An optimistic spirit of progressive pluralism accompanied early digital work in the arts and humanities. The singular “universe” of knowledge would be amplified into a “multiverse” through faceted approaches embodying varied cultural—and even individual–viewpoints. Precisely how this utopian ideal was to be realized—through customized search or fluid ontologies or other semantic web technology—was not clear. But the motivations combined creative impulses for decolonizing and diversifying information systems.

Some years ago, in a moment of transition in leadership for a major special collections library, I was part of an advisory group where the prevailing opinion was that a faculty member with passionate interests in the research focus of the institution could successfully occupy the position of head librarian. We did not need someone with an MLIS degree, a PhD in a field related to the collections areas would do fine.

Firstly, it is an honour to be asked to contribute to this anniversary issue. AKMB is celebrating 25 years as an organization supporting and representing art and museum librarians and libraries (1). ARLIS/UK & Ireland celebrated 50 years in 2019 and the Art Libraries Journal (ALJ) celebrated 40 years in 2016, so I have spent a lot of my 7 years as editor of the ALJ reflecting on how far we have come. The past couple of generations have overseen tremendous achievements in the profession worldwide and these milestones are an opportunity to reflect on those changes and to look forward. This is a personal perspective and is intended to be (often) light-hearted, it also is limited to what I have observed within the limitations of having attained my education outside of Germany and of operating in a second language environment.

More than 25 years after the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Kunst- und Museumsbibliotheken (AKMB) was founded – an eternity in the digital age – libraries and museums as institutions of public life are more than ever subject to fundamental transformation.

The AKMB has set itself the task of offering its affiliated institutions a platform for knowledge exchange and networking. Questions about standardization in librarianship, technical equipment, formal and subject indexing as well as possibilities of exchange and support in answering these questions are in focus. It is not - in the classic sense of a library - a physical place. Nevertheless, it forms simultaneously the basis and the opportunity for art and museum libraries to orient themselves to a digital future. In this regard, it also deals itself with structural changes and its challenges.

At a time when space in any academic library is at a premium, when we sometimes need to argue for shelf space rather than computers and group work pods, the University of Sydney Library has decided not only to keep and maintain its nineteenth century printing press, but to feature it through a printer in residence program.

Now in its third year, the program brings together a printmaker and a letterpress for eight weeks during semester. The intent is to engage with the library and its users, to bring the print workshop to life, to draw inspiration from the library's collection and to create a publication for the Artists’ Book Collection within Rare Books & Special Collections.

In an era of instant layout, digital word processing and electronic publishing what does the slow and laborious process of letterpress printing bring to a twenty-first century academic library? This residency demonstrates that understanding the process of making a publication can be just as vital and alive as the content of that publication - one letter at a time.

What happened after the Art history in digital dimensions report of 2017? To what extent have the recommendations been implemented? Has digital art history itself changed in this period? Are the challenges and recommendations outlined in the report still pertinent? What is the role of or is there a role in digital art history for the art librarian in an academic or museum setting?

What are the cross-border intellectual property and copyright issues faced by PHAROS, an international consortium of photo archives, in the creation of an open access research platform? How does the consortium define open access? Are approaches to copyright in reproductive media across the US, UK and EU compatible, and can 14 partners from six countries agree to assess and express rights in the same way? Developments in the field and the consortium's 2020 International Copyright Workshop project have helped PHAROS define and address these issues.

For the past four years, the team working on the “Ed Ruscha, Streets of Los Angeles” project at the Getty Research Institute has worked to establish a framework for leveraging the benefits of collaboration and conversation between groups of people who work in different areas of expertise and communities of practice. Facilitating sustained conversations among art historians, art librarians, and technical specialists has proved a successful framework of mutual consultation between Getty staff and external collaborators. These conversations helped external collaborators better understand the kinds of metadata generated through the archival process and how it might be useful for investigating their particular research questions. In turn, Getty staff gained a better understanding of the kinds of metadata helpful to researchers, which helped determine our own priorities for this work. Moreover, new avenues of inquiry emerging from this collaborative project have outlined a path for articulating best practices in digital art history projects to come.

ARt Image Exploration Space (ARIES) is a free, cloud-based dynamic environment offering art historians and others an extensive array of practical tools for analysing images. It is the product of a successful collaboration between art historians, librarians, computer scientists, and engineers from the Frick Art Reference Library, New York University's Tandon School of Engineering, and Brazil's Universidade Federal Fluminense. ARIES is a powerful tool for art historians, both replicating and augmenting traditional methods they have long-used to study images.1 With the advent of the prevalent use of digital photos, art historians lacked the technology capable of replacing what they had previously been able to accomplish in the analogue world. Wood Ruby and Deutch realized that art historians needed an out-of-the-box solution that didn't require extensive knowledge of other disciplines (computer science and engineering). The result of successful collaborations and a generous donation, ARIES is now available in BETA form at www.artimageexplorationspace.com.

This article describes some important steps within the history of the journal AKMB-news, published in cooperation with the board of the AKMB, and dedicated to subjects of the day-to-day work: information about the arts, museums and libraries. The author is founding member of the AKMB and a member of its editorial board since 1995.

This paper describes and evaluates research undertaken by the author at the State Library of Queensland, in the collection, cataloguing, and presentation of audiovisual materials—specifically, sound materials beyond oral history and performance. It suggests that strategies drawn from transcription can make the sounds of the past more evident in digitised catalogues, and thus can make those sounds themselves more accessible to the public. In doing so it offers a different affordance of the archive to public experience: not just information about the past, but the affective impact of the past.

Writers, artists and academics have long used primary source material to inspire creative projects or uncover new evidence. Over time, different approaches have been taken to investigate and interpret one particular artist's collection, the Daphne Mayo Papers (UQFL119) at the Fryer Library, University of Queensland.1 Mapping the shift in research approaches, using text and image as well as more speculative modes of working, this article provides a case study into the past, present and future adaptation of the Daphne Mayo Papers as physical modes converge with digital ones.

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.

As producers and mediators of digital resources, art librarians frequently interact with the digital humanities in a broad sense. In the following brief overview of recent DH work undertaken in US art libraries, engagement with digital humanities is evidenced by the development of open access projects, the creation of linked data sets and the innovative sharing of art and archive collections to support digital pedagogy. Related activities of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA), its Digital Humanities SIG and the ARLIS/NA in the Humanities Commons are also discussed.

In 2018, the UNESCO Office to the Gulf States and Yemen and its partner, Qatar National Library, launched a project aiming at supporting the preservation of documentary heritage in the Arab region. The Arab region is home to a unique and rich documentary heritage subject to risk due to natural decay, conflicts and instability. To support its preservation, this project had for objective to better understand the needs and challenges faced by documentary heritage institutions in the region though a mapping exercise and the dissemination of a survey.

This article outlines the key outcomes of the survey including the situation of documentary heritage at the regional and national level, a brief review of legal frameworks protecting documentary heritage, the main obstacles and threats to documentary heritage preservation and the needs expressed by conservation practitioners in terms of capacity-building, professional development, infrastructure and support in additional areas such as policy and advocacy.