In Spring 1999 the Art Libraries Society/The Netherlands (OKBN) plans to organize a conference on ‘Book & Image: Visual Resources and Art Libraries’, to discuss various aspects of the whereabouts, accessibility and use of visual resources in art libraries and other collections of art historical documentation. By doing this we hope to increase awareness amongst art librarians and visual resource librarians of the necessity of communicating questions and sharing their experiences. In particular we need to find new ways of co-operating in order to meet the challenges posed by new technological developments and future users. A small working group of ARLIS-NL members, joined by some colleagues from slide libraries and visual archives, already meets bi-monthly for brainstorming sessions aimed at preparing an attractive and challenging program for this event.

In the last third of the 19th century, Berlin was the undisputed capital of the German clothing and fashion industry on an international scale. Several publishing houses specialized in the production of fashion magazines for different target groups. One of the success stories in this context is that of the publisher Franz Lipperheide and his wife Frieda. In 1865, they founded their own company, publishing the journal Die Modenwelt: Illustrirte Zeitung für Toilette und Handarbeiten. This journal quickly became the most-read fashion journal in Berlin. By the company's 25th anniversary in 1890, a total of 12 international editions of the journal was published with around 500,000 subscribers. The economic success of their company allowed the Lipperheides to create extensive private collections that reflected their deep interest in cultural-historical topics as well as textile art.

This paper focuses on their collection of source material for costume studies, which is now known as the ‘Sammlung Modebild—Lipperheidesche Kostümbibliothek’ (Fashion Image Collection—Lipperheide Costume Library), a department of the Kunstbibliothek at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The paper presents its history, some collection highlights and the various means of access (catalogues, exhibition catalogues and online access).

How can special collections and archives (SCA) services contribute to the development of creativity in higher education students? An understanding of how creativity is developed can help those who work with special collections and archives to better design sessions that facilitate this development. Creativity is defined, put in context, and discussed as a metacognitive process. SCA as an environment that can contribute to the development of creativity is explored, along with the importance of the learner voice and pedagogical tools that allow for the facilitation of metacognitive experiences.

A case study concerning the in-house digitization of a small collection of Central Saint Martins graduate fashion shows. The background of the collection is outlined (VHS and DVD recordings spanning from 1979 to present), as well as the workflow put in place to deal with the technical aspects of recording, cataloguing, processing and archiving an audio-visual collection with minimal budget and staffing.

Backstage, a major resource discovery project for the performing arts, aims to create a single portal for information on performing arts holdings across the UK. Its content will combine directory-style information for individual institutions with more detailed collection level and item level records. The project has provided an opportunity for cross-sectoral working for the main partners – a group of universities led by Kent and Bristol, plus the Theatre Museum and the Institute for Learning & Research Technology – but problems of uneven funding available to the different sectors have had to be overcome. The project was due for completion in October 2002.

Liberty’s textile archive is probably unique in the way it is set up, both through its ownership and in its make-up. It shows only one aspect of the firm’s history, although arguably its most important one. It is of interest not only because of the Liberty fabrics, but for 19th-century textiles in general, as it includes material from most of that century. The main purpose of the archive is to act as a reference library for the in-house studios; however, limited access is offered to specialist users from outside the company.

Mexico has played an important role in art and architecture since the prehispanic period, and has contributed not only to the spread of Mexican culture but also to the enrichment of the art world in general. But Mexican art and architecture have been poorly covered by indexes and abstracts, possibly because many of the relevant periodicals have been short-lived, or because of the use of the Spanish language, or due to intermittent financial resources. Nevertheless creators of bibliographical tools such as databases in Mexico are convinced of their country’s cultural richness, and are committed to spreading information in this subject area, whatever difficulties may be encountered.

Successor to Thieme-Becker and Vollmer, those great standard reference works for art history, the Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon is an even more ambitious undertaking which will eventually include entries for between 450,000 and 500,000 artists. The data will be published in a number of ways: in book format (including a couple of spin-off versions in hard copy), CD-ROM and, increasingly, online. This article describes the developments one AKL editor has witnessed in the production process for the projected 80 volumes of the complete work, and outlines its role as an authority for artists’ names.

Following Nicole Picot’s visit to England, the subject of the report printed above, Gillian Varley from the National Art Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London spent two weeks at the Bibliothèque Publique d’Information at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, during the summer of 1988. She also visited a number of other art libraries in Paris. The text of her report is followed by extracts from her diary of her trip.

My employment as a slide curator followed a fascination with the slide lectures given by my studio instructors that revealed what interested and inspired them. Working daily with a slide collection is rewarding in providing resources for those teaching and studying the history of art. It provides me in turn with an overview of how art changes and repeats itself both in content and style, as governments rise, fall and merge, and religious beliefs and social conditions change.

Founded on the collection of the fashion magazine publisher Franz Lipperheide, the Costume Library is a reference library open to the public, comprising material in many forms documenting dress in all times and places together with such related subjects as personal appearance, textiles, and social behaviour. The collection continues to grow through the purchase of newly-published and historic items.

The French national museum libraries service comprises 21 libraries specialising in the history of western art and archaeology. The central library, which is at the head of the network, was automated first and has completed its retrospective conversion. At first this library catalogued the material acquired for all the others; then a number of them were able in their turn to computerise and thus contribute directly to the union catalogue of the national museum libraries. This can now be consulted on the internet site of the Ministry of Culture.

In 1975 the Library at Preston Polytechnic undertook the task of reorganising and developing a collection of slides previously in the custody of the School of Art and Design. Circumstances dictated that the collection be organised for maximum use and minimal maintenance. The slides have been classified by 18th Dewey and housed in transparent sheets of pockets suspended in filing cabinets, enabling borrowers to browse and help themselves.

Wolfgang Freitag’s seminal article, ‘The indivisibility of art librarianship’, published in the Art libraries journal in 1982, occasioned a revisiting of the premises of that article for the historic joint conference of ARLIS/NA and the Visual Resources Association in St. Louis in 2001 to see how his thesis stood the test of time. The two articles that follow, one each by Wolfgang Freitag and Martha Mahard, are reflections on the original article and the course of events in the intervening twenty years. They are published jointly, here and in Art documentation.