For institutions operating in the field of arts and culture, taking part in subsidised programs is a favourable – not to say often the only – way to conduct large-scale projects. The many options of participating in various EU-funded grant programs provide cultural facilities with the opportunity not only to internally optimise their holdings but also to closely co-operate with partner institutions from the cultural, as well as from other industries, thus exchanging knowledge and experience, professionally networking on a cross-border level, and laying the corner stone for potential future projects. As a positive side effect, the interconnectedness and often public-oriented aims almost always imply potentially high publicity effects for all participants. Notwithstanding the undisputed benefits accompanied by EU-projects, it must be kept in mind that they also involve a great deal of administrative effort that must not be underestimated.

Why do significant parts of our art libraries collections remain undiscovered and unused? Seemingly invisible to students and staff, the university archive strong room creates a barrier, preventing our students and researchers from accessing and browsing materials, as they would with our open shelf collections. What happens when archive materials are freed from their confines, brought out into the studio and explored and used by arts students? Better still, what happens when librarian, archivist and academic collaborate to make this happen, enabling increased awareness of these resources and facilitating information literacy skills learning? Conclude this with an artistic response to this method of teaching and learning and you have the Animation Archive Day at the University for the Creative Arts. The day formed part of a longer term initiative put together by the archivist and librarian to raise awareness among students and staff of the opportunities to utilize archives in their subject specific creative arts learning and education. The project recognizes the importance of allowing students to steer and interact creatively with archive use in a library context.

This article gives an account of the research methods and editing procedures used to inform the production of two recent books, Contemporary Art in Shanghai: Conversations with Seven Chinese Artists and ‘Avant-garde’ Art Groups in China, 1979-1989, focusing on issues related to the use of interviews and documentary sources in Chinese contemporary art research. As well as drawing attention to a range of contingent factors impinging on the reliability of interviews and documentary sources within the particular discursive contexts of China and to ways of mitigating their effects, it argues for the productive possibilities of the serial use of interviews in combination with other texts as critical polylogues.

This article looks at what uses a slide collection developed for teaching art and design history to students in art schools in the UK could possibly still have now that lecture theatres have ‘gone digital’. As more and more slide collections are disposed of, part 2 of the article (to be published in ALJ 39.4) also asks UK librarians to consider preserving at least one exemplar slide library for the benefit of researchers in the future.

Changes in the format, design and content of museum and art gallery exhibition catalogues can be traced to the visibility and popularity of these souvenirs for the block-buster exhibitions of the 1970s. The increased museum revenue from these book sales and the need, perceived by the publishers recruited to museum staff from a trade background, to address the interests of a more diverse audience are identified as the two main instigators of these changes. The resulting exhibition catalogues play down the scholarly apparatus, offer more images particularly to enhance the reader’s contextual understanding and, in some cases, ameliorate the academic register of the writing. The uses made of exhibition books by institutions, their associated sponsors and museum visitors is commented on.

RDA, RDA, RDA: a three-letter initialism which has both tormented and engaged cataloguers over the last few years. The Courtauld Institute of Art was among the first UK libraries to implement RDA; however, it is not a typical UK RDA early adopter being both small and specialist. This article describes the library’s experiences of RDA implementation. Issues covered include planning for RDA, designing an art-specific RDA training programme and the challenges of fitting RDA to typical art library materials. Common themes emerge that include the high importance placed upon collaboration and sharing resources in the RDA age; dealing with the unknown and the unanswerable; and asking ontological questions about the art documentation materials being catalogued.

In 2013 the Wiener Library, the oldest Holocaust library in the world, put out a call for submissions for a book art competition under the theme Displaced. An exhibition of short-listed works opened in March 2014. The article explains the thinking behind the competition and highlights some of the entries received from artists worldwide.

Chinese art has always been well-represented within SOAS Library. This article provides an overview of the Chinese art and archaeology collection, highlighting materials that make it unique, from rare books to literati paintings and woodblock prints. As the Library approaches its centenary, some of the issues that have influenced its past, such as limitations of space, are still informing its future. With increasing attention paid to modern and contemporary Chinese art, efforts have been made to build the collection to reflect this emphasis. As it has throughout SOAS’s history, the Library and the Chinese art and archeology collection continue to evolve to reflect new research interests, academic courses and the needs of its users.

The library of the Freer Gallery of Art | Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is considered one of the finest East Asian art research collections in the United States. The development and progress of the library’s Chinese Collection has mirrored the historical changes in the field of Chinese art studies in the last one hundred years. Today, the library collection has more than 90,000 volumes, including 17,437 Chinese language monographs and 836 serials in over 25,000 volumes. In a landscape of changing scholarship, technology and user demands, the library is balancing the use of printed materials and digital resources and collaborating with other libraries to continue to meet the needs of curators, researchers and visitors.

What should a research library in a small specialist art museum be? The Asian Art Museum’s research library is a unique and rich collection of material on Asian cultural history, with over 40% of its holdings dedicated to Chinese art, history, culture and religion. The author provides an overview of its history and highlights some of its Special Collections and items of interest. Current and future developments are also discussed, including an ongoing project to make pre-1998 catalogue records available online.

During the 20th century a range of museums in the United States were engaged in acquiring Chinese art objects, developing major collections of painting and calligraphy, ancient bronze, Buddhist sculpture, ceramics and other decorative arts. Research materials on Chinese art have been collected by art libraries in major museums and the East Asian libraries of the main research universities. The author surveys significant Chinese art collections in museums and research libraries in the United States today.