Art museums can help to promote art in society, but not all artists have their work selected for permanent collections or temporary exhibitions, and museums may be isolated from society. In Europe and North America, the primary function of museum libraries is to serve the parent institution, thereby serving the wider community only indirectly. In South Africa, where there are comparatively fewer museums, libraries, and publications concerned with the visual arts, and where there are so many disadvantaged people, it is vital that special collections such as the South Africa National Gallery (SANG) Library collection are made accessible in the widest possible sense and that museum library information programmes should be directed externally, as well as internally to the museum staff.

Art libraries are plural entities in that they have multiple functions and serve a variety of users. In the United Kingdom, as elsewhere, academic art libraries provide visual resources for artists and art students; they also provide a wide range of texts for students of increasingly specialised branches of the history of art and design and of ‘visual studies’. Their librarians should collaborate with academic colleagues to develop the library to serve the institution’s needs; at the same time the institution should recognise the role of the library. The broader spectrum represented by the ‘new art history’ challenges the art library to widen its scope, although this must be done through networking as well as by means of collection development. Scholars realise that they must generally expect to have to go to the major libraries and archives for primary source material, although smaller art libraries often have valuable materials and some scholars might be encouraged to share their own research collections through the libraries of their institutions. Information technology has become the key to tracing material, but is no substitute for direct interaction with the materials themselves.

Architects are often unable or unwilling to explore the information which is available to them, and their failure to do so limits the social value of their work. At the Welsh School of Architecture, architects of tomorrow are given training in information research, and practising architects have been given similar training through Continuing Professional Development courses. Architecture libraries have a vital role to play in encouraging and enabling architects to undertake adequate research, utilising the potential of information technology to provide ready access to a widening range of networked information.

Asked about how artists use libraries, art librarians confirm that artists gather ideas from a wide spectrum of subjects and sources, beyond the scope of the art library; they also need images and other, specific, information which art libraries often can supply. Their approach is typically exploratory and intuitive; they are compulsive browsers, but are likely to be impatient of catalogs and only occasional users of standard references tools. They expect a lot of help from specialist librarians. Art libraries serving artists generally provide access to a wide range of images, and invariably house their collections on open stacks. Photocopying, including color copying, is an essential service, and other visual and ‘studio’ facilities may also be provided. As more and more visual and other relevant information is made available through electronic networks, art libraries can provide artists with assisted, convenient access to it.

The Russian State Arts Library, formerly the library of the Malyi Theatre and then the Russian State Theatre Library, is used by a variety of artists and designers who may be given considerable help by the Library staff especially when undertaking historical research, for instance, for set or costume designs for the theatre. The Library also arranges exhibitions of the work of artists and designers.

Use made of the graphic arts collections of the Russian State Library demonstrates the value of art libraries, and especially of collections of graphic arts and of pictorial materials, to artists. Among the artists who are most likely to benefit are illustrators and graphic designers, who are themselves engaged in the production of publications, and film makers. Conservators of buildings and of works of art also use art libraries. Libraries such as the Russian State Library can promote their collections by mounting exhibitions.

Increasingly, video is the medium of choice for learning about art, because it is immediate and revealing. However, not all art libraries include artists’ documentary videos in their collections. For libraries, video presents problems of changing formats, fugitive qualities, lack of reviews, and insufficient information regarding their existence and their availability. Videos frequently accompany exhibitions on contemporary artists. What happens to this documentation when the exhibit closes? What resources besides the Getty’s Art on Film Database keep track of these independently produced videos? How can art libraries work together in a co-ordinated effort to acquire, catalog, and preserve documentary video work on artists?