Art academy libraries belong to institutions that deal primarily with the development of artists. As a result the library usually functions in an environment where a great deal of experiment, research and study is going on, and is there as a resource for the students as they produce their visual and written work. When I was asked to write an article about them, I decided to make visits to several similar libraries in the Netherlands so that I could compare their characteristics, use and users.

This paper provides a history of the Golden Cockerel Press, an English private press active between 1921 and 1961. There were three major periods in the Press’s development. Under Harold Taylor the Press was an idealistic attempt to provide an opportunity for the publication of new writers not yet well-enough known for the larger publishing market. The second owner was Robert Gibbings who had helped found the Society of Wood-Engravers and used the Press as a showcase for his own and fellow engravers’ work. Finally, during the longest period in the Press’s history, Christopher Sandford continued both the innovative approach to text and the interest in wood engraving for illustrations. He produced 122 books, most on handmade paper in limited editions, and contrived to keep the cost within the price range of the average book collector by using mechanical typesetting at a commercial press while yet overseeing and revising the work at every stage of its design. Sandford sold the Press to Thomas Toseloff, an American, in 1959.

The work of the Press is exceptionally fine and contains a unique record of British wood engraving over a period of forty years. Following the history of the Press are three appendices: a chronological list of the Press books, an index to authors, and an index to illustrators.

Illuminated manuscripts, beer bottle labels, photographs of street furniture, pieces of Regency wallpaper and early films of the Royal Sussex Regiment all appear on the Art and Design Books in Brighton web site. They are just some of the items held in library and archival collections in Brighton & Hove that are relevant to the study of art and design history. This paper describes the smallest and newest of the collaborative collection management projects of the UK’s Research Support Libraries Programme.

The Barber Institute of Fine Arts is acknowledged as one of the finest small art galleries in Europe. It has a richly resourced library which functions both as a curatorial library for the Barber’s curators and as part of the University of Birmingham’s network of site libraries. Students of art history thus benefit from the combined resources of a specialist art gallery library and a major university library. The Barber also houses a visual resources library, music library and coin study room.

The Biblioteca Marucelliana, a public amenity and a reflection of Florentine cultural life since its foundation early in the 18th century, is the home of a collection of 19th century and early 20th century fashion plates, donated in 1965 by Count Carlo Gamba. This collection is used by both scholars and students, including students training to be theatre and fashion designers.

Photography has long been a part of the Library of Congress classification tables. At the time of its inclusion, photography was not considered an art form and thus was placed in the T – Technology schedule instead of the N – Fine Arts schedule. This article will discuss various aspects of photography classification, including its history, the reasons behind and development of alternative schedules, the challenges of classifying artists’ books with a photographic basis, and the feasibility of maintaining alternative schedules with the proliferation of shelf-ready books.

In a Herculean effort to distribute information about art collections on a previously unknown scale, museums, arts organizations, libraries, and archives have been hard at work developing standards and implementing testbed projects, large-scale union databases which integrate and disseminate information. Two such projects are ‘Conceptual and Intermedia Online’ (CIAO) and ‘Museums and the Online Archive of California’ (MOAC), both using the Encoded Archival Description to describe and provide access to art and other cultural collections. But what is the future of such collaborations and the content portals they spawn? Will they be able to scale up to include hundreds or thousands of institutions, using current models? What are the limitations for such consortia? What are the limitations for participating institutions? Several options appear on the horizon, and one simple need suggests looking to decentralization, and back to the individual institution, for the solution to sharing art and cultural content on a truly vast scale.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have transformed the Higher Education sector world-wide, educating diverse audiences through Open Access content and resources. Very few have been integrated into the museum experience; however there is signifi cant potential for MOOCs to revolutionise access to the collections of art museums and galleries. This article presents empirical evidence drawing from a review of literature, and provides a case study into copyright challenges encountered using art images and video in a MOOC environment. Specific examples have been selected from the FutureLearn/ Monash University Creative Coding MOOC launched in June 2014, discussing the role that an Art Librarian plays in this process. This will be of interest to a broader museum and gallery audience, embarking on provision of online educative programs for users.

For most of the 400 years of the Bodleian Library’s existence, users have had to travel to Oxford to use its collections. In recent years, Oxford has undertaken a number of focused, ‘boutique’ digitisation projects. Now, as a partner in the Google Library Project, an immense range of scholarly and other 19th-century out-of-copyright library materials from the Bodleian’s collections will be digitised en masse and will be made freely available over the internet to anyone who has web access. Millions of books and journals will be scanned in the course of the Project and the author contends that digitisation on such a scale represents a revolution in the dissemination of information that parallels the impact of the invention of printing from moveable type in the 15 th century.

Art libraries differ from other academic libraries in their stock provision and in the way they are used. The disadvantages of multi-site libraries are outweighed by the difficulties of fitting the art library into a large central library, and by the advantages to the user of co-ordinated decentralisation. The implications for art libraries of centralised cataloguing systems require careful consideration; other problems include staff structures, the use (and abuse) of quantification, and the degree and type of user education. (Text of a paper presented to the course for senior art librarians on ‘Managing the Arts’, organised by ARLIS and the Polytechnic of North London in December).

Art libraries are different from other libraries; they require of art librarians a broad knowledge of art, with a more detailed knowledge of any aspects of the subject in which the particular library has a special interest. This kind of knowledge cannot be acquired entirely from books, but must also be gained from direct encounters with works of art, and by immersing oneself in different places and cultures. Art librarians must also be prepared to learn about art librarianship from colleagues at home and abroad, and about the needs of library users from the users themselves. Yet on occasion the demands of users, as well as the meddling of administrators, must be resisted. Art librarians must apply their knowledge not only to the selection of books, but also to the provision and organisation of visual resources, and to assessing both the value and the limitations of databases. [An English version of this paper appeared in ARLIS NORDEN INFO 1992 no. 2/3; the French text is published here for the first time, and is followed by a new English translation].

How do you turn library, archive and museum collaboration from a good idea into reality? And what are the benefits of collaborative action to begin with? This article introduces the increasing rewards and risks of interdependent working relationships along the collaboration continuum, and highlights the institutional and environmental catalysts which foster collaborative action. Use these insights to assess where your institution is on the path to deeper collaboration, and which obstacles you may still need to address!

Describes the art libraries and art collections visited in Budapest during a ten day visit sponsored by the British Council.

Sincere acknowledgements are due to the Hungarian Art Librarians and Museums staff whose genuine interest and hospitality provided the raw material for this paper.

The Australian National Gallery Library has used RLIN since January 1985. It is used primarily as an online bibliographic database, to trace publications on particular artists and as a means of verifying references supplied by library users. It is also used, but less frequently, to verify bibliographic details of items to be acquired for the Library; other more occasional use is made of RLIN as a source of catalogue records, to identify locations of items the loan of which is to be sought from overseas, to verify name headings, and as a source of information used in stock selection. Of the special files, Scipio has proved most useful as a source of information on sales catalogues. RLIN does not present insuperable problems to the remote user, although an offline print facility and extended access hours would both be helpful.

Two libraries, the National Institute of the Arts at the Australian National University and California Institute of the Arts in Southern California, describe how each has an interdependent relationship with the information technology or network services units in their respective institutions. Major considerations for both are the introduction of electronic full-text art information on the Web and its pedagogical implications, issues faced by arts libraries in the integration of computer services with library services in universities and colleges, and the changing roles of arts librarians and libraries.

As convenor of the ARLIS Working Party on Co-operative and Co-ordinated Acquisition, I am delighted to accept the hospitality of these pages and the opportunity to discuss current problems in co-operation.

For some time now it has been obvious that art librarians as a whole have been aware of a need to co-operate at all levels. This is a healthy sign of maturing awareness and self-identification as librarians with common problems.

As compared to card catalogs, the content and extent of the online database is not apparent; parts of it become visible only in response to appropriate search strategies. When searches are conducted by librarians on behalf of researchers, the researcher is dependent on the librarian’s expertise and on his or her interpretation of the researcher’s requirements. Remote from the data, and at a remove from the search process, the researcher cannot be certain that the results (if any) are the product of an adequate search. Only first class performance, enabled by subject knowledge as well as technical proficiency, involving imagination and serendipity, and facilitated and sustained by sympathetic management, will inspire confidence in online reference services.

The history of the library founded in 1897 at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence is marked by a very close connection with the history and profile of the Institute itself. The demand for scientific literature for research on Florentine Renaissance art and culture was the key motivation for establishing a German research library in Florence, where this art and culture flourished. But from the very beginning the holdings covered Italian art as a whole, not just the Renaissance and Florentine art. The acquisition policy as well as the internal organisation and systematic structure of the library have right up to the present day mirrored the research activities of the Institute and its scholars. With the founding of a consortium of the three German research libraries in Florence, Munich (Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte) and Rome (Bibliotheca Hertziana) in 1994, a new era began. High-profile bibliographic information, additional services and the integration of the library in Florence into this co-operative network became a further characteristic of the existing identity of the Institute and its library, which were – and continue to be – closely tied to Florence and Tuscany.