Exhibition catalogues are a key resource for art and design research, but smaller and more ephemeral catalogues are difficult for art librarians to collect. In the late 1980s and early 1990s a period of interest in the UK in the problems of collecting and cataloguing exhibition catalogues sparked off research into fresh approaches to the problem. In line with the resulting recommendations the National Art Library, at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, has developed two key initiatives. These are the Exhibition Catalogues Programme and a joint project with the British Library to increase access to smaller exhibition catalogues. Both are showing clear benefits for national access to published exhibition documentation.

The importance of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in the development of artistic projects and art institutions in Portugal should be seen in the context of the evolution of the political and cultural scene in this country during the 20th century. The Foundation houses two major art museums and, by developing art information resources, has helped fill cultural gaps at times when official support has been scarce. It has also played a key role in coping with the growing cultural demand of the last few decades, both in terms of art activities and art information. The Art Library and the Gulbenkian Museum are placing special emphasis on the need to integrate library and museum information resources, taking advantage of current technologies, in order to improve the services offered to users. Strategies envisaged by the Art Library demonstrate how this convergence can enhance the value of the different kinds of art resources each holds.

A brief description of the project to computerize Australia’s public art collections and the development of Cataloguer’s Manual for the Visual Arts.

Fluxus is a radical art movement, started by George Maciunas and others in 1962, which is still having a profound effect on advanced art movements of the 1970s and 1980s. By using excerpts from publications; an early essay by George Brecht; and unpublished letters by George Maciunas to several artists drawn from the collection of Gilbert and Lila Silverman, we are able to trace the development of Fluxus publishing concepts and also sense the political foundation of the movement. The article is prefaced by Gilbert B. Silverman’s introductory remarks on the formation and purposes of his collection.

The Slide Library of the Design Council offers a reference and a loan service to institutions and individuals; copies of some slides are available for purchase. Slides are acquired from external sources or are specially made by the Design Council; they illustrate the history of design as well as contemporary design. The slides are classified by subject, and are listed in a published catalogue. The Slide Library also houses an archive which can be consulted by researchers.

Because this review will be partial in its survey and somewhat critical in tone, it may be as well to begin by applauding the overall achievement of AACR. Its long-awaited publication in 1967 helped enormously to clear the cataloguing air. Here at last was a convincing demonstration that behind all the craft mysteries of cataloguing there lay a logic, a rationale; that it was not just a matter of following a few rule of thumb procedures. For dealing with the general run of modern printed texts in English-speaking libraries the new code promised well.

Picture libraries have been developed to serve a wide range of public and private enthusiasms and needs. Collections of several kinds have evolved to serve different archival, commercial, teaching and private functions. Recent developments include advances in conservation and exploitation, the publication of directories, and the formation of associations of picture libraries. Technological advance may help provide opportunities for greater cooperation and more effective use of existing resources.

The private view card is a ubiquitous form of art ephemera. Produced in large quantities and circulated widely within the art world, it has evolved over time from the simple postcard invitation to a vehicle for graphic and artistic creative licence, taking on in the process the widest (and weirdest) forms. At the same time it becomes, retrospectively, vital documentation of that art world, providing information otherwise untraceable through more conventional publications.

Particular attention has been paid to the large museum library in the Netherlands in recent years. Two new large museum libraries came into existence not long ago, in Eindhoven and Rotterdam. And at the beginning of 2010 another one will open its doors in Amsterdam, that of the Stedelijk Museum. The importance of good art historical libraries for the dissemination of information and research is increasingly being recognized by their parent institutions, and is as a result being communicated to a broader audience. That there are sometimes great differences in the way each operates within its institution and towards its users will be made clear in this article.

Printed images provide vivid evidence concerning many facets of British history in the 16th and 17th centuries. Yet their exploitation has hitherto been inhibited partly by difficulties of access and partly by the lack of adequate means of searching for them by subject. In both respects, electronic technology is making major strides forward, as this article indicates with particular reference to a project aimed to make such material widely available in searchable, online form.

A previous article by this author discussed an emerging phenomenon on the Internet. That is, how the law, by denying copyright protection to certain kinds of digital works, may have restricted access to such works instead of liberating them, as was initially intended by the judiciary. This absurd conclusion has resulted from owners whose works are no longer protected by copyright law, who have resorted to restrictive contractual provisions on-line to control access and use of their works. And in turn, owners of such content are still able to generate revenue by charging a subscription fee for the right to gain access to the information contained therein. The result is particularly troubling to end users of digital content. If copyright law is no longer applicable, then what of the Fair Use/Fair Dealing defences available to users of these works? Does this mean that these defences are not applicable either? Are users of such content completely at the mercy of the owners’ terms and conditions of use as dictated by click-on agreements and Rules of Use posted on Web sites? This article discusses the application of Fair Dealing and Fair Use to Internet-based works, by examining the legislative and judicial responses to the ambiguities in their intellectual property protection which new technologies create.

Since 1950, and increasingly through the 1960s, designers from developed countries tried to help with the design problems of developing societies. They were usually more successful when they lived in the country in question for an extended period and worked closely with local people. During the 1970s developing countries became more independent and able to design for themselves. Little has been written about design in the Third World other than official and conference reports. A seminar in 1975 demonstrated that cooperation between countries, leading to self-help, should replace reliance on ‘international experts’. The most urgent need now is for a breakthrough in alternative energy technology, and this is most likely to come from the Third World.

An appreciation of the diversity of art library users and their information I needs, and of the literature of art, is a necessary prerequisite to consideration I of the objectives of cooperative collection development and resource sharing I among art libraries. The idea of cooperation gathered momentum after World I War 1, after it had become clear that no art library could ever be I comprehensive, and was put into practice after the Second World War, at I local and national levels. Local cooperative schemes were implemented at I Vienna and in Ohio State (ARLO); the Farmington Plan was by contrast an I example of a national programme. In the Federal Republic of Germany the I libraries belonging to the AKB operate a cooperative acquisitions scheme and I receive extra funding to allow them to specialise in particular subject areas in I addition to their normal acquisitions. The Fine Arts Library of Harvard I University participates in the Research Libraries Group Art and Architecture I Program. The concept of assigning different subjects and collection I responsibilities to different libraries in order to achieve comprehensive I coverage makes a lot of sense especially if in academic institutions links can be I developed between the library’s specialisation and the institution’s academic programme.

Use made of the graphic arts collections of the Russian State Library demonstrates the value of art libraries, and especially of collections of graphic arts and of pictorial materials, to artists. Among the artists who are most likely to benefit are illustrators and graphic designers, who are themselves engaged in the production of publications, and film makers. Conservators of buildings and of works of art also use art libraries. Libraries such as the Russian State Library can promote their collections by mounting exhibitions.

Responding to widespread changes in the role of the museum library, the National Gallery Library is adapting to join the research conversations within the institution, as well as in the wider arenas of art history and library history. Using the historic Eastlake Library as a focus, the library has been embarking on projects on several fronts: cataloguing rare books online; selective digitisation; collaboration with the Digital Cicognara project; publishing our own research; and establishing an innovative Collaborative Doctoral Partnership as one way of creating research opportunities for others.

What do academic librarians and fashion designers have in common? As designers produce a good—clothing—and librarians provide a service, it may seem like the two share no similarities. However, in recent years, both professions have been asked to do more with less. Designers are tasked with churning out clothing collections at a record rate while academic librarians have had to maintain and in some cases increase their level of service in the face of steadily decreasing budgets. One response to this relentless cycle in the fashion world is the development of slow fashion, a designer-oriented process that prioritizes producing fewer collections of clothing using materials that have less of an environmental impact. For libraries to respond to increasing demands, slow collection development is proposed and applied to building fashion resource collections in academic libraries.

The establishment of the national image repository hosted by the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) at the University for the Creative Arts was an early pioneering effort in the 1990s to provide shared online access and preservation for digitised visual arts collections. Over the 15 years since the VADS image repository was first launched, and as the internet has rapidly expanded and transformed, the VADS team has also sought project funding to explore and address new themes and issues that have emerged within the arts education sector. Three of these recent collaborative endeavours are detailed in this article: the Kultur II Group which is supporting the development of institutional repositories in the arts; the Spot the Difference project which is researching the emergence and extent of a perceived ‘copy and paste’ culture; and the Look-Here! project, which has worked with ten partners to foster digitisation skills and strategies in the arts.

The Bibliothèque nationale du Québec (BNQ), a legal deposit library established in 1968, holds an extensive collection of over 900 artists’ books. This special collection also includes illustrated books of French and Québécois origin; modern editions with fine bindings and limited ‘editions de luxe’. As of 1992, legal deposit expanded to include prints. This collection now comprises over 8,000 items. The artists’ books collection includes three major types: the fine limited edition, the book object and the unlimited edition, which reveal a range of work where the book is the site for visual experimentation. The BNQ is privileged to preserve this vital heritage, to promote its study and to make it known in the widest sense.

The needs of the researcher in the fine arts are considered. The nature of inter-lending in the field is outlined, and in particular, the role of the British Library Lending Division and its ability to supply this material are examined, together with an appraisal of its current stocks and acquisitions policy.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the British Library.

Although many levels of computer-aided indexing exist, most art indexers use the computer at a rudimentary level, to perform little more than alphabetising services. This problem is compounded by the lack of standardised vocabulary or thesaurus. Each indexing project has developed its own subject list. Even those which attempt some co-ordination with a standard source like Library of Congress Subject Headings find themselves modifying existing terms and adding new ones. The National Endowment for the Humanities and the Council on Library Resources funded a project to establish the need for a comprehensive art and architecture thesaurus and, as the first phase of a projected three-stage plan, to construct an architecture thesaurus.

This paper is written from the point of view of the indexer. Its intent is to describe how subject indexing activities in art are being aided by the use of computers. This discussion notes the current state of disarray among art subject indexing systems and suggests that the availability of a standardised vocabulary for art will provide an important adjunct to computerised indexing. This paper was delivered to the ARLIS/NA conference at San Francisco on 22 February 1981.