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Arty choke: acquisitions and ephemera

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2016

Nik Pollard
Nik Pollard*
Affiliation:
Aberdeen College of Education
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Abstract

Art libraries, guided in part by unquestioned assumptions and market forces, tend to buy the same books while neglecting ‘ephemeral’ primary material which can often be acquired cheaply, which will be vital data for future historians, and which is likely to inspire artists then as it does now. Collections of ephemera invariably attract donations, research, and recognition. Reliance on books to document this material means accepting a selective and perhaps misleading view, at second hand, after a lapse of time. Reassessment of the significance of the images and artefacts thrown-up by our culture by means of printing and other mass-production techniques, might lead to the cooperative, rationalised acquisition, by art libraries, of both books and ephemera, and to the exploitation of the latter by inter-library lending of original material or of slides.

Type
Research Article
Information
Art Libraries Journal , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , Winter 1977 , pp. 4 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 1977

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References

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