Although official censorship in the Soviet Union ceased over ten years ago, the effects in art and art libraries are still felt. Censored books were marked with a hexagon and relegated to closed stacks, which for many years were off limits to the public and library staff alike. Some of the banned material in the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature is analysed here in an attempt to establish the reason why certain items were seen by the authorities as too harmful to be acceptable for general circulation. The fate of the second “enemy” perceived by the Soviet censors, the original works of art and architecture, is also described.

Every museum generates a considerable amount of printed and graphic ephemeral material, which provides first-hand information on its permanent exhibitions and temporary activities. These can be exhibition brochures, didactic material, activity announcements, cards, etc. and they are frequently the only source of direct information on the active life of the organisation which precisely reflects its public image. However, few museums are devoting effort to preserving this material, whose retention is not always guaranteed. This paper aims to establish a classification of the different types of ephemeral publications common in museums (informative, educational, commercial, of internal use, etc). It sets forth an elementary system for dealing with them which, by using the MARC format (in those libraries using a standardised system) or a database in ACCESS (for those lacking one), should result in the establishment of a secure system for storage, retrieval and diffusion of this data.

During the move to a new location in 2016-2017, the headquarters of Thailand Creative & Design Center (TCDC) in Bangkok applied a service design approach to devise and deploy new and improved services. Applying a case study approach, this article reports the TCDC experience in adopting a service design approach in its library function at the TCDC Resource Center. The initiative aimed to create a new service blueprint as well as to implement new and updated services to meet ever-changing user needs. It is expected that service design will increase the user satisfaction level, which will lead to an increasing number of members and visitors, as well as promote revisits and brand loyalty. The process included developing empathy, service ideation, prototyping, and testing. As a result, several new and updated services were introduced and implemented both in the physical space and online. As an iterative process, the design team has also provided multiple channels to receive feedback from users both directly and indirectly to ensure continuous improvement of its services and products.

The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University in the City of New York is one of the world’s great architectural research libraries. In addition to its commitment to maintaining a comprehensive collection of bibliographic and archival materials for architecture, the library, its staff and services directly support academic programs in architecture, urban planning, historic preservation, art history and archaeology, as well as the liberal arts education of undergraduates. The Avery is also home to the Avery index to architectural periodicals. As publisher of this leading abstracting and indexing resource for research in architecture and related topics, the Avery is solely responsible for all editorial, business and technical operations and serves as an authoritative source for the terminology and literature of the field.

This article provides an overview of the status quo with regard to collecting and preserving born-digital cultural heritage objects in the Netherlands. Since there, as elsewhere, the cultural heritage sector is still grappling with the realities of web 2.0, the article also offers some more speculative thoughts on where web 2.0 may take us, as well as some practical suggestions for the next steps cultural heritage organisations could take.

Art speaks with many tongues, the immediacy of the image requiring no translation. One does not need fluent Italian to appreciate Titian, nor French to enjoy the Impressionists. The art of China means a great deal to many who think of Chinese as the world’s least learnable language, and by whom a taste for Chinese music has yet to be acquired. The visual arts of different countries and culture-groups have had, and still have, enough in common for contact between them to be mutually stimulating; an interest in Man as maker of images and co-creator of the visible world, implies concern for art the world over.

A time traveller visiting a British art school library in the 1840s, the 1970s, and the 1990s, would recognise a significant degree of continuity linking the library of the 1840s with that of the 1970s, but would be startled by the changes which have taken place in the last 20 years. Rapid change has resulted from several factors: increasing numbers of students; a growth in the demand from the public for art information; changes in the content and delivery of the curriculum; and not least, new technologies. This rapid pace of change is destined to continue into the foreseeable future, so much so that, instead of adapting to change bit by bit, librarians need to envisage and plan the new art libraries of tomorrow.

The loan and hire of contemporary original works of art has a long but littleresearched history. Its recent development, in and outside public libraries (particularly in the USA, Canada, Europe, and Israel) began essentially after 1945. Its nature and scope is strongly influenced by contemporary art. Art loans are worth promoting because art plays a lesser role in our cultural life compared to music and literature, because of the gulf between contemporary art and the public at large, as a means of securing and developing the role of the artist in society, and to foster discrimination and visual literacy in an age dominated by images of all kinds.

Picture libraries exist in many shapes and sizes, within the broad categories of public collections, private and usually specialised collections, and photoagencies. Users of picture libraries range from students to professional picture researchers, though even the latter may need guidance. The picture librarian combines the roles of collectors and custodian while also making the collection available for use. The Mary Evans Picture Library, which comprises some two million prints mounted and filed under subject headings, provides ‘visual documentation of the past’ up to the late 1920s, with an emphasis on social conditions. Cross-references and photographic duplicates (retained for permanent reference) are interfiled with the prints, most of which are available for loan and any of which may be copied. The organisation of the library corresponds to its users’ needs rather than to a rigid system.

The Glasgow School of Art (established 1845) has a long history of collecting publications and artefacts to support its teaching of fine art, design and architecture. The School now owns a rich resource of historical material, spread across its library, archive and museum collections and overseen by its Learning Resources department. Can this material continue to support learning and teaching in the creative disciplines in the 21st century? And what are the potential benefits for students? Over the last five years Learning Resources staff have explored these questions and developed a programme of activities to promote knowledge of this material and understanding of its potential use in fine art, design and architecture education.

The author describes a librarian’s effort in community-building in an academic setting, through the development of a podcast radio interview program. The paper addresses the professional rationale for this type of outreach endeavor, the communities served, types of content, the labor involved, tools employed and technical requirements, as well as the question of audience.

The Victoria and Albert Museum, itself an archive of material culture, houses several collections of archival records. The Museum’s Registered Papers are divided between the Museum itself, which holds those papers relating to objects in the Museum, and the Public Record Office, where papers relating to Museum buildings and administration can be found; all papers produced since 1984 are to be housed together in a newly established V & A Archive. The quality of the archive of Registered Papers is uneven due to the lack of a controlling and unifying policy; this, and questions of conservation and administration, are being addressed as part of the current restructuring of the Museum. For the same reason the archives of the different Departments, though important, vary considerably not only in content but also in their organisation. The National Art Library, part of the V & A, includes archival collections of ephemera, comprising examples of printing and graphic design, and of manuscripts, including artists’ papers; it also includes the Archive of Art and Design, founded in 1978 to avoid the splitting up of significant archives between the Museum’s Departments.

By the 1990s, fashion studies’ relegation to the marginalia of art historical discourse had greatly diminished. During the same period, US fashion itself emerged from European domination, with the action centring on New York City. Conveniently, New York’s art, design and fashion libraries, archives and special collections were already the most wide-ranging anywhere and, propelled by multi-disciplinary-, multi-media-driven interests, they have continued to expand their collections in all areas of fashion research and design, as well as in fashion’s innumerable contiguous fields. While discussing the multiple research resources available to New York-based historians of dress, fashion designers and clothing industry affiliates, this article examines issues of choice and magical serendipity in the context of an at-times overwhelming plethora of information.

The author gives context to the 1977 article ‘Arty choke: acquisition and ephemera’, and re-assesses his ideas with the perspective of a long career in librarianship and four decades of involvement with this and other library materials. He argues for a broad definition of ephemera and for art libraries to collect and make accessible as comprehensively as possible all designed visual artifacts potentially pertinent to the study of art history and the practices of art and design.

Fashion is often held synonymous with frivolity, excess, and luxury; as such, the study of costume history and theory has historically been considered impractical or subsidiary. The significant rise in costume education and scholarship during the 20th century has brought new and more frequent queries regarding the histories of fashion, etiquette, and material culture to our libraries. We are now often asked to assist in researches of cultures of style, and how they may be analyzed in a multidisciplinary context. Is it possible to analyze fashion trends through the lens of the law? Are effects of American colonialism present in fashion trends today? This brief historiography of costume and fashion studies seeks to utilize a multi- and interdisciplinary lens that reference librarians may employ to assist patrons with style-related inquiries.