The London College of Communication (LCC) Zine Collection was founded in July 2009 and now contains more than 4,000 zines. It is the most heavily used special collection at LCC Library. This article outlines the history and development of the collection, its uses in teaching, learning and research, and its value for widening access to, and representing diversity in an academic library environment.

The Materials Library at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar is the only one of its kind in the Arab Gulf region. The library's mission is to provide students and faculty with access to various industries’ most innovative materials and products. But collection efforts are frequently challenged by the school's geographical location. How can a diverse and eclectic materials collection develop and expand in the face of strict customs regulations, exorbitant shipping costs, and, most recently, a political crisis that has severely restricted the country's airspace and shipping routes? A supportive administration and a creative approach to materials procurement have helped the library become an academic and community hub for the research and creative productivity of students, faculty, and local artists and designers.

This article outlines the origin and development of picture lending services in Germany and the United Kingdom and explains the cross-fertilisation of ideas between Germany and the United Kingdom which has led to the present spread of collections in both countries. However economic constraints are now affecting the working of existing services and limiting the establishment of new ones, and new methods of financial distribution are necessary.

The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, based at Los Angeles, has developed rapidly since its foundation in 1969. The Resource and Research Center, established in 1975, has from its beginning aimed to achieve and to promote services of the highest quality. The Center comprises specialised units and a central core; the specialised units include two subject divisions (Textiles, Interior Design) which house appropriate collections (such as fabric swatches and trade literature), a Costume Library (a collection of over 2,000 garments and accessories), and the International Fashion Video Library which will be the subject of a separate article in a future issue of the Art Libraries Journal. A comprehensive user education programme is complemented by outreach activities and special events; the Center also lends itself to the role of promoting the FIDM in the community and strengthening its ties with industry.

The research project Digital Archive of Belgian Neo-Avant-garde Periodicals (DABNAP) aims to digitize and analyse a large number of artists’ periodicals from the period 1950–1990. The artistic renewal in Belgium since the 1950s, sustained by small groups of artists (such as G58 or De Nevelvlek), led to a first generation of post-war artist periodicals. Such titles proved decisive for the formation of the Belgian neo-avant-garde in literature and the visual arts. During the sixties and the seventies, happening and socially-engaged art took over and gave a new orientation to artist periodicals. In this article, I wish to highlight the challenges and difficulties of this project, for example, in dealing with non-standard formats, types of paper, typography, and non-paper inserts. A fully searchable archive of neo-avant-garde periodicals allows researchers to analyse in much more detail than before how influences from foreign literature and arts took root in the Belgian context.

Australia has traditionally adopted a Eurocentric outlook which has begun to be modified in the last decade by reappraisal of the country’s location in the Asia-Pacific region. The Australian National Gallery has only recently developed its collections of the textiles of South and Southeastern Asia and of related research materials, yet it already accommodates the world’s leading public collection of Indian textiles exported to Southeast Asia. Acquisition of both contemporary and antiquarian library materials has been complicated by the range of languages and cultures involved, the history of the textile trade, colonial publishing, and the problems encountered in dealing with a varying degree of organisation in local publishing and distribution. Nonetheless, with patience, as a result of travelling, by means of networking, and with the help of distributors, it has proved possible to build a worthwhile collection without depending too exclusively on Western publications.

For the past fifteen years the Getty Provenance Index has developed a series of projects that index auction catalogues, beginning with British catalogues of the 19th century and followed by French, Dutch, German and Belgian catalogues of the same period or earlier. This has led to the discovery of many previously unrecorded catalogues, most notably German and Belgian, providing a strong incentive to consider how Frits Lugt’s Répertoire des Catalogues de Ventes should eventually be revised, and even brought up to date. The Getty projects also include automating the individual items in the catalogues, which has led not only to much new data about the provenance of paintings held by museums in many parts of the world, but has also helped to identify the owners of collections found in previously anonymous sale catalogues.

Learning about Japanese art has been difficult for Westerners. Limited access, language barriers, and cultural misunderstanding have been almost insurmountable obstacles. Knowledge of Japanese art in the West began over 150 years before the arrival of Commodore Perry in 1853. Englebert Kaempfer (1657-1716), sent to Japan as a physician for the Dutch East India Company, befriended a young assistant who provided information for a book on Japanese life and history published in 1727. By 1850, more ethnographic information had been published in Europe. Catalogs of sales of Japanese art in Europe exist prior to 1850 and collection catalogs from major museums follow in the second half of that century. After the Meiji Restoration (1867) cultural exchange was possible and organizations for that purpose were formed. Diaries of 19th century travellers and important international fairs further expanded cross-cultural information. Okakura Kakuzo, a native of Japan, published in English about Japanese art and ultimately became Curator of the important collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The advent of photography made visual images easily accessible to Westerners. Great collectors built up the holdings of major American museums. In the 20th century, materials written and published in Japan in English language have furthered understanding of Japanese culture. During the past twenty years, travelling exhibitions and scholarly catalogs have circulated in the West. Presently monographs, dissertations and translated scholarly texts are available. Unfortunately, there is little understanding in the West of the organization of Japanese art libraries and archives which contain primary source material of interest to art historians.

The ongoing economic recession together with redirection of dwindling educational resources towards the sciences, with less and less for culture, appears to some Canadian art librarians to be marginalizing art library collections and art librarianship. In any case, the current cultural climate invites a broader definition of ‘art’ that encompasses multiculturalism. Another source of concern is the increasing emphasis in our library schools on training information generalists, although the schools are simply addressing workplace preoccupations with technical and administrative skills. It can be more satisfying to teach art librarianship to practising librarians than to students of librarianship with differing backgrounds, expectations and motivation. In Canada, there is a need for art library associations to be instruments of positive change, by offering courses and workshops, and especially by taking advantage of teleconferencing methods to extend educational programs to librarians and students across the country.

Gaining access to primary research materials is critical to the support of research and learning. The Research Libraries Group’s initiatives to make archival materials, and museum objects and their records, available in an electronic environment are exploring the technical possibilities of achieving international, integrated access to textual and visual materials. That seamless web of resources so desired by researchers is getting ever closer to reality.

The Melva J. Dwyer Award was established in honour of Melva Dwyer, a founding member of CARLIS, upon her retirement after 31 years of distinguished service on behalf of Canadian art librarianship and as Fine Arts Librarian at the University of British Columbia. The award is presented to the best Canadian art reference work, broadly interpreted, produced by a Canadian author. Unlike other awards, the Dwyer Award is a limited edition print by Calgary artist Susan Ford that incorporates both the concept and title of the prize. Eight awards have been presented so far, in addition to the first of the ten prints which was presented to Melva Dwyer in 1987.

Within higher education courses are being designed which emphasise the acquisition of learning skills rather than the absorption of ‘blocks’ of subject knowledge. Such courses indicate the way in which library-based learning skills can be developed alongside other learning skills, and also show the necessity of the librarian’s involvement in course design teams. This approach to library teaching has been developed most, perhaps, in art and design libraries where the demands of the ‘hidden curriculum’ have always been felt, if not overtly acknowledged.

(The text of a paper presented at the ARLIS Seminar on User Education held at Leeds Polytechnic, 7-8 April, 1978.)

A project to enhance access to architectural drawings and manuscripts has recently begun at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. Two major collections of designs - those in the V&A’s Prints, Drawings and Paintings Collection and those in the Special Collections of the British Architectural Library at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) - will be housed together at the Museum from 2003. In this article two of the V&A’s curators outline the planning for the move, which involves modifying existing space to provide new accommodation for staff, storage and consultation by the public, and describe the broader partnership between the two institutions, which promises much for the study and appreciation of architecture.

Canadian publishing was inhibited from the beginning by Canada’s colonial origins and dependence on Great Britain and the USA. Few art books were published until quite recently; the relatively small, scattered population, the flooding of the market with British, American and (in Quebec) French books, and limited (at best) or non-existent sales outside Canada continue to be constraining factors. The necessity to include both English and French texts adds to the cost of book production in Canada. The publication of art books, and of exhibition catalogues, depends on the availability of government grants. Publications on the art of the North American Indian and Inuit peoples are an exception, attracting widespread interest and leading in some instances to co-publishing initiatives. In addition to the larger publishing houses, a number of small presses produce occasional art books, thanks to grants and in a few cases with the added benefit of sales abroad achieved through international networking. A government programme of support for Canadian publishing, launched in 1986, is continuing.

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 July of 2003 Corbis Corporation began an initiative to offer educational institutions fair-use access to the world’s largest and most diverse archive of digital images. At a time when many visual resource collections are struggling with how to satisfy the digital needs of their faculty and students, Corbis is hoping to help meet this challenge. Our experience with digital archive development and image management, albeit on a larger scale, closely mirrors much of what visual resource collections are tasked with today. This article introduces readers to Corbis and gives details about our collection of images, outlining what is available through the new Corbis Education program.

Art ephemera are an evocative resource that can document innovative art and convey diverse histories. This article looks at the relationship between such ephemera and contemporary art practices, and at the relative values given to ephemera by artists, curators and librarians and, in this context, considers integrated catalogues and online guides as methods of re-contextualising art ephemera in the library. Recent collaborative initiatives, and projects that identify and locate artists’ files are reviewed here and three themes are identified: the biographical approach, interfaces for distributed catalogues and the integration of art and its documentation.

A brief outline is given of events which in 1979 led to the Art and Design Library being moved out of the main faculty block at Grand Parade into an adjacent building. This is followed by a description and assessment of the improved facilities in the new library.

Acknowledgements are due to Leslie Willmot, site librarian from 1962-1977, for his help with information on the development of the Library. Photographs courtesy of Zul Mukhida.

Excellent organisational and communication skills, familiarity with available digital technology, and the ability to anticipate new developments are attributes art librarians require if they are to continue to be respected and valued professionals. Collaboration between museums, knowledge-sharing and merging library collections will cause individual museum libraries to disappear or be transformed into knowledge centres affiliated with museum collections. These will be a forum for discussion and the exchange of ideas between researchers and intellectuals who share a common passion. The infrastructure for art-related information will be a digital research environment where the indexing of research material is both unambiguous and exhaustive and integrally available.