This paper summarizes a subset of the findings of a study of digital image distribution which focused on the Museum Educational Site Licensing Project (MESL) - the first large-scale multi-institutional project to explore digital delivery of art images and accompanying text/metadata from disparate sources. This Mellon Foundation sponsored study evaluated the costs, infrastructure, and efforts involved in implementing the MESL project, as well as user reaction to functionality. The study also examined costs of running analog slide libraries and compared these to costs and functionality associated with digital image distribution.

Since its establishment in 1934 Silpakorn University has been recognized as the oldest, and one of the best, institutes of art and design education in Thailand. The University Library is believed to contain the foremost collection on art and art education in the country even though, in the past, its capacity to serve the public was constrained by inadequate bookstock and limited physical space. In order to expand its ability to serve the public and to enhance the development of art education in the country, a research project entitled ‘Electronic Resources on Art in Thailand (ERA)’ was launched in 1998, with the objective of creating an online source of information which would be useful both to the public and to professional artists and designers.

México ha jugado un papel importante en las artes plásticas y en la arquitectura desde la época prehispánica, y ha contribuido no solamente a difundir la cultura mexicana sino que ha enriquecido la cultura universal. No obstante estas disciplinas no están bien representadas en índices y resúmenes; probablemente esta situación se deba a la falta de continuidad de los títulos de publicaciones periódicas más relevantes, o por el uso del idioma español, o quizás por recursos financieros limitados. A pesar de que la situación no es óptima, los creadores de bases de datos sobre artes plásticas y arquitectura de México, estamos convencidos de la riqueza cultural de nuestro país y nos sentimos comprometidos a difundirla a pesar de las dificultades que ello representa.

Mexico has played an important role in art and architecture since the prehispanic period, and has contributed not only to the spread of Mexican culture but also to the enrichment of the art world in general. But Mexican art and architecture have been poorly covered by indexes and abstracts, possibly because many of the relevant periodicals have been short-lived, or because of the use of the Spanish language, or due to intermittent financial resources. Nevertheless creators of bibliographical tools such as databases in Mexico are convinced of their country’s cultural richness, and are committed to spreading information in this subject area, whatever difficulties may be encountered.

About the only way a small non-profit art museum and its library can hope to create and disseminate information about both its art and bibliographic collections is through collaboration and co-operation. The Akron Art Museum, the University of Akron Libraries, and OhioLink (the state-wide library and multimedia consortium) joined forces to compile the necessary records, images and software to connect information in the museum library’s catalogue to image files, and other biographic and bibliographic databases. Selected portions of the newly created resources are refashioned and merged with web-based lesson plans for use within the museum itself, out in the greater metropolitan area, and wherever Internet-based web resources can reach.

The British Film Institute (BFI) has been collecting documentation and ephemera relating to the cinema since its own inception in 1933. These collections have grown into a valuable resource for the researcher into cinema and television history, as well as reflecting artistic trends prevailing at the time of production. Although modest when set beside the posters, stills, designs and museum objects held at the BFI, the collections of press or campaign books and general ephemera should not be overlooked.

Collecting and preserving heritage materials across the broad spectrum of the performing arts on a national scale is a daunting task. Much of the material is as ephemeral and as transitory as the theatrical experience itself. In Australia there is a realistic acceptance of the need for a distributed national collection. An active network of individuals and institutions are working to ensure the preservation of the country’s performing arts heritage and to enhance access to those collections, increasingly by electronic means.

When national museums and galleries were still a relatively new form of public institution, official policies of accessibility and popular education were frequently expressed through a sustained use of metaphor drawn from the discourse of the book. Museums became repositories of knowledge or sources of information on good design, and the visitors readers of objects. Such rhetorical devices could prove counter-productive, for they were based on assumptions, not facts, about the extent of popular literacy and the nature and diversity of reading practices, and yet this form of conceptualisation affected the form, content and quantity of early museum and gallery publications.

In 1966 John Latham and some friends began chewing Clement Greenberg’s book Art and culture: collected essays. The resulting art work, entitled Art and Culture (1966-1969), is now recognised as a seminal conceptual art work and is part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Latham, however, had borrowed the book from St. Martin’s School of Art library and when he was unable to return it in a suitable condition his teaching contract was not renewed. This essay looks at the history of the work, the ideas behind its creation, and the issues it raises for the culture of the book today.