This article provides a comprehensive review of Salt's approach to knowledge generation in art history, focusing on its role as a cultural institution in Turkey. The text explores the function of research institutions and the evolving role of archivists in preserving and disseminating knowledge to a broader user base. The paper examines the concept of the archive within the framework of transparency and contingency, specifically by reviewing chosen research and archival projects conducted by the institution. It elucidates diverse research methodologies employed in the analysis, representation, and availability of archival materials in these endeavors, underscoring the significance of user engagement in expanding knowledge.

This article explores how the National Poetry Library has developed its historic collection of vinyl LPs over the course of four years, describing the challenges of balancing the preservation of audio objects with their accessibility and discoverability, and examining the opportunities this unique collection presents in building new audiences.

Reclassifying a library is something which many librarians have tackled over the years. However, the task is always done with the technology and services available at the time of conversion. This is an account of reclassification using a modern Library Management System (ALMA), alongside our comments and tips on the sheer practicalities of moving every single book to another shelf location; all done, in our case, under the pall of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Integrating library instruction into studio art classes can be challenging for art librarians. While some courses have a research component, and thus a clear need for library instruction, many do not, requiring art librarians to creatively engage art students and faculty to demonstrate the value of the library in studio education. One way art librarians can do this is by encouraging students to see the library as a place for artistic inspiration through serendipitous discovery. But how can art librarians foster the idea of the library as a creative place through instruction? From the 1970s to the present day, studies have shown that artists and art students have a marked preference for browsing the stacks as an information seeking strategy. By aligning browsing with chance as an artistic practice and collaborating with studio art professors, art librarians can create dynamic and impactful learning experiences that lead to exciting outcomes in students’ studio courses. One possibility where serendipitous browsing's potential as a learning outcome can be explored is through the creation of book spine poetry, a found poetry technique where books are arranged so their titles create a poem.

The Digital Archive of Artists’ Publishing (DAAP) is an ethical, open source, artist-driven database of artist books and publications. DAAP recently received Heritage Lottery Funding to support the Women's Art Library (WAL) to build their own archives on the platform. Through a series of workshops, tutorials and drop-ins, artists represented in the WAL generated anecdotal, ‘gossipy’ histories which act as access points to artists’ books that may be out of print, limited in availability within institutional or public archives or libraries, or shared digitally for the first time. I will draw on a selection of records – an archive of examples – from the Women's Art Library on the Digital Archive of Artists’ Publishing to show how the database evolves in response to artists’ needs. These gorgeous, unruly catalogue records trouble, disrupt and bend metadata for queer use.1