Needlework with a political theme is an example of the kind of art ‘outside the mainstream’ which tends to be documented inadequately or not at all. Information is likely to be unpublished, ephemeral, or not indexed. In supposedly free societies, this can be the result of a cultural conspiracy which allows, while ‘ignoring, condemning, or belittling’, the creative activities of women and of racial, ethnic, or class minorities. Librarians should ensure that library collections do not merely reflect the ‘mainstream’, in spite of the problems of collecting non-mainstream material and of making it accessible. In addition, librarians should be prepared to argue the case for acquiring such material, and should be active in promoting it. Librarians are in a unique position to help redefine art and culture.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts was established in Washington in 1981 to make known the achievements of women in the visual arts. Its Library and Research Center plays a central part in the Museum’s essentially educative role, providing information on art by women primarily by means of one of the largest specialised collections of materials on women’s art. This includes extensive archival files and a number of special collections. Ongoing projects include the compilation of a database on women artists, an inventory of works of art by women in private and public collections, and an index to women artists documented in group exhibition catalogues. The activities of the Library and Research Center demonstrate how this and other art libraries can counteract the neglect of women in the arts.

Since their appearance in the early 20th century, catalogues prepared for exhibitions of African art have undergone a gradual transformation. Beginning as mere checklists many of these publications have, in the 1970s and 80s, evolved into major scholarly works whose significance transcends their original purpose as guides to the exhibitions. Changes occurring over the years are traced through examination of the form and content of representative catalogues and by review of the reception by art historians of many of these works into the corpus of literature of African art. The growing importance of exhibition catalogues as important art historical documents is also demonstrated by a chronological analysis of bibliographic citations in the major scholarly journal of African art in the United States. Finally, scrutiny of sources and annotations included in an important bibliographic guide to the literature of African art indicates how firmly established the exhibition catalogue has become as one of the most important publication forms for the dissemination of scholarly writing on African art.

[This paper won the ARLIS/NA Gerd Muehsam Award for 1986. We hope to publish a sequel in a future issue, on exhibitions of African art in Africa and the development of catalogues written by Africans. Editor].

Third Text, subtitled “Third World perspectives on contemporary art and culture”, is a new journal which has been launched to fill a gap in the literature of contemporary art. It aims to promote wider discussion and a deeper understanding of the work of Third World and black artists than can be provided from an exclusively Eurocentric or “Western” viewpoint. Its scope and purpose, as demonstrated by the contents of early issues, is explained by Guy Brett, writing on behalf of the editors and at the invitation of the Art Libraries Journal; readers must judge its success for themselves.

Art bibliographies published in the USA and the UK are notable for their quantity and diversity, for the breadth of their overall scope, and for their aim to document art of the whole world. However, their selection of material tends to favour both publications from their own countries, and art which, along with associated publications, benefits from commercial promotion; their approach to art and art scholarship in socialist countries is biased and inadequate. (Originally published in Russian, in Bibliotekovedenie i Bibliografia za Rubezhom no. 109, 1986, p.41-48).