‘A national art library’: if every one of these four words raises questions and demands qualification, together they suggest even more.

Art is so elusive and resistant to institutionalisation that no single library - ‘a’ national art library - could possibly have the omniscience and omnipresence (never mind the money) to collect everything: to take a UK example, how many libraries managed to collect the Freeze (1988) exhibition catalogue at the time? And who collected the ‘programme note’ from that one-off performance in a half-derelict warehouse in Penge? Co-operation and collaboration in collection development are needed to maximise the research resources available in any particular nation, to ensure the retention of last or archival copies - and any national art library must surely have a role in this. However, this just sets up a chain of secondary problems - with access and funding at the top of the list. Individual institutions ultimately have their own agendas and priorities: and this even applies to national institutions, where existing collection strengths may skew collecting priorities. Perhaps we have to accept an incomplete but vibrant mosaic: the librarian’s desire for comprehensiveness and universal bibliographic control cannot be achieved in the real world.

Archives, libraries and museums have for some time been trying out the advantages, for themselves and for each other, of working together and sharing long-term aims. These independent sorties were given a coercive impetus in April 2000 when the Government-funded Library & Information Commission and the Museums & Galleries Commission were replaced by the single-word Resource, to bring together ‘strategic advocacy, leadership and advice to enable museums, archives and libraries to touch people’s lives and inspire their imagination, learning and creativity’. At the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Art Library, which already included the Museum’s Archives, has recently merged with Prints, Drawings and Paintings to form the Word & Image Department. The integration of the National Art Library with a department that has traditionally put greater emphasis on its curatorial role has suggested new paths of development for us all and, in particular, an enhanced contribution for the new Department across the full range of material culture as represented in the V&A’s collections. Thus the merger has acted as a catalyst to put into practice aspects of the Government’s agenda within a single institution. This article outlines some of the developments proposed for the Word & Image Department, with particular emphasis on implications for the National Art Library, its staff, collections and users.

The title is taken from the Tate Board Minutes in 1929, where it was suggested that such a woman might offer to make a subject catalogue and new card index ‘without pecuniary remuneration’. It sums up the approach taken to the early development of the library within the gallery setting. The library’s position has always been determined by the Tate’s fortunes and reliant on the support of directors whose agendas were broader than the provision of a research library. This article, which is condensed from an MA dissertation, demonstrates how these varying agendas have affected the resources that have been available to the library and the corresponding effects on its collection and culture.

The Hyman Kreitman Research Centre for the Tate Library and Archive opened at Tate Britain in May 2002. The Library (covering those areas collected by the Gallery) and the Archive (covering British art since 1900) together constitute a centre of excellence for the study of modern art, particularly British. The new Centre, comprising storage for up to 20 years and reading rooms for around 40 people, has been built in a refurbished area of Tate Britain. The design aimed to comply with BS5454 and issues of compact storage, security, reading rooms without daylight, fire and flood hazards have been addressed.

The Getty Research Institute (GRI) is one of four programs of the J. Paul Getty Trust, an international cultural and philanthropic institution devoted to the visual arts, all of which reside at the Getty Center situated high on a beautiful hilltop in Brentwood, California. (The other programs of the Getty Trust are the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Conservation Institute, and the Getty Grant Program.) From the beginning it was understood that the GRI would develop a research program in the discipline of art history and more generally the humanities, and that a library would support its work. Since its founding the GRI has, in fact, developed a major library as one of its programs alongside those for scholars, publications, exhibitions and a multitude of lectures, workshops and symposia for scholars, students and the general public. What is now known as the Research Library at the GRI has grown to be a significant resource and this article focuses on its history, the building that houses it, its collections and databases, and access to them all.