As the first of what is intended to be a regular column devoted to recently published exhibition catalogues, the present list includes catalogues of exhibitions which closed some months ago. Future editions will aim at greater currency (in as far as a deadline two months prior to publication will allow), and will at least give priority to catalogues appearing in the three months between issues.

The primary aim of the column is to draw attention to catalogues which might otherwise escape notice, and to provide a brief description of those catalogues which are less accessible, and difficult to assess before purchasing. Consequently many important catalogues from major exhibiting organisations will be omitted, and the bias inevitably will be towards catalogues from foreign sources.

If, however, you the reader feel that there is a need for evaluative reviewing of certain more readily accessible catalogues as an aid to selection, please make your views known. In addition, the compiler would be very pleased to be notified of catalogues for inclusion in this column, particularly those of provincial exhibitions which sometimes escape national notice, and of which the art librarian on the spot is likely to be aware.

This is the first of a regular series on new architectural books. To avoid passing over some important works the list is more retrospective than we hope future issues will be. Nothing published before 1975, however, is included. The list contains only books seen at first hand in the British Architectural Library and thus there will always be a delay between publication date and appearance in this column. Where possible prices are given in the currency of the country of origin. Otherwise prices given represent those paid by British Architectural Library.

An exhibition of American folk painting: selections from the collection of Mr. &Mrs. William E. Wiltshire III, was shown at THE VIRGINIA MUSEUM RICHMOND, Virginia (29 November 1977-8 January 1978). The 110p. catalogue is notable for the fact that all 51 exhibits are illustrated in colour, and provided with notes, provenances, list of places exhibited, and bibliographic references if appropriate.

An exhibition of European landscape painting, mainly from Western museums, was held at THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WESTERN ART, TOKYO (14 September - 26 October 1978), accompanied by a 220p. catalogue, with Japanese text. However the catalogue contains 120 illustrations of which 24 are in colour, which may make its acquisition worthwhile.

The MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS exhibition of James Tissot prints (25 May — 16 July 1978) was accompanied by a publication declared to be ‘the first complete catalogue raisonné of Tissot’s prints’ as well as catalogue of the exhibition. 88 credited works are documented in the 356p. catalogue, with 200 illustrations. The author is Michael Justin Wentworth.

A survey of recommended principles and practice for the preparation of publications for the art library.

The literature of art traditionally concentrates on the fine arts and, to a lesser extent, the applied and decorative arts. There is a vast amount of spadework to be done in researching the history of design (especially 20th century design). Often, periodical articles or exhibition catalogues are the only source of published documentation. Since exhibitions are dealt with in another section of the journal, here I shall look at some recent books. I have further limited this selection to exclude architecture and the graphic arts. I have chosen books which are visually stimulating and of use to the practical designer as well as works of a more academic approach.

This series will be concerned with giving details of more esoteric art publications that are unlikely to be found in provincial bookshops but are nevertheless of interest to a wide variety of librarians.

The MUSEE DES BEAUX-ARTS, RENNES drew on the resources of the French national collections for L’Art Maniériste: formes et symboles, 1520-1620, (6th January - 15th March 1978) which contained 232 exhibits (chiefly paintings, prints and drawings — mostly illustrated in the catalogue). Arranged thematically, e.g. ‘La Maniera’, ‘Le Luxe et La Fete’, ‘Les Dieux chez les Hommes’, etc., the catalogue also contains maps, tables and bibliographies.

Based solely on its own collection is Five centuries of master graphics in the collection of the St. Louis Art Museum, 1977 — 78 published by that Museum in 1977. The 188 p. catalogue contains 85 illustrations (all black and white) documenting a collection covering works by artists from Dürer to Johns.

The Bibliography of Museum and Art Gallery Publications and audio-visual aids in Great Britain and Ireland, edited by Jean Lambert (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey; Teanack, N.J.: Somerset House, 1977. £28) encourages me to consider some recent museum publications: publications for the most part that are catalogues of holdings in some way. But first a brief look at the Chadwyck-Healey publication. It describes itself as ‘a comprehensive biennial list of all types of material published and distributed by museums, art galleries and related institutions in Great Britain and Ireland’. It includes only material which is currently available for sale, loan or reference. It was compiled by questionnaire which leads to a certain lack of uniformity: some institutions, for instance, did not consider it necessary to include dates of publications. More than eight hundred institutions are included. The bibliography is divided into four sections: main entry, in which publications are listed alphabetically under their institutions; author index; title index; subject index. The snag of the last three, and particularly of the author index, is that the reader is referred only to the institution in which the author appears. This works quite well where a museum or gallery has published fairly little, but when faced with 12 pages of British Museum publications, or even 5 pages of Vaughan Williams Memorial Library publications, the job of scanning columns of small print and dense layout to find the required entry becomes daunting. Careful reading shows that many museums are still without available catalogues of their basic holdings. All the more interesting, therefore, to look at some of the catalogues that have been published recently.