The British Film Institute has always tried to balance its role as a repository of moving image collections and their associated materials with encouraging their study and understanding. This article looks at the increasing opportunities for providing access to material in educational and library contexts, as well as giving an overview of the library.

Is the development of UK digital visual arts initiatives driven by professional ideology more than user need? Is the vast treasure trove of images and metadata being produced still difficult to identify and locate? A brief overview of a selected range of recent key initiatives finds a mixed picture. Content is still mainly accessible to users with an informed expectation of its existence, and the full potential of the internet has not been fully absorbed by the providers. However, there are optimistic signs of improving visibility and access.

When we define society today as a ‘global society’ we are saying that we are, or at least we strive to be, an interconnected society, even more than if we were to say society is ‘worldwide’. In a global society, borders are crossed, and the phrase implies interaction, participation and inclusiveness. Artists and designers, as both a product of a global society and in response to the resulting all-inclusiveness, or ‘globality’, of their respective fields, are prompted to cross two kinds of border: physical and methodological. This paper focuses on the crossing of methodological boundaries and, in addition, recognizes the highly individualized nature of art and design research. This serves as a launch pad to explore the question of how librarians can shape their practice in order to respond better to the needs of contemporary artists and designers.

In 1987 Chris Smeenk wrote in this journal about the libraries of the Dutch art historical institutes. In the 22 years that have since passed many changes have occurred, perhaps most notably the merging of the many autonomous institute libraries into larger ones. Has this led to a more professional approach or was it caused by a search for more efficiency? Does this really matter? The fact is that Smeenk, or any other library user familiar with Dutch art history libraries, would hardly recognise the situation at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Maybe he would complain about the disappearance of the traditional academic institute librarian, but on the other hand he might be cheered by many other developments, such as the more central role of services for the public. Let’s take a look....

‘Oscar’ is the best-known symbol of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. But there is more to the Academy than the golden statuette. The Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library, which has been in existence for 80 years, is widely regarded as the pre-eminent research and reference facility for the study of all aspects of motion pictures, as an art form and an industry. The non-circulating research and reference collection, located in Beverly Hills, California, is open to the public, free of charge, and is heavily used by students, scholars, industry personnel, journalists, filmmakers and the general public. Its holdings document the multiple facets of the film industry and its personnel, past and present, and include books, periodicals, clipping files and screenplays, as well as special collections of photographs, manuscripts, posters, graphic art materials, music and recorded sound, and oral histories.

When seeking comprehensiveness, any collector encounters the rare and the exceptional. Posters and prints are this article’s main theme; many outstanding recent additions of these documents have been made to the Quebec Heritage Collection at Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec since 1992, when new areas of development were added. Various acquisition modes and strategies are described, illustrating original ways to apply legal deposit and documenting varied sources for purchase and donation within each family of publications. Forays made by visual artists into poster production are also outlined. In conclusion, the authors evoke concerns about how to cope with disparate, distant and diversely managed iconographic documents and the strategic value of acquisition data.

These days we face great emphasis on the term ‘knowledge’, which is often followed by the statement that ‘knowledge is power’. Research institutions increasingly call themselves knowledge centres, while their libraries are designated using the same term or as ‘information centres’. Information is enriched with contextual data, digitisation and web 2.0 activities circulate as keywords. Even research institutions whose main focus is art, art history or architecture are using the term ‘knowledge centre’ in their organisation plans and on their websites. The author asked four librarians from different research institutions on art history to introduce their library in order to find out if they work in an ‘art knowledge centre’.

Inspired by their new university president’s call for global outreach and a desire for community partnerships, several libraries at the Ohio State University worked with the Columbus Museum of Art on a proposal for exhibitions and public programming. Called ‘Artist as Activist’ this exhibition and educational program proposed a dynamic collaboration between the institutions, with the goal of broadening the audience for the museum’s and the libraries’ collections and developing an inclusive educational and dissemination model.

This paper highlights the increasing numbers of students with disabilities in higher education. Results from international online surveys of such students, and the professionals who work with them, show that the provision of alternative format and enhanced materials is less than ideal. In particular the provision of tactile versions of images and graphics is very poor. Methods for producing such materials for blind and low-vision students are discussed.

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.

Excellent organisational and communication skills, familiarity with available digital technology, and the ability to anticipate new developments are attributes art librarians require if they are to continue to be respected and valued professionals. Collaboration between museums, knowledge-sharing and merging library collections will cause individual museum libraries to disappear or be transformed into knowledge centres affiliated with museum collections. These will be a forum for discussion and the exchange of ideas between researchers and intellectuals who share a common passion. The infrastructure for art-related information will be a digital research environment where the indexing of research material is both unambiguous and exhaustive and integrally available.

The Media Centre of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal is a typical museum library in terms of collections, activities and services. Despite the experience gained during its 42 years, the Media Centre still faces many challenges, such as expanding its service and conservation areas, and carrying out a complete revamp of its web site in a knowledge portal. However its biggest challenge is ensuring that it continues, every day, to be at the cutting edge of contemporary art.

Artists’ videos present some challenges to cataloguers. How to select the source of information, how to describe them in ways which will help library users to find them, and particularly how to facilitate subject access are matters addressed in this article. With reference to the artist’s video collections at Goldsmiths, the author considers interpretations of the rules for cataloguing art documentation and moving image material and discusses how they can be applied to video works and art documentation from contemporary art practices.

Libraries and other information providers in the visual arts have had to adapt to an environment of changing research patterns, due to the widespread adoption of information technologies for personal use, the blurring of disciplinary boundaries, and shifting notions of geographical representation. As a small and independent arts organization, Artexte must navigate the obstacles and challenges raised by this dynamic environment. To do so, it has had to take into consideration the relevance of its original purpose – to focus on contemporary Canadian art within a national arts community. How can Artexte become more active in bringing Canadian art practices and critical discourses to larger, international networks? This article looks at the factors that define the current situation, and the ways in which Artexte bridges the gap between ‘local’ and ‘global’ contexts.