing and augment their provisions as necessary.” Is this relevant to the needs of an image collection? What are the implications? The Science Museum has evolved a supplement to AACR2 to cope with visual materials of all kinds retained primarily for their documentary value, and the special needs of its users. A case study suggests how traditional descriptions of art works may metamorphese into computer-based systems such as those of the MDA and AACR2.

This article has developed from a contribution to the ARLIS/UK and LA course “The Image Library” at the Library Association on 20 February 1981. The views expressed are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the Science Museum.

Moulds are an ever-present threat to library collections and in 2007 a serious outbreak occurred at Tate Library and Archive. Early detection followed by prompt action ensured that any lasting damage was prevented. Services continued to be offered to users during a two-month period while collections were inaccessible as environmental conditions were improved and the mould infestation was eradicated. The keys to success were good communication with library users, advice from experts in the field of building health problems and the willingness of Library and Archive staff to clean a quarter of a million volumes.

Aquarelle is a flagship project developing the Information Network on Cultural Heritage, funded under the European Commission’s Telematics Applications Programme. It has created a distributed multimedia information system, offering access to interrelated multimedia reference documents and primary data that describe the cultural heritage of Europe. It aims to create the technology to enable a service which would provide uniform access to the varied collections of data held by museums, art galleries and other cultural organisations throughout Europe.

In an era of economic stringency it is necessary to ‘sell’ the art library, in order to win support as an investment for survival. To do this a new style of reference librarianship has been implemented in the Fine Arts Department of Birmingham Public Libraries, including the provision of services to branch libraries and to art teachers; the creation of publications, exhibitions, and the Art Pack; and the involvement of staff in appropriate committees. (The text of a paper presented to the course on ‘Managing the Arts’ organised by ARLIS and the Polytechnic of North London in December, 1976).

A wide selection of recent articles argues for an active involvement of libraries in Digital Humanities. This engagement would not only reflect the traditional role of libraries to support ongoing research, but would also provide the opportunity to re-envision their responsibilities and to create a space for research and development within their organisation. In our opinion, such an implementation of R&D in academic libraries is indeed essential to provide adequate support to digital scholarship. Digital projects also benefit greatly when they welcome the library as a full and valued partner. This point is illustrated through a discussion of EuropeanaPhotography, in which the KU Leuven (Belgium) acted as the coordinating partner.

The subject of this article is Europeana Fashion, an EU-funded initiative that deals with the aggregation and online dissemination of the digital fashion heritage from the most important European collections. The project started with a consortium consisting of 22 partners from 12 European countries and included the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), Les Arts Décoratifs (Paris), MoMu (Antwerp) and many other museums. Also archives of brands, such as Missoni and Pucci were represented. The main goal of Europeana Fashion was to harvest the digital collections of fashion institutions and to re-present them in a uniform way on a specialized fashion portal. This article outlines the origins of the project, focussing on its main achievements, and offers a look into the future of europeanafashion.eu.

In this article, the documenta Archive is read ‘against the grain’, that is, not in search for art-historically relevant information, but, instead, so as to find traces of subjective biases in its structure and/or emotional contents in its records. The aim of this exercise is to examine the subjective nuances in the archival structure, which every archive preserves even if these are not intentionally recorded. These nuances provide glimpses into an intellectual construction that is otherwise hidden.

Digital technologies are affecting all aspects of modern life, with both art and libraries becoming more digital. This presents new opportunities for engagement, but also creates significant challenges to the long term future of our collections, due to the rapid changes in technology and the threat of digital obsolescence.

This article will reflect on the ongoing work at the University of the Arts London (UAL) to preserve and provide access to the university's growing digital collections. Digital preservation is an emerging area of practice. What progress have we made so far and what does the future hold for our digital collections?

Throughout the year, research and instruction librarians at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) instruct students in ways to use the library for studio-based research. At the end of each semester, librarians attend studio critiques for these classes to see the finished work and participate in the critique. These visits are opportunities to look for and reflect upon the presence of research and the impact of concepts taught during library research workshops on the finished presentations and artworks. The coordinator of graduate library instruction created a qualitative tool to assess the evidence of student learning within the studio critique. Its use is cultivating a culture of art and design research within the library and throughout campus by fostering reflection and discussion about the value of qualitative assessment.

This article casts a wide net over the key events, people, locations and collections that shaped the development of the Arts Library at Yale University, beginning with its inception as a humble departmental collection. While the physical spaces that have housed the library have undergone tumultuous changes over the years, the collections themselves have evolved in ways both unique to Yale and universal to the field of librarianship. In autumn 2008, the library was re-christened the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library and it is now housed within the renovated Paul Rudolph Hall and the newly constructed addition, the Jeffrey H. Loria Center for the History of Art.

Visual resource professionals (VRPs) for years provided high-quality, subject specific, copyright cleared images for teaching and research in higher education in the UK by maintaining slide collections. As the rapid march of technology left the 35mm slide in its wake, VRPs found themselves unable to provide the digital alternative because their hands were bound by outdated copyright law. They began sounding the alarm over ten years ago and have been calling for a resolution ever since, but to no avail. Why have their calls not been heeded? How have VRPs responded to the resulting dilemma, and where does it leave the copyright status of the images used in everyday teaching in the UK?

With the construction of the Rijksmuseum by Cuypers in 1885, the art museum acquired its first rooms solely dedicated as a reference library. This was a direct consequence of the growing demand for scientific libraries in the 19th century. In contrast to established concepts of that time, the room for the books – usually a rather plain stack room – was sumptuously decorated. This expresses the idea that arts and knowledge should be regarded as one unity.

The National Library of Australia at Canberra includes a Pictorial Collection comprising paintings, drawings, prints and photographs which illustrate the history of Australia. The Collection is being actively developed, the ultimate goal being a comprehensive visual record of all aspects of Australian life. The Collection is open to the public, and is served by a photographic unit; a selection of pictures are always on display, and items are lent to exhibitions elsewhere. A publications programme is to culminate in the production of an illustrated catalogue. Data on selected items in the Collection is being entered into the Australian Bibliographic Network database.

The Burlington Magazine, with its juxtaposition of art trade and academia, historicism and aestheticism, has occupied a unique role in the international art historical panorama since it was first published in 1903. From its very beginnings the magazine had produced a detailed printed index, which reflected the diversity of its contents. In 2005 the magazine received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation to produce a cumulative online index from 1903 to the present. The Burlington Index is now online, nearly complete and free for all to use. Why did the Burlington need an index when it was already included in JSTOR? How is the Burlington Index structured and what is it based on? What are its aims and limitations? The Burlington Index wants to be a vessel to navigate the ocean of free-text available on JSTOR; a tool for research to open up the contents of the Burlington to a new generation of readers and, ultimately, a magnifying glass to reveal the magazine as a primary source for research on the history of art history, the art market and the art press.

This article traces the history of Canadian art publishing from the eighteenth century to date, closely paralleling the development of art historical scholarship in the country. A statistical survey of art publishing 1975–80 is followed by details of recently published key works in the fields of architecture, sculpture, painting, drawing, graphic arts, folk decorative arts, photography, North American Indian and Eskimo art. A substantial bibliography is appended. This paper was delivered to the Section of Art Libraries at the 1982 IFLA Council in Montreal.

This article consists of two lectures, combined into one, which were given at art libraries in Gentofte and in Slagelse.

The library association of Greater Copenhagen had a meeting on 21 May 1981 at Trånegarden, the art library of the municipality of Gentofte, where the president of the cultural committee in Gentofte, Professor A. Vinding Kruse contributed as follows: should public libraries arrange visual art exhibitions? – the answer was a definite yes … and librarian Helle Behmdt talked about art libraries with Trånegarden as her starting point.

The library association of the county of Vestsjælland (West Zealand) arranged a one-day conference on 26 May 1981 in Slagelse concerning: local historical archives and public libraries; municipal tape newspapers; and distribution of art in small libraries, which librarian Katrine Høffding talked about.