Global Memory Net is a multi-year digital library project supported by the International Digital Library Programme of the US National Science Foundation. It has already digitally preserved and documented a number of art collections relating to indigenous groups, particularly in the Far East. So far it includes those of 56 ethnic groups in China and 54 minority ethnic groups in Vietnam; the Naxi Collection of the Library of Congress Asian Division; Taiwan Memory; and many others are included in its World Digital Collection which relate to relevant populations across the world. A more recent development is a partnership with UNESCO’s World Heritage Center: the establishment of the first virtual US World Heritage Digital Center, using Global Memory Net’s technology to provide multimedia and multilingual information on the 851 world heritage sites of 141 countries.

Moulds are an ever-present threat to library collections and in 2007 a serious outbreak occurred at Tate Library and Archive. Early detection followed by prompt action ensured that any lasting damage was prevented. Services continued to be offered to users during a two-month period while collections were inaccessible as environmental conditions were improved and the mould infestation was eradicated. The keys to success were good communication with library users, advice from experts in the field of building health problems and the willingness of Library and Archive staff to clean a quarter of a million volumes.

The Bibliotheca Wittockiana in Brussels houses an impressive array of bindings that shows the glories of this very special decorative art. The collection does not aim to be an exhaustive historical survey, but reflects the taste of one man, Michel Wittock, beginning with his early interest in 16th-century Italian bindings and later those of 19th-century France, and culminating in many beautiful examples of abstraction in French and Belgian bindings of the 20th century. These works are housed in a purpose-built 1980s building designed by Emmanuel de Callatay and extended 15 years later by Wittock’s architect son Charly, and are shared with an appreciative public in the museum’s reading room and through regular displays in the three large exhibition spaces.

Mr James Christie (1730-1803) became London’s premier auctioneer in the 1760s and he was still at the top of his profession at his death in 1803. This brief history of the man and his auction house outlines his early career in Covent Garden, the setting up of his own auction rooms during the 1760s and some of his early successes. He came to rely less on the three D’s: Death, Divorce and Debt (still the primary reason for selling at auction in the 21st century) for the source of goods, and also moved away from run-of-the-mill anonymous household furniture sales. Christie encouraged a new breed of seller – the lords and ladies of the land together with princes and royals – and the article highlights a few of the varied characters who entrusted James Christie with the sale of their property.

Here are some valuable tips for searching the web professionally for antiquarian books, and some helpful quality control for some of the book metasearch engines. It is important to remember that it is much more productive to use one of these engines than simply to use Abebooks. One can also search for books at auctions, although this takes a lot more time since no metasearch engines are currently available.

Papunya Tula Artists is a company owned and directed by Aboriginal people from the Western Desert, predominantly from the Luritja and Pintupi language groups. It currently has 49 shareholders and represents around 120 artists. The broad aims of the company are to promote individual artists, and to provide economic development for the communities to which they belong, thereby preserving and extending their traditional culture. Towards the end of 1993 the Art Gallery of New South Wales entered into a formal partnership with the company to assist it in preserving, copying and providing access to their immensely important archival records. The project, which at first seemed straightforward and easily manageable, raised a number of important issues about the provision of archival services for Indigenous art and provides a useful case study for reflecting on these.

The Ontario College of Art & Design is a university that provides undergraduate education to a markedly diverse student body. Although the Dorothy H. Hoover Library offers proactive information literacy programming targeting academic research needs, only peripheral support was traditionally given to studio practice. To rectify this gap the reference librarians, in dialogue with selected design and art faculty, endorsed a Library exhibition program using the Library as both case study and exhibition site. An analysis of several works featured in a recent exhibition demonstrates how art can establish an eloquent dialogue with a visually-oriented learning community and lead to the examination of key philosophical and ethical issues in librarianship.

In 1644, the famous Dutch scholar Nicolas Heinsius wrote to his friend Johannes Fredericus Gronovius that there were only two important libraries in Antwerp: that of the Jesuits and that of Balthasar Moretus II, the most important printer of his time, who had supplied him with some manuscripts of Ovid. At that point the catalogue of Moretus’s library comprised 2985 titles, nearly 400 more than the library of Leuven University with its 2600 titles. Heinsius tried several times to convince Moretus to sell his library but, fortunately for Antwerp, Moretus refused to do so. In this article I will demonstrate why we should be so delighted with Moretus’s decision to keep his library intact and preserve it for the future.

In 1987 the Vlaams Theater Instituut (VTi) was born, as a result of the need to support and identify the ambitions of a new generation of performing artists in Flanders and Brussels, to document and investigate the context of this turbulent but artistically exceptional period, and to develop appropriate policy instruments for this burgeoning practice. Twenty years on, and the artistic and social context has changed radically. Initiatives that were played out on the fringes ‘back then’ we now see right at the centre of things. Today the need to keep documenting, investigating and reflecting is just as relevant as it was in those days. Moreover, the VTi can now explore the value of 20 years of metadata creation in new ways.

The large number of donations to the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library in Antwerp, and the inevitable expenditure of time involved in dealing with them, gave rise to the author’s research into this form of acquisition, and in turn to publication of a guide outlining the most efficient way of handling them. The article outlines and explains the steps which should be taken to manage donations, bequests and transfers from other libraries, from basic advice such as including a section on donations in the library’s collection development policy, to the importance of efficient record-keeping in order to avoid disputes.

This review of selected paper and electronic resources on Native American art describes what is available at the Haskell Indian Nations University Library and Archives in Lawrence, Kansas; the Institute of American Indian Arts Library and Archives in Santa Fe, New Mexico; the H.A. & Mary K. Chapman Library and Archives at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and the Billie Jane Baguley Library and Archives at the Heard Museum Library in Phoenix, Arizona. These four institutions develop and maintain resources and collections on Native American art and make the information they contain about indigenous groups available not only to their users and other scholars but also to the wider world.

Vitterhetsakademiens Library (The Library of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities) at the Swedish National Heritage Board is a partner in the development of new services in Sweden, both physically at the Library and digitally on the internet. An agreement signed by four partners in September 2007 aimed to strengthen and develop the Library’s services to the research community. In 2005 seven libraries in Stockholm formed a network with the specific aim of improving the quality of library services for research in the humanities. And in 2007 a new internet search service was launched which enables cross searching of major databases that cover various aspects of the Swedish cultural heritage; this includes two databases hosted by the Library. This process of cutting across institutional and sectoral borders has been facilitated by modern technology.

The Rubenianum is an internationally renowned research centre for the study and documentation of 16th- and 17th-century Flemish art, especially art by Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens the elder. Located next to the historic garden of Rubens House in the centre of Antwerp, it was created in 1947 to house the documentation that was generated during the renovation of the site. In 1963 its collection was considerably enriched by the archives of the art historian Ludwig Burchard. The Rubenianum also houses the ‘Centrum voor de Vlaamse Kunst van de 16e en de 17e eeuw’ which publishes the Corpus Rubenianum. A major project since 2004 has been the digital resource ‘Rubensonline’, which includes all known works by Rubens in public collections in Belgium.