What does it mean to work in a Modernist masterpiece? How is a ‘humanist’ space used? The author’s personal perspective on the architectural elements of the Reference Library at the Yale Center for British Art illuminates the humanistic aspects of Louis I. Kahn’s design. He focusses specifically on the material surfaces of white oak, wool, formed concrete, and their interplay with natural light in the library. Architectural elements such as the wood library carrels, concrete pillars, and exterior and interior windows of the library are considered in relation both to Kahn’s perceptions of a library and to his use of these elements in the museum as a whole.

This article casts a wide net over the key events, people, locations and collections that shaped the development of the Arts Library at Yale University, beginning with its inception as a humble departmental collection. While the physical spaces that have housed the library have undergone tumultuous changes over the years, the collections themselves have evolved in ways both unique to Yale and universal to the field of librarianship. In autumn 2008, the library was re-christened the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library and it is now housed within the renovated Paul Rudolph Hall and the newly constructed addition, the Jeffrey H. Loria Center for the History of Art.

The temporary cessation to publication of the leading and most comprehensive bibliography in the arts, the International bibliography of art (formerly Bibliography of the history of art) in 2009, led to a lively debate on the future of art bibliography. Many scholars, librarians and information specialists were in favour of saving the established model and of ensuring its continuing existence. At the same time there arose the controversial and much-debated question of whether the traditional model of the IBA – grounded in an intellectual analysis of documents (articles from journals, monographs, exhibition catalogues, etc.) and their description with standardised metadata and abstracts – still corresponds to the needs of modern research on the one hand and to the new potentialities and realities of displaying, connecting, exchanging and gaining information in digital data networks on the other. Library catalogues play a decisive role in this consideration: unlike bibliographies, which follow traditional and more or less unvaried standards, they have mutated to a great degree from inflexible registers to dynamic networks. They enrich and connect the bibliographic information with additional data, they invite the user to tag and to review the corresponding literature and they enable complex forms of unforeseeable discovery. Thus the ‘crisis’ into which art bibliography was plunged when the old IBA ceased publication, at the same time opened up the opportunity to discuss alternative, future-oriented solutions for the appropriate format of bibliographic information supply in the arts today.

The Dewey Decimal Classification system, frequently used to arrange arts collections, has a number of commendable aspects but also some significant shortcomings. Evidence suggests that visual arts library users can further their creative ideas by browsing library shelves, and the author considers this should inform classification practice. Dewey, approached from a user perspective and applied with attention to the scheme’s potential, can provide a shelf order that promotes browsing. The common perception that Dewey is most suited to general library collections is perhaps not entirely justified. Within the visual arts, it possibly accommodates specialist resources rather better than is sometimes imagined, particularly with judicious adaptation. A number of modifications are easy enough to achieve and may be applied across a range of visual arts resources.

The historic site of the French national library is currently being renovated in order to become a major centre for art documentation and special collections. It will incorporate three separate institutions: the specialist departments of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the library of the Institut national d’histoire de l’art, and the library of the Ecole nationale des Chartes. Completion of the project is scheduled for 2017.

Do your students look at blogs? Do you see them as information sources? Are they part of your library’s resources? This article summarises some recent research on fashion blogs, both ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’, and their use in providing information to fashion students. It highlights the potential usefulness of subject blogs, based on points that arose from the data collected from fashion librarians and students in interviews, an online survey and a round-table discussion. Hopefully the results will encourage you to consider your own stance on blog information in the library, whichever subject you support.

The Future of Art Bibliography (FAB) initiative developed out of various conversations among colleagues in the United States and Europe. Events in the art historical community, including limited funding resources for art libraries and projects internationally, and the cessation of the Getty’s support for the production of the Bibliography of the history of art (BHA) provided the catalyst for the Kress Foundation grant to the Getty Research Institute. A series of international meetings of art librarians, art historians, publishers and information specialists ensued. The goal was to review current practices, take stock of changes, and seriously consider developing more sustainable and collaborative ways of supporting the bibliography of art history in the future.

Nearly four years ago, the University of the Arts London launched its first flexible learning space for students, called the Learning Zone. The service model for the space was underpinned by an ethos of peer support. When London’s Crossrail Development project necessitated relocation, the Learning Zone team had to build the service all over again. Learning Zone 2.0 was a chance to reflect on the use and design of the space . . . and to improve on the first version. Despite personnel changes, building delays and lost furniture and equipment, the new space opened in May 2010.

Design innovations in India’s fashion products result from a fusion of modern technologies and traditional craft skills. This paper highlights the role of the National Resource Centre and the network of resource centres of the National Institute of Fashion Technology in collecting and preserving heritage resources using computer technology. Plans for a National Design Repository and for Shilpakala Jnana Kosha, a digital repository for the tacit craft knowledge of artisans, share the objectives of preserving endangered traditional skills, supporting a process of revival and optimising the use of traditional crafts in contemporary fashion design.

Multiple stakeholders in the scholarly publication and bibliographic lifecycle contribute to a complex network of complementary resources and services. Together, they provide a range of high-value products and services to researchers in our field. Increasingly however, the bibliographic record fails to include emergent forms and formats of scholarship, as well as relevant content beyond the traditionally circumscribed art historical domain. As a community, we need not only to develop strategies to expand and enhance the bibliographic boundary, but also to develop systems and toolkits that allow researchers to more dynamically contribute to the bibliographic enterprise.

Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) is a flexible classification scheme that allows the full expression of the subject of a book. However such flexibility requires decisions to be taken on how to apply and use the schedules. This article discusses the choices made by Tate Library in its implementation of the classification scheme and how the Library has developed UDC for its in-house use, in particular the expansion of the section for modern art.

Central Saint Martin’s move to a prestigious new site at King’s Cross is part of the most significant redevelopment project in London in the last 150 years. The Library will inhabit a 19th-century grain store, the Granary building, designed by Lewis Cubitt. To date the process of planning the library has included work with base build architects Stanton Williams, the fit out architects Pringle Brandon, library consultants The Design Concept and Embervision, and suppliers Demco.

Words have been affixed to still images for hundreds of years to describe who created a work or what it portrays. This paper examines the ways this process might evolve in an era where dissemination of knowledge is far less linear than it was in an age of print, and reviews two projects that ARTstor is pursuing with the art historical community. One captures users’ notes about 190,000 photographs of old master drawings that are in need of updated descriptive cataloging. The other will create a Built Works Registry through the use of a credentialed Wikipedia-like strategy.

The second edition of the Bliss Classification (BC2) is a faceted classification scheme which reworks the original Bliss Classification, devised a century ago. It compares favourably in terms of its wealth of detail, the fineness of its analysis, its flexibility and the conciseness of its notation with its main rivals, the Library of Congress Classification, the Dewey Decimal Classification and the Universal Decimal Classification. The Art class, W, is one of the most detailed and best organised of the BC2 schedules, with the caveat that the author did not find the giving of priority to place over period and the listing of individual artists separately from their periods and places to be the most helpful arrangement. However, room is left for alternative arrangements within the scheme.

artlibraries.net, formerly the VKK, is an international specialised meta catalogue allowing the integrated retrieval of bibliographic records and, should the occasion arise, other objects from distinctive art historical databases. This article analyses artlibraries.net from a functional point of view, but also discusses the cataloguing and subject indexing practice prevailing in art libraries internationally. It aims to identify some parameters for the future of art bibliography.