Several years ago, Essex Libraries underwent re-organisation, and at this stage, subject specialist department were formed, an unusual feature within county libraries. This article deals with the basic organisation within the Essex Libraries system, the part played by the Arts subject specialist department, the services offered, its role within LASER, and the advantages that this system is seen as having, particularly in the present times of financial stringency.

First established in 1965, the Fine Art Library at Westminster has been serving its public, both locally and nationally, for twenty years with an expert though small staff in very limited accommodation. Experience has shown that management training as well as subject knowledge is essential in running a specialist library. The possibility of expansion into a custom-built department would exercise the full range of management skills necessary to maximise the resources of staff, budget and subject knowledge.

A consideration of the public library local history and archives departments as a potential resource for information on art and design topics, with special reference to the collections of Wesminster City Libraries.

The art department of the Gladsaxe Bibliotek, near Copenhagen, is one of several art departments in public libraries, and one of the art libraries created in Denmark as a result of the Public Libraries Act of 1964 and two subsequent reports, in 1967 and 1971, on the provision of audiovisual material under the terms of the new Act. In addition to providing books and journals, these art libraries lend slides, posters, and original prints, and mount exhibitions of works of art by local and other artists. The librarians concerned have formed a subsection of the Danish Library Association, the ‘Faggruppen for kunstbibliotekarer’ (known as ‘Kunstfaggruppen’) and these ‘diary pages’originally appeared, in Danish, in the group’s newsletter Medd. Blade no. 3, 1983, pp 7-9. For further reading, see the Art Libraries Journal vol. 6, no. 3, Winter 1981, pp 3-12.