Showing papers in "Art libraries journal in 1994"

Art and the Internet: some notes on resources and trends

Abstract: The Internet is a worldwide network of electronic networks which is growing rapidly. Access to resources is facilitated by a number of ‘systems’, including Gopher and World Wide Web. Improvements in the organisation of and access to Internet resources are certain to be developed, and librarians may have a rok to play. Meanwhile libraries are involved in introducing users to different kinds of information resources including those available on the Internet. Art librarians should be aware in particular of five sites which are useful starting points foi looking at art resources in the Internet: ArtSource, Art Navigator, ArtWorlc Online, World Arts Resources, and Fine Art Forum Online.

Beyond the gossip shop

Abstract: Arlis arose in the late 1960s out of the need for British art and design librarians to have a specialist organisation to support their emerging professional concerns. The Society was independent from other library bodies and has remained so. From its original modest aim of ‘promoting art librarianship’ it has become a force for redefining this subject specialist area and creating international links, especially with sister organisations across the world; from ‘gossip shop’ for domestic concerns to an active participant in the IFLA Section of Art Libraries. The Art Libraries Journal has been the principal vehicle for promulgating this concern. ARLIS/UK & Ireland can look forward to extending its role and pursuing its activities with vigour in the next 25 years. This article is a slightly revised version of a paper delivered to the 25th Anniversary Conference of ARLIS/UK & Ireland, London, 7th-10th April 1994.

A Library and Information Plan for the Visual Arts, report by Lawrence Brandes on behalf of the VALIP Steering Committee. ARLIS/UK and Ireland, 1993. (British Library R & D Report 6111). ix, 73p. ISBN 0-9519674-6. £20.00.

Abstract: ARLIS/UK has dreamt of a co-ordinated national policy for art literature almost from its inception. As early as 1971-4 it was experimenting with a modest acquisitions scheme involving 25 member libraries, and by 1977 was sufficiendy worried about 'current economic pressures' (even in those palmy days!) to start looking into the feasibility of 'an intelligent national and regional policy . . . to ensure continued availability of art material'. Over the next decade or so a variety of articles in Art Libraries Journal discussed the theoretical ideal of collaborative provision, on both a national and international scale, while up-and-running systems in the United States and West Germany (notably the Research Libraries Group and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Kunstbibliotheken) furnished practical models for imitation. Any serious attempt to devise a concerted programme of action in the UK stumbled, however, on the traditional reluctance of what should have been its key protagonist, the National Art Library (the library of the V. & A. Museum), to participate. The first sign of this particular logjam breaking came through a combined approach to the British Library by ARLIS/UK and the Association of Art Historians. This resulted in a British Library Working Party on the Provision of Materials for the Study of Art on which the National Art Library was represented and whose report in 1983 firmly located the British Library, the National Art Library, and other relevant libraries of national status in a context of interdependency. The eventual spin-off, the British Library's Standing Committee on Art Documentation (SCOAD), mulled over the possibilities for concerted action for some years, but in the end proved little more than a talking shop. Much more significant were positive changes at the National Art Library which transformed it from an aloof bystander into an active and co-operative player on the national scene.

‘To promote art librarianship’: twenty-five years of ARLIS publications

Abstract: From the outset ARLIS has consistently published serials, from the ARLIS Newsletter to the present Art Libraries Journal (with its international role) and the ARLIS News-sheet (for current and domestic information). An annual Directory of Members has provided vital information about ARLIS membership. Monographs and occasional publications, some published by ARLIS and some in collaboration with other publishers, have included a variety of manuals, guidelines, directories, indexes and union lists. A full list of publications is appended.

British art librarianship today and tomorrow

Abstract: The National Art Library (NAL) has moved from its former isolation, through the developments of the last decade, to its present position as a focus for and active player in the art library and information community of the UK. The NAL has worked with ARLIS on some of the major co-operative ventures currently preoccupying the art library field. However, there is still a need for further clarification of, and support for, subject specialist services in the national arena, not least the relationship with the British Library. The potential of the proposed Library Commission and Visual Arts Library and Information Plan is still to be realised. Art librarians must work with their users in formulating a more radical and visionary view of their objectives, as they face the challenges of the future. This article is a revised version of a paper delivered to the 25th Anniversary Conference of ARLIS/UK & Ireland, London, 7th-10th April 1994.

The Internet and the virtual architecture library

Abstract: The Internet affords the librarian many opportunities to enhance reference services. Online reference tools such as library catalogs, specialized indexes, directories, dictionaries, etc. provide access to bibliographic information, organizational information, and information about the net itself. In addition to the information resources available on the net, its communications power facilitates exchange of information and efficient use of expertise. Although finding specific information on the net can sometimes be a problem, due to the quantity of data and the net’s rapid expansion, search tools are being developed to mine the riches of the Internet. (This article is based on a paper presented at the 22nd annual ARLIS/NA Conference at Providence, Rhode Island, 15th February 1994).

Education for art librarianship in the Nordic countries

Abstract: Big changes in the educational system of Sweden took place in 1992/1993 because of political changes in the government. Earlier the government and parliament made decisions about course details at the different universities, and research education was offered only by the universities, and not by the colleges. In the early 1970s the College of Librarianship in Borås was commissioned by the government to offer a two-year academic level supplementary course in librarianship. Until the spring term in 1993, education for librarianship in Borås changed course several times, and five years ago courses in art and music librarianship, which had given students some insights in art history, were discontinued. Beginning in the autumn of 1993 the education system in Sweden will be much freer, implying that every university and college will be permitted to make its own decisions about courses. And from now on courses in librarianship will be offered by the universities in Umeå, Stockholm (starting spring 1994) and Lund, as well as in Borås. Librarianship at the research level was established three years ago at Göteborg University in close cooperation with the college of librarianship in Borås

Book museums or virtual libraries

Abstract: Although its replacement has not yet been fully developed, the traditional book is likely to be largely superseded in the foreseeable future by electronic publishing. Libraries will become book museums; with librarians as curators; many other librarians will find themselves dealing with unlimited and unpackaged information rather than with pre-packaged artefacts, in a role which will include facilitating and championing public access to information. The electronic ‘virtual library’ will encompass visual as well as verbal information; it will subsume art libraries except insofar as art libraries will become museums, but both the ‘virtual library’ and art libraries will continue to require the skills and vision of art librarians. Finally, in the short term, and perhaps indefinitely, the ‘virtual library’ and the ‘book library’ may not diverge to the extent of parting company altogether: the latter may continue to function as one gateway providing access to the latter.

ARLIS Committees and Working Parties

Abstract: From its earliest days ARLIS has carried out its work through committees and working parties: the Education Committee (which has organised conferences and courses since 1972), two standards working parties (which have produced guidelines on standards for art libraries), the Cataloguing and Classification Committee (which ‘was preceded by working parties on the Dewey Decimal Classification system and on the Anglo American Cataloguing Rules) and the Visual Resources Committee. A diagram shows the relationship of committees and working parties to Council. (The ARLIS committees concerned with the national coordination of art library resources, and with international matters, are discussed elsewhere in this issue of the Journal.)

Making the vision work

Abstract: How has the vision of the pioneers of ARLIS translated into the activities and achievements of the Society and its members in the present? The relationship of ARLIS and the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum has radically improved; collaborative projects in the areas of periodicals, slides and exhibition catalogues have yielded fruits in the form of union lists, surveys and directories; the longstanding Directory of members has been joined by a new directory documenting art, design and architecture resources in the UK and Ireland. However, as the Follett Report shows, the demands on libraries in the UK are heavier than ever before and will continue to increase, meaning that libraries will have to find new strategies to keep abreast of demand and take advantage of the new technologies. ARLIS should broaden its membership and may be able to achieve some of its long-term goals through the Visual Arts Library and Information Plan. This article is a revised version of a paper delivered to the 25th Anniversary Conference of ARLIS/UK & Ireland, London, 7th-10th April 1994.

Committee for the National Co-ordination of Art Library Resources

Abstract: ARLIS’s awareness of its national role and the necessity for a nationwide response to the needs of art library resources found expression in the work and research activities of the Committee for the National Co-ordination of Art Library Resources. The Committee first established itself as an influential voice in the debate on the National Art Library in the late 1970s and early 80s and later in discussions with the British Library which led in due course to the setting up of the BL Standing Committee on Art Documentation. An initiator of some of ARLIS’s major publications (the Union List of Art Periodicals; Art & Design Documentation: a Directory of Resources), the Committee has also seen notable success in the work of the Exhibition Catalogue project and more recently in the Visual Arts Library & Information Plan (VALIP).

The status of bibliography & indexing for Canadian art and architecture

Abstract: In 1974 the list of bibliographic works on the literature of Canadian art and architecture totalled 14 items, some in typescript. Since then there has been a surge of bibliographical activity including the creation of databases. Canadian art librarians are urged to lobby publishers to develop more precise index terminology and to improve indexing coverage of Canadian art periodical literature. Librarians should use the computer technology now in place to prepare exhibition histories, exhibition catalogue lists and indexes, while retaining their traditional respect for content, for bibliographic standards, and for the experience and specialized knowledge of qualified bibliographers and indexers.

‘A grapevine round the world’: the development, through 25 years, of the international role of ARLIS/UK & Ireland

Abstract: Between 1969 and 1979, while it was establishing itself, ARLIS attracted the attention of art librarians in other countries, publicised and encouraged their activities, and in particular developed a close relationship with the new ARLIS/NA (ARLIS/North America). This phase culminated, in 1976, in the launch of the Art Libraries Journal , and in the organisation of an international conference at Brighton which inaugurated a new era of collaboration between art librarians around the world, initial plans for an ‘ARLIS International’ being put aside in favour of working within the framework of IFLA. ARLIS subsequently participated in the activities of the IFLA Round Table of Art Librarians and its successor, the IFLA Section of Art Libraries. More recently, ARLIS responded to the growth of an international community of art librarians by changing its name to ARLIS/UK & Eire (and later to ARLIS/UK & Ireland) and by relaunching the Art Libraries Journal; the winding up of its International Committee, far from representing a decline in the Society’s international activities, was a logical consequence of the fact that an international outlook had come to pervade virtually all of its work. ARLIS/UK & Eire hosted the IFLA Section of Art Libraries Pre-Conference at Brighton in 1987, and the Section’s Fourth European Conference, at Oxford, in 1992. While international activities may sometimes seem remote from the day-to-day work of art libraries, most British art librarians probably do now recognise the value of’a grapevine round the world’; furthermore, by ‘acting locally’ we are all helping to build the larger world of art librarianship.