This conversation between the distinguished art historian, Professor Sir Ernst Gombrich, and Krzysztof Z. Cieszkowski of the Tate Gallery Library, took place in Professor Gombrich’s home late in 1990. Professor Gombrich recalls making use of a number of libraries, and offers some thoughts — from an art historian’s point of view — on librarians, who, it is suggested, tend to make too much of professional skills at the expense of knowledge.

Since 1839 a million or more designs have been lodged with the British Patent Office. Millions more have been registered in other jurisdictions, for example, in America (from 1842), India (from 1881), and Japan (from 1910). Registered designs are not confined to ‘Good Design’ (according to Modernist Western criteria) but neither do they provide a comprehensive record of design innovation: whether designs from a given country are or are not registered abroad may be less a measure of the country’s design activity, more an indication either of the refusal by an Imperial power to recognise indigenous design as ‘original’, or of whether it is advantageous to a developing country to respect international copyright. Nonetheless, registered designs, which are documented in great detail and may be accompanied by precise visual representations, constitute one of the most extensive series of primary source materials and statistics for an objective, world history of design. The fact that they have been overlooked by design historians can be partially explained by ignorance of their existence or whereabouts, and difficulties of access, but also reflects a limited, Eurocentric approach to design and its history.

In 1968, architectural training in France, hitherto the responsibility of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, was dispersed to a number of separate architectural schools. Cooperation involving their libraries resulted in the production of an architectural periodicals index, the Bulletin Signalétique, from 1974. Since the late 1980s, the index entries, with other data (including each library’s catalogue records, held locally on microcomputers using the ISABEL programme), have also constituted the ARCHIRES database. Although ARCHIRES complements the widely-available URBAMET, as yet it can only be accessed by members of the network, but current plans include not only extending its range to include Europe beyond France, but also the production of both a CD-ROM and a videodisc.

Replies to a questionnaire distributed to readers of the Art Libraries Journal reveal general approval of the Journal’s contents and a high level of satisfaction regarding its appearance, but differing views on its policy of publishing material in French, German, and Spanish as well as English. A majority of respondents affirm that the Art Libraries Journal is achieving its aim to fulfil an international role.