Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:05:56.644Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kyffin Williams online: creating a digital resource for an art collection at the National Library of Wales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

Gareth Lloyd Roderick
Gareth Lloyd Roderick*
Affiliation:
National Library of Wales, Penglais Road, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, SY23 3BU, UK
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

When Sir Kyffin Williams, RA died in 2006 he bequeathed a large section of his estate to the National Library of Wales (NLW) – an institution with which the artist, most known for his landscape paintings of north-west Wales, had a long association. Combined with material already in the NLW’s collections, there are now over 200 works in oil, over 1200 works on paper and a comprehensive archive held at Aberystwyth. The collection’s presence in a library rather than museum or gallery raises questions of how the work can be displayed or exhibited. In this essay I will give some background to this collection and the wider art holdings of the National Library of Wales before discussing how geo-spatial approaches are being used to display this collection digitally. This work is being completed as a collaborative Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarship (KESS) PhD project between Aberystwyth University School of Art and the National Library of Wales. KESS is part-funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) through the European Union’s Convergence Programme (West Wales and the Valleys) administered by the Welsh Government.

Type
Research Article
Information
Art Libraries Journal , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , 2014 , pp. 5 - 9
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Williams, J.K. (1973), Across the Straits (Llandysul: Gamer, 2004), 1.Google Scholar
2. Williams, , Across the Straits, 136.Google Scholar
3. Williams, , Across the Straits, 209.Google Scholar
4. UK Auction News (2013), ‘Rogers Jones Co First Welsh Sale in New Cardiff Saleroom sets £50,000 Kyffin Williams Records.’ http://www.ukauctionnews.com/2013/07/rogers-jones-co-first-welsh-sale-in-new.html. Accessed 30 August 2013.Google Scholar
5. BBC News Wales (2012), ‘Sir Kyffin Williams art tops Auction Sales.’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17965005. Accessed: 30 August 2013.Google Scholar
6. Stephens, M., ‘Sir Kyffin Williams, painter of iconic mountain landscapes of North Wales,’ The Independent, 2 September, 2006. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/sir-kyffin-williams-414343.html. Accessed: 21/08/2013.Google Scholar
7. National Library of Wales, Charter of Incorporation and report on the progress of the Library (Oswestry: Woodall, Minshall, Thomas & Co., Caxton Press, 1909) 28.Google Scholar
8. Bell, D., The Artist in Wales (London: Harrap, 1957) 185-6.Google Scholar
9. Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru National Library of Wales, Annual Report 1945-1946 (Aberystwyth: Private Press of the Library, 1946) 13.Google Scholar
10. Zorich, D.M., Transitioning to a digital world, Art history, its research centres and digital schohrship (Report to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, 2012) 22.Google Scholar
11. Benjamin, W., (1936) ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.’ In Illuminations ed. Arendt, Hannah. (London: Pimlico, 1999) 214.Google Scholar
12. Moretti, F., Graphs, Maps, Trees (London: Verso, 2005) 1.Google Scholar
13. Green, A., ‘Digital Library, open library: developments in the National Library of Wales” Alexandria, 14, (2002): 161–170. Accessed 20 August 2013. http://www.Ugc.org.uk/fileadmin/documents/pdf/alexandria_S.pdf CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14. Neatline, ‘Plugins, Neatline’ http://neatline.org/plugins/neatline/. Accessed: 30 August 2013.Google Scholar
15. Borgman, Christine L., From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure: Access to Information in the Networked World (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000), 48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar