Architecture, the focus of this issue, is held to be the ‘mother of the arts’. It is also referred to as the ‘queen of the decorative arts’. But in the family of art libraries and art librarianship, architecture is often a neglected stepchild. So I welcome the invitation extended in this issue of the Art Libraries Journal to the ‘Cinderella of the arts’, and hope that her appearance at the art ball will extend beyond midnight.

Over the past quarter of a century or so that I have been an architectural librarian, I have sometimes wondered why architecture libraries are isolated from their sister libraries in the world of art and design, and why architecture libraries and librarians feel the need to separate themselves from their art and design siblings. Is it because the art community is uncomfortable with architecture? If so, is this because architecture is outside the mainstream of art education or art history teaching? Or is it because architecture libraries are generally part of professional institutes, schools of architecture or architectural firms, whose concerns and affiliations may have more in common with the engineering sciences (civil, structural, materials, environmental), the building and construction industries, urban and landscape design, town and country planning, and estate, project and business management, than with the more scholarly and historical focus of art libraries in museums and universities?

How can arts librarians support learners at a distance in using electronic library services? At the Open University (OU), electronic resources, web design, training and personal contact all play a part in supporting students over a wide geographical area. This article looks at the past, present and future of electronic library services to support distance learners, focusing on the dynamic role of the arts subject librarian.

A project to enhance access to architectural drawings and manuscripts has recently begun at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. Two major collections of designs - those in the V&A’s Prints, Drawings and Paintings Collection and those in the Special Collections of the British Architectural Library at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) - will be housed together at the Museum from 2003. In this article two of the V&A’s curators outline the planning for the move, which involves modifying existing space to provide new accommodation for staff, storage and consultation by the public, and describe the broader partnership between the two institutions, which promises much for the study and appreciation of architecture.

One enormous problem confronting visual resources (VR) collections internationally is the time, labor and expense of converting or creating digital collections while maintaining and even adding to the analog collection. It will take considerable time to reach the critical digital mass that will begin to reflect the richness already available in our analog collections. The analog collections must be maintained in tandem with the digital development. As one might logically conclude, this is twice the work. It is improbable that any of us will see our staffs doubling. This underscores the need to define clear goals for digital collection development that are reasonable given the level of staffing and the need for continuation of analog services for the foreseeable future. This conundrum may have an up side in that it will tend to encourage resource sharing and consortial development of digital resources.

Small countries – small libraries: is it possible to benefit from co-operation? Finnish art libraries have been establishing a co-operative network with the art libraries in the neighbouring Baltic countries throughout the 1990s. One of the aims has been to get Baltic and Nordic art libraries to work more closely together.

For many years slide libraries in higher education institutions in the UK grew steadily in size as they accommodated the needs of new and expanding art and design courses. Although some slide librarians acquired new slides by photographing works of art in museums and art galleries, and most bought slides of the traditional art history canon from commercial publishers and art galleries, the largest proportion of these ever growing slide collections was made up of slides produced by copy photography, using slide film to photograph images taken from books, journals and exhibition catalogues. Changes in UK copyright law in 1988 made this illegal and jeopardised the ability of lecturers to present the visual material they needed for their courses. Slide librarians were forced to consider ways of getting around the law. A licence scheme ultimately emerged as the answer, but one that has its detractors and critics.

Two libraries, the National Institute of the Arts at the Australian National University and California Institute of the Arts in Southern California, describe how each has an interdependent relationship with the information technology or network services units in their respective institutions. Major considerations for both are the introduction of electronic full-text art information on the Web and its pedagogical implications, issues faced by arts libraries in the integration of computer services with library services in universities and colleges, and the changing roles of arts librarians and libraries.

Latvian libraries have just begun to take their first steps towards automation and the introduction of new technologies. Implementation of a database of Latvian art catalogues will begin next year. The Association of Latvian Arts Libraries that would serve as a co-ordinating body, as well as a means of sharing experience and discussing future goals, has until now remained only an idea. But the enthusiasm of colleagues, as well the positive impact that art library societies in other countries have brought to art library operations, brings hope that it is not only a dream for the future.

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal, devoted to the history and theory of the art of architecture, was founded in 1979 and opened to the public in 1989. It is defined in its mission statement as a museum and study centre, and its Library was conceived and developed by its Founding Director, Phyllis Lambert, to serve both halves of this mission. This article describes some of the ways in which its dual function permeates the Library’s operations and activities. It is our belief that the CCA Library adds value to its collections and services precisely by bridging the old, old gap between the traditional museum library and the traditional research library.

Key to the provision of art information in Estonia is the National Library’s Fine Arts Information Centre, offering services to some 60,000 visitors each year as well as producing the national bibliographic databases of maps, posters, postcards, sound recordings and sheet music. But co-operation with other major art libraries in Estonia is also flourishing, beginning with the selection of new material for the art and architectural history collections in consultation with scholars in other arts organizations, and culminating in 1999 in the foundation of the Estonian Art Libraries Society. This year, Estonian Book Year, marking the 475th anniversary of the very first known Estonian book, seems an excellent opportunity to describe what is happening in art librarianship in this country.

A previous article by this author discussed an emerging phenomenon on the Internet. That is, how the law, by denying copyright protection to certain kinds of digital works, may have restricted access to such works instead of liberating them, as was initially intended by the judiciary. This absurd conclusion has resulted from owners whose works are no longer protected by copyright law, who have resorted to restrictive contractual provisions on-line to control access and use of their works. And in turn, owners of such content are still able to generate revenue by charging a subscription fee for the right to gain access to the information contained therein. The result is particularly troubling to end users of digital content. If copyright law is no longer applicable, then what of the Fair Use/Fair Dealing defences available to users of these works? Does this mean that these defences are not applicable either? Are users of such content completely at the mercy of the owners’ terms and conditions of use as dictated by click-on agreements and Rules of Use posted on Web sites? This article discusses the application of Fair Dealing and Fair Use to Internet-based works, by examining the legislative and judicial responses to the ambiguities in their intellectual property protection which new technologies create.

Two of the largest architecture libraries in Spain are in institutions in Catalonia. One of these is the UPC (the Technical University of Catalonia), the home of the library of the ETSAB (the School of Architecture of Barcelona), which is one of the oldest architecture schools in Spain. The other is COAC (the Architects’ Association of Catalonia), which boasts one of the biggest architecture libraries in a professional association in the country. While these two libraries were built up in the 19th century, other architecture libraries have been created in Catalonia in the 20th century, both in schools of architecture and in the branches of COAC.

Following the work of ADAM, the Art, Design, Architecture and Media Information Gateway, was there scope for a new Resource Discovery Network (RDN) hub to support those studying the subject areas of the creative arts and industries within higher education? CALIM, the Consortium of Academic Libraries in Manchester, undertook a six-month consultancy to identify the thoughts of the arts and education communities within the United Kingdom.

The Internet is making the world a much smaller place and when it comes to digital goods – products that can be reduced to a series of zeros and ones and squirt down a wire – there are no international borders. One question often asked in relation to the Internet and copyright law is whether there should be a single international copyright law. Is this likely in the near future?

Of the numerous libraries dealing with art documentation in Lithuania, it is the National Library which holds the most significant collection. The exhibition programme of its Arts Department is particularly noteworthy: displays of items from the collection travel all over the country and beyond its borders to foreign lands, including the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Germany, Ireland and Finland. The enthusiasm generated has encouraged similar activities in other libraries, as is described in the directory of Lithuanian art libraries which concludes this article.

Co-operation, collaboration and interoperability meet in BOOKHAD to deliver a research resource which offers a new arrangement of key material through the use of modern technology. The essence of BOOKHAD is sharing a range of material to support scholars of book history and book design, in a focused, illustrated and subject-orientated way. The vision of the project is to provide richer access to selected resources for a community of book historians and designers than was available to them before this nationally-funded project was undertaken.

Originally set up in 1988, ARCLIB has become a lively pressure group involving not only architecture school librarians in the United Kingdom but also those in other European countries and the USA. National conferences have provided an annual focus and these are listed in the appendix, but there have also been active international contacts over the years, the current hosting of the ARCLIB discussion list in Venice being one example. ARCLIB also publishes its own Bulletin, which reports on the Group’s activities and keeps members in contact with one another.