Catalogues of 18th century private and municipal collections are the precursors of museum catalogues. But museum catalogues proper date from the establishment of the Musée du Louvre and the publication of its first catalogue in 1793. In this catalogue can be found the essential features of the museum catalogue: a printed list of objects in the collection, in systematic order, and including descriptions which facilitate identification of the objects by the public. From the Louvre catalogue of 1793 a continuing line of development leads to the present day, although different catalogues have adopted different methods of organising their entries, in some cases echoing the arrangement of the collections within the museum building. Two centuries of publishing, and recent developments in editing art historical texts, suggest that there is a serious and growing need for a bibliography of museum catalogues. A few such bibliographies already exist, devoted to single institutions (such as the Louvre) or cities (Berlin, Munich), but there is no comprehensive bibliography comparable to Frits Lugt’s unique listing of auction catalogues. A start should be made on this enormous task.

Internet resources in any discipline are difficult to locate reliably, but the problem is exacerbated for the visual arts community by the intrinsic complexity of retrieving visual resources. After a brief examination of the problems associated with the discovery of networked resources, this paper outlines the development, integration and future objectives of two visual arts information services, the Art, Design, Architecture & Media Information Gateway (ADAM) and the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS), both funded for the benefit of the UK Higher Education community by the Joint Information Systems Committee.

The Queen’s University of Belfast set-up a fee based service in 1991 aimed initially at built environment professionals. The Architecture and Planning Information Service at the University has long been a major source of architectural and environmental information in Ireland, and has close links with the Architectural Library at University College Dublin and with professional bodies such as the Royal Society of Ulster Architects and the Royal Town Planning Institute in Northern Ireland. Problems encountered include the relationship and balance of services to internal and external (fee-paying) users, staff training, setting realistic prices, quality control, and contract issues. Future trends are likely to include the development of client-tailored services and further collaboration between providers of fee-based services from different institutions.

Although the Library of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) can trace its history to the origins of the College itself, its metamorphosis into a modern library began in 1972 when two professional librarians were hired to establish a library resource to match the expanding programs of the College. John Murchie was hired as Director of the Library and Mary Snyder was hired as the Slide Librarian. Largely through their efforts and those of the library staff, the NSCAD Library has grown to become the premier library collection for the visual arts and design in Atlantic Canada. As a member of the Novanet consortium of university libraries, the NSCAD Library has joined the ranks of Nova Scotia universities in offering a full-scale library service to its immediate community and to practising artists, academics, and the general public in the region.

The Spanish National Library’s Memoria Hispánica project aims to provide networked access to a digital database, the Biblioteca Nacional Digita, including every item in its collection. The first phase of this project is scheduled to take place between 1996 and 1998. This follows an earlier project, the Sistema Integrado de Información Heráldica, which involved digitising the text and images of a major work on heraldry. Two ongoing projects comprise the production of an optical disc of Spanish portraits in the library’s collections, the Iconografía Hispana, and of a CD-ROM documenting an exhibition, mounted by the library from its collections, of prints and drawings by Goya. In both cases, the projects are being implemented and funded by external bodies who expect to recoup the costs from sales. It is likely that the Memoria Hispánica project will be funded in much the same way.

The concept of a Library and Information Plan (LIP) as an aid to better management and improved services was proposed in England in 1986, when gaps in library provision and the inadequacy of services were becoming apparent. In 1991 the Council of ARLIS/UK & Eire obtained a grant to draft a proposal for a research project, arguing the need for a LIP covering art, design and architecture information in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Further funds were found to appoint a Steering Committee and a research consultant, and a Visual Arts Library and Information Plan (VALIP) was published in 1993. An Executive Committee was formed to negotiate the inclusion of VALIP in whatever national machinery came into existence. During that year the Secretary of State for National Heritage announced plans to create a new Library and Information Commission, but despite encouraging signs, government support was not given to fund a VALIP Manager. Progress was made with some parts of the VALIP programme of work, but the Steering Committee and the Executive Committee disbanded in 1997, leaving ARLIS to find other means of improving access to visual arts materials.

Jules Maciet’s encyclopaedic collection of iconography in the Bibliothèque des Arts décoratifs, one of Paris’s most accessible specialist art libraries, offers the researcher an eclectic range of visual material from rare prints to ephemera from current elections. Its founder’s ambition that it should be exhaustive has been sustained to this day by a succession of librarians who have chosen to adhere to the original arrangement of material, which is based on a system familiar to users of print departments such as that in the Bibliothèque nationale. An index to engravers, publishers, and print-sellers, and thorough documentation of sources, make this 19th century vision a reference tool which continues to serve artists and other users today.

Confronted by enormous financial problems in the late 1980s, many Russian libraries were obliged to find ways of earning money in order to survive and to maintain their collections. The State Library for Foreign Literature was one of the first to break out of the stranglehold imposed by Lenin’s ideal, ‘Libraries - free of charge for everyone’. The Arts Department led the way to the introduction of paid services, over and above basic library services which remain free. Paid services include picture research, special loans, and photocopying, but also classes for children in foreign languages and art to supplement education in school, and courses for trainee teachers. Fees are reduced or even waived to ensure that services are accessible to those on low incomes.

The New Brunswick illustration index is an index to the illustrations in the Legislative Library’s New Brunswick Collection. The illustrations include photographs, engravings, woodcuts, etc. and each is described in a database entry comprised of ten distinct fields. The project, begun in 1989, is not yet complete. The Index is designed to make the unique New Brunswick Collection more accessible.

Through the last decade the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP), recently renamed the Getty Information Institute, has been subsidising end-user online access to scholarly research databases. A study of subsidised access to Dialog databases provided to Getty Centre resident scholars has been reported by Marcia Bates, who found that searching patterns in humanities research differ substantially from those previously investigated in science and the social sciences. The cost of collecting research information and of making it available greatly exceeds revenues generated from its use; inability to measure use is an obstacle to justifying maintenance of subsidies at present levels. Key factors to be considered in assessing the relative value of different models of information provision include information quality, number of accesses, royalties received, user charges, producer subsidy, and user input. Analysis suggests that the non-profit method provides the best mode of access and supports the decision of AHIP to work in partnership with the Research Libraries Group.