The loan of works of art to the public was initiated in the Netherlands in 1955 through a scheme set up by a group of artists to encourage people to purchase contemporary art. The success of this scheme attracted support from the government, which was itself acquiring works in the process of assisting artists. Works thus acquired were lent to public institutions and government bodies, but from the 1970s they were also made available for loan to the public via artotheques. These two schemes gave rise to over a hundred art lending centres including hybrid establishments owing something to both; however, direct government support of artists has recently been phased out, and as a result artotheques no longer obtain works via the government and must evolve alternative methods of acquisition.

In 1989, the Japan Art Documentation Society (JADS) was born, with inspiration received from members of overseas art library organisations – ARLIS/UK and Ireland, ARLIS/NA, ARLIS/ANZ and others – who attended the 52nd General Conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) in Tokyo in 1986. However, JADS was very definitely JADS: it did not try to become ARLIS/Japan. What reasoning lay behind the choice of the society’s name? And after its establishment what path did JADS follow: what role did it take on for itself as the framework for joint projects in the art library community in Japan? What were the activities that it aimed to provide to enhance collaboration between museums, libraries and archives? Focussing mainly on the growing interest in Japan in recent years in creating networks between museums, libraries and archives, and on the opening in 2004 of the Art Libraries’ Consortium (ALC), a union catalogue of art libraries based in the Tokyo metropolitan area which has been steadily expanding, this article gives a chronological overview of the developments that have taken place in art libraries and art documentation in Japan from 1986 to 2012.

ARLIS/Norden was founded in 1986 to bring together art libraries and art librarians of all kinds in the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The association has maintained close links with the IFLA Section of Art Libraries, and it hosted the Section’s meetings at Stockholm in 1989. ARLIS/Norden has received guests from other countries, while Nordic colleagues have participated in events in other countries. Its own annual meetings are the key events in ARLIS/Norden’s own programme.

During the last fifteen years, Japanese museums and institutions, which previously kept art historical information very much to themselves, have begun to take steps to make information and research materials more accessible. In several cases, museums have founded their own research and information centres. At the same time, the use of computers has been introduced in the humanities, and the potential of the computer as a means of organising, exchanging, and providing access to art historical and bibliographical data is being explored. These “new trends” are being spearheaded by art historians and museums; art librarians are now contributing to the dialogue, and although the concept of the “art library” remains relatively undeveloped in Japan, the time is ripe for art librarianship to flourish.

My employment as a slide curator followed a fascination with the slide lectures given by my studio instructors that revealed what interested and inspired them. Working daily with a slide collection is rewarding in providing resources for those teaching and studying the history of art. It provides me in turn with an overview of how art changes and repeats itself both in content and style, as governments rise, fall and merge, and religious beliefs and social conditions change.

The Centre des livres d’artistes (cdla), which has been based in S aint-Yrieix-la-Perche since 1994, is the culmination of a project initiated at the end of the 1980s by the association Pays-paysage. After many years during which it lacked anywhere to develop its activities fully, the cdla has at last been installed in a refurbished building and opened early in 2005 with a new exhibition of books and publications by herman de vries. The two principal activities of the cdla are the creation and management of a collection of artists’ books (currently nearly 3000 items), and the organisation of exhibitions in France and also abroad.

Following Nicole Picot’s visit to England, the subject of the report printed above, Gillian Varley from the National Art Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London spent two weeks at the Bibliothèque Publique d’Information at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, during the summer of 1988. She also visited a number of other art libraries in Paris. The text of her report is followed by extracts from her diary of her trip.

The French national museum libraries service comprises 21 libraries specialising in the history of western art and archaeology. The central library, which is at the head of the network, was automated first and has completed its retrospective conversion. At first this library catalogued the material acquired for all the others; then a number of them were able in their turn to computerise and thus contribute directly to the union catalogue of the national museum libraries. This can now be consulted on the internet site of the Ministry of Culture.

Although it began as the personal library of one of the most influential art historians and connoisseurs of the last century, the Biblioteca Berenson now has a broad interdisciplinary scope that goes far beyond art and art history. As the library of Harvard University’s Center for Italian Renaissance Studies since the 1960s, it has become a major resource for research into all aspects of the society, culture and thought of Italy between about 1200 and 1650. Nonetheless the Berenson Library offers rich and often unique resources for art historical research, both on the Renaissance and on the 20th century.

From its position at the heart of the Cinémathèque française in Paris, the Bibliothèque du film provides all sorts of users with a unique documentary collection on the cinema: monographs, journals, posters, drawings, photographs, archives and videos. The reading rooms, the vidéothèque, the image library and the archive search room allow users to consult all these documents.

From the point of view of a student of art history in the 1980s re-entering the discipline as a graduate student, the ‘new’ art history represents a dramatically wider field of enquiry involving new methodologies, although ‘old’ art history is still pursued by some academics. The ‘new’ art history employs an interdisciplinary approach which embraces materials far beyond ‘traditional’ art historical sources, and so information has to be sought outside the art library and via the Internet. Librarians responsible for supporting art history studies need to keep in touch with teachers, with curriculum developments, and with the discipline itself; it may also be helpful to get involved in staff/student use of the Web, and to collaborate with other Humanities librarians. The way in which the ‘new’ art history branches out in all directions parallels the hypertext linkages of the Web and the complexity of our globally-connected world.

Response to a plethora of historical forces that devalue comics, including hostile cataloging standards, led to the creation of the Best practices for cataloging comics and graphic novels using RDA and MARC21. The guide supports comics cataloging using current standards, recognizing the great diversity in this sequential art medium, as well as needs particular to public, academic and special libraries. With this, and related current and future projects, the Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table (GNCRT) hopes to promote equity in comics cataloging, and improve patron access to comics.

Backstage, a major resource discovery project for the performing arts, aims to create a single portal for information on performing arts holdings across the UK. Its content will combine directory-style information for individual institutions with more detailed collection level and item level records. The project has provided an opportunity for cross-sectoral working for the main partners – a group of universities led by Kent and Bristol, plus the Theatre Museum and the Institute for Learning & Research Technology – but problems of uneven funding available to the different sectors have had to be overcome. The project was due for completion in October 2002.

Liberty’s textile archive is probably unique in the way it is set up, both through its ownership and in its make-up. It shows only one aspect of the firm’s history, although arguably its most important one. It is of interest not only because of the Liberty fabrics, but for 19th-century textiles in general, as it includes material from most of that century. The main purpose of the archive is to act as a reference library for the in-house studios; however, limited access is offered to specialist users from outside the company.

During 2016, after overcoming many obstacles, the library of the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art (National Institute of Art History - INHA), Jacques-Doucet collection, was established in an exceptional space designed during the Second Empire by the French architect Henri Labrouste (1801–1875). The reopening of this reading room is the fruit of a large-scale renovation project involving several French institutions. It is also the culmination of a long-standing plan to create an illustrious library of art history for France.

Gustavo Grandal Montero (ALJ):Could you give an overview of the main aims and context of the project?

Ami Clarke (AC): The Digital Archive of Artists’ Publishing (DAAP) is an interactive, user-driven, searchable database of artists’ books and publications, that acts as a hub to engage with others, built by artists, publishers and a community of creative practitioners in contemporary artists’ publishing, developed via an ethically-driven design process, and supported by Wikimedia UK and Arts Council England. The project is inspired by the site of Banner Repeater's public Archive of Artists’ Publishing on Hackney Downs train station, with 11,000 people passing a day, in response to the need for a similarly dynamic approach to archiving in an online context.

The Art and Design School Libraries (ADSL) Division of ARLIS/NA was tasked with preparing a report on the state of ADSLs across North America. The report team offered preliminary results at the ADSL Division Annual Meeting in May 2021. At the ARLIS/UK & Ireland conference in July 2021, they described Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) activities in ADSLs and some of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sector. Feedback from both events was incorporated into the report, which is now complete and available on the “Publications” page of the ARLIS/NA website. This article, in addition to summarizing some of the findings, discusses the collaborative process of writing and editing the report and the importance of this process as a model for advancing other essential work in this field.