This article describes the background to and present existence of photographic collections in the UK, and attempts to create a co-ordinated policy for acquisitions and recording, culminating in the National Photographic Record and the publication of the Directory of British Photographic Collections. The implications of various recent pieces of legislation for the future of photographic collections are considered, and proposals for a ‘National Photographic Archive’ utilising aspects of the new technology are outlined. This paper was first delivered at the Royal Society of Arts, London, on 17 November 1982, and subsequently published in the Royal Society of Arts Journal vol. CXXXI, no. 5318, January 1983.

In the 1970s the Sächsische Landesbibliothek formulated policies for the collection and documentation of archival material in the fine arts. Based on a rich existing collection, the Library was able to expand its acquisitions programme by systematic searching and soliciting of material. The scope and some of the specific strengths of the collection are described, as are those of the Akademie der Künste der DDR and the archive of the National-Galerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin. The article has been translated from the original German by Vera Kaden and Tom French.

An outline of the project for a computerised index to the Witt Library in the Courtauld Institute of Art, this article is substantially a written version of the paper delivered at the ARLIS / UK Conference, Brighton, 1983.

Iconclass is a classification of subjects, themes and motifs in Western art. It was developed and published in Holland, at the University of Leiden, with financial aid from both the Netherlands Organisation for the Advancement of Pure Research (Z. W.O.) and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Iconclass is used in a growing number of projects, whether computerised or not. One of these projects could be the Witt Library pilot project, discussed elsewhere in this issue of the Art Libraries Journal (pp. 27-31).

In this paper the classification as such is briefly explained, mainly with the help of two examples: scenes from the stories of St. Antony Abbot and Hercules. Information on the alphabetical index to the classification is given, mainly because this extensive part of Iconclass is something more than the usual index to a publication.

Applications of the classification are dealt with in diagrammatic form; one application, the Iconclass bibliography, is discussed in greater detail.