When the family of a major film maker offers you his archive, what do you do? University of the Arts London rose to this challenge, and achieved a major strategic goal – creation of a state-of-the-art Archives and Special Collections Centre, which would be a fitting demonstration of the University’s mission and aspirations and of Stanley Kubrick’s legacy. Through project management and collaboration, in less than two years, the flagship Centre was established. It will be a beacon of good practice and inspiration for future creative practitioners in the arts.

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.

The National Art Library’s collection of artists’ books is described here by one of the librarians, who is herself trained as a book artist, having completed an MA in Book Arts at Camberwell College of Art. She has built upon this knowledge through working with the large numbers of artists’ books at the NAL and begins this article by discussing the terminology relating to the book arts, going on to talk about the history of the NAL’s collection and touching on its future. She finishes by highlighting a few very distinctive items available for consultation.

I’ve called this paper ‘The New Bauhaus: an art education for the 21st century’ – and it involves an element of prediction, which is always high risk in the unpredictable worlds of art and design. Let me start, as a cautionary tale and as a curtain-raiser, with the example of a designer who thought he was rather good at looking ahead.

In June 2006, just a year ago, in Paris – between the Seine and the Eiffel Tower – a new museum opened. The musée du quai Branly is dedicated to non-European arts and civilisations. At the heart of this museum is a médiathèque.

arthistoricum.net is a new web portal launched by the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich and Heidelberg University Library, in cooperation with the Institute for Art History at the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich. Other partners include the Saxon State and University Library in Dresden, and the project is part of the DFG funding programme for virtual subject libraries. The departure point for the portal is the bibliographic tracing and subject indexing of the digital achievements of international art history (websites and online publications). Building upon this core task, the portal’s fundamental purpose is to increase use of these resources and to develop digital working methods.

The Carpet Archives Centre was established in Kidderminster in late 2001 by The Carpet Museum Trust, in response to offers of archive collections by local companies in the town as the carpet industry in the United Kingdom contracted. These collections are about carpets but not just about carpets for they illustrate design, technology, social history and the close links between the industry and the town. A grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2004 enabled the Trust to advance public access to these collections.

The collection of artists’ books at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in the Centre Georges Pompidou grew spontaneously at first, once the museum had been created, but since the end of the 1980s its growth has been much more deliberate. A formal acquisition policy has been introduced that ensures that gaps resulting from the early collecting history are filled; this also encourages the exploration of new directions in consultation with the Museum curators. Many activities are now undertaken to make the most of the holdings, such as exhibitions and seminars encouraging exploitation of the collection and ensuring continued analysis and debate.

This article describes the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, a unique archive of experimental art forms from the 1960s to the present, and how students and the general public make use of its welcoming access policies. It further addresses conservation efforts as they apply to a setting that strongly emphasizes hands-on usage of materials.

The town of High Wycombe is internationally renowned for furniture-making, and Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College holds important photographic material relating to the industry during the 20th century. Funding from the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council is now going to enable the archive collections to be digitised and made accessible via an interactive website. The team undertaking this initiative describes below both the process of the project and the content of the archive, discussing some of the challenges it faces and some of its aspirations for the future.