Fashion is often held synonymous with frivolity, excess, and luxury; as such, the study of costume history and theory has historically been considered impractical or subsidiary. The significant rise in costume education and scholarship during the 20th century has brought new and more frequent queries regarding the histories of fashion, etiquette, and material culture to our libraries. We are now often asked to assist in researches of cultures of style, and how they may be analyzed in a multidisciplinary context. Is it possible to analyze fashion trends through the lens of the law? Are effects of American colonialism present in fashion trends today? This brief historiography of costume and fashion studies seeks to utilize a multi- and interdisciplinary lens that reference librarians may employ to assist patrons with style-related inquiries.

The Rijksmuseum project in Amsterdam began in 1999 with a government plan to celebrate the millennium in the Netherlands with a series of grand cultural projects. It was recognized that the museum building had been neglected, and urgently needed modernizing. Following a European search, the Spanish architects of Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos won the competition in 2001. The renovation would also focus on new spaces for the entrance hall and a pavilion for Asian art. The main art gallery and the library were selected as places to receive an especially thorough renovation and restauration. The Cuypers Library Hall is the one of the very few 19th-century library spaces that have survived in the Netherlands. The library is very close to the architect's original conception of the space and how it would be used. The reception is an impressive 20-meter high rectangular book hall, elaborately decorated and composed as a Gesamtkunstwerk. This article will draw attention to the design and the historic functions of the library hall.

Several museums and libraries in North America and Europe house in their collections expressive works of art from Latin America. An understanding of the source of such collections requires study of their history and of the background from which they come, even if, as a matter of fact, collecting works of art and bibliographical assets on such a theme is not new. The interest in studying artworks which do not belong to the so-called western canon enables a wider knowledge of the art in Latin America. Notwithstanding the reasons behind such interest, it is worth noting that some facts related to their development are still lively, such as the interests roused by the travelling artists in the 19th century, who departed in search of the unknown or exotic and came back to their homeland with an imagination full of images from the New World. It is undeniable that Latin America has had a key role in the major changes that occurred during the age of discovery, when Europe focused on its colonies. Nowadays, as we observe the recurrence of such a foreign look at Latin America, we might ask ourselves how Latin America sees itself.

Basing his arguments on Ranganathan’s tenets of librarianship, the writer challenges art librarians to question many of their attitudes to users, and the effect of these on the universal availability of art documentation, from the ‘user friendliness’ of libraries, through practical techniques of librarianship which assist users, to implications for interlibrary co-operation worldwide. This is a slightly revised version of a paper delivered to the IFLA Section of Art Libraries Preconference in Chicago, August 1985.

A selection of ‘avant-garde’ journals, from the early 20th century onwards, which have included architectural material. The journals are grouped into countries (which appear in alphabetical order), and are then arranged chronologically by date first published. Part 1 covers journals from Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary and Italy. The journals are described by a number of contributors denoted by their initials: A.B. (Antoine Baudin); J.G. (Jacques Gubler); M.D.G. (Manolo De Giorgi); B.H. (Brian Henson); I.P. (Isabella Pezzini); F.R. (Franco Raggi); P.G.T. (Piero G. Tanca).

The article is the translation of a survey ‘La rete delle riviste’ which first appeared in Rassegna, no. 12, December 1982 - a special issue entitled ‘Architettura nelle riviste d’avanguardia’.

There are many arguments for the necessity of open access, scholarship that is freely available online; however, many of these arguments do not apply to art scholarship – is it then still necessary to change the publishing model? I argue that it is; the high price of access to traditional publications closes art scholarship to all but privileged Western academics. Open access is key to creating a globally integrated community of art scholars and reengaging the public in art discourse. Librarians can help facilitate a scholarship that is accessible to all.

Since 1990 the National Life Story Collection has documented the lives of almost eighty of Britain’s visual artists by means of in-depth tape-recordings, often completed over many months. Cathy Courtney, Project Officer of Artists’ Lives, describes the evolution of an initiative which will subtly alter the context in which historians of the future come to assess the art of our time.

This paper looks at the way architecture students at Queen’s University are educated in the art of information retrieval from their undergraduate to their postgraduate years. Particular emphasis is paid to the role the librarian plays in the first year project to research, and produce a model of, a seminal building and to the development of PADDI (Planning Architecture Design Database Ireland) as a teaching tool for researching local architecture. The impact on library management is examined in relation to effective deployment of decreasing staff resources in the face of increasing student numbers; the raising of the profile of library staff within the Faculty; the more focused allocation of budgets through involvement with course planning; and the growth of new services, arising from an improved awareness of student needs.

The temporary cessation to publication of the leading and most comprehensive bibliography in the arts, the International bibliography of art (formerly Bibliography of the history of art) in 2009, led to a lively debate on the future of art bibliography. Many scholars, librarians and information specialists were in favour of saving the established model and of ensuring its continuing existence. At the same time there arose the controversial and much-debated question of whether the traditional model of the IBA – grounded in an intellectual analysis of documents (articles from journals, monographs, exhibition catalogues, etc.) and their description with standardised metadata and abstracts – still corresponds to the needs of modern research on the one hand and to the new potentialities and realities of displaying, connecting, exchanging and gaining information in digital data networks on the other. Library catalogues play a decisive role in this consideration: unlike bibliographies, which follow traditional and more or less unvaried standards, they have mutated to a great degree from inflexible registers to dynamic networks. They enrich and connect the bibliographic information with additional data, they invite the user to tag and to review the corresponding literature and they enable complex forms of unforeseeable discovery. Thus the ‘crisis’ into which art bibliography was plunged when the old IBA ceased publication, at the same time opened up the opportunity to discuss alternative, future-oriented solutions for the appropriate format of bibliographic information supply in the arts today.

‘A means or method of perceiving’ the library through a series of McLuhanite ‘probes’ presenting ideas reflecting current library practice supported by the theories of Marshall McLuhan. Often quoted and misunderstood, McLuhan during the 1960’s was criticized by many librarians for predicting the end of the book, however, deeper analysis of his theories and the writings of his supporters prove that he was somebody ‘who has, perhaps, a greater perception of the value of books and libraries for civilization, than many librarians.’ The theories of McLuhan provide a blueprint for libraries into the future and beyond, from library instruction and teaching, professional development, media ecologies and future technologies. Being McLuhanite in nature the sections of this article can be read in any sequence.

The preservation of artists’ papers and other art source material has steadily increased since the Second World War. Art archives include national repositories, archives attached to museums and libraries, archives devoted to a single person or institution, and ‘multiple collection archives’. Archival materials range from manuscript and photographic records to original works of art. Some archival materials have been published in microform formats; many others have not, and potential users depend on being able to locate them by means of various finding aids. Unless supported by public funds, the archives themselves depend on grants or sponsorship. Art archives may be staffed by archivists, museum curators, or librarians; future developments require not merely cooperation but also a ‘harmonization’ of these three professions, and a critical approach to the application of new technologies.

Although many levels of computer-aided indexing exist, most art indexers use the computer at a rudimentary level, to perform little more than alphabetising services. This problem is compounded by the lack of standardised vocabulary or thesaurus. Each indexing project has developed its own subject list. Even those which attempt some co-ordination with a standard source like Library of Congress Subject Headings find themselves modifying existing terms and adding new ones. The National Endowment for the Humanities and the Council on Library Resources funded a project to establish the need for a comprehensive art and architecture thesaurus and, as the first phase of a projected three-stage plan, to construct an architecture thesaurus.

This paper is written from the point of view of the indexer. Its intent is to describe how subject indexing activities in art are being aided by the use of computers. This discussion notes the current state of disarray among art subject indexing systems and suggests that the availability of a standardised vocabulary for art will provide an important adjunct to computerised indexing. This paper was delivered to the ARLIS/NA conference at San Francisco on 22 February 1981.

Museums, archives and libraries comprise a spectrum of collecting institutions whose interests range from unique objects to published information. Libraries have pioneered the application of both co-operative and automated systems to their collections; museums are following their example, and are innovating in the provision of interactive information technology. Dialogue between museum and library professionals is to be encouraged, not least at an international level.

A time traveller visiting a British art school library in the 1840s, the 1970s, and the 1990s, would recognise a significant degree of continuity linking the library of the 1840s with that of the 1970s, but would be startled by the changes which have taken place in the last 20 years. Rapid change has resulted from several factors: increasing numbers of students; a growth in the demand from the public for art information; changes in the content and delivery of the curriculum; and not least, new technologies. This rapid pace of change is destined to continue into the foreseeable future, so much so that, instead of adapting to change bit by bit, librarians need to envisage and plan the new art libraries of tomorrow.

In Japan, many different organisations have played a part in creating the digital content that we now see being shared on the internet. Starting in the 1980s, developments in digital cultural heritage took place mainly in five kinds of institution: museums, libraries, archives, university and research institutes, plus the world of business. Museums and libraries played a leading role in the 1980s, and they were joined in the 1990s by universities and commercial enterprises, which developed digital content in a variety of ways. In the 2000s archival institutions became involved, and museums, libraries and archives began to form networks to enable seamless retrieval of digital cultural heritage. In the 2010s, the focus moved to the sharing of data and specifically the need to establish a common approach for the exchange of metadata for the ‘Semantic Web’. Creating content for tablet devices also became important, as did the question of standardising technology. The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 brought a keen awareness of the need to create digital records to preserve and share memories of disasters.

From the point of view of a student of art history in the 1980s re-entering the discipline as a graduate student, the ‘new’ art history represents a dramatically wider field of enquiry involving new methodologies, although ‘old’ art history is still pursued by some academics. The ‘new’ art history employs an interdisciplinary approach which embraces materials far beyond ‘traditional’ art historical sources, and so information has to be sought outside the art library and via the Internet. Librarians responsible for supporting art history studies need to keep in touch with teachers, with curriculum developments, and with the discipline itself; it may also be helpful to get involved in staff/student use of the Web, and to collaborate with other Humanities librarians. The way in which the ‘new’ art history branches out in all directions parallels the hypertext linkages of the Web and the complexity of our globally-connected world.

Over the past thirty years, the artist’s book has inspired comment from critics of disparate disciplines from writers on art, bibliography and librarianship, all keen to bring the artist’s book under the writer’s explanatory gaze and assimilate it into critical discourse. As a cross-disciplinary field of activity, it is thus open to constant reconfiguration from the respective voices of the practitioner, the critic, the librarian and the bibliographer. The definitions and categorisations offered by these writers often belie their respective dispositions, their training and the expectations of the audiences for whom they write.

A description of some of the more ephemeral types of documentation surrounding contemporary art is followed by an indication of some of the problems involved in their acquisition, cataloguing and preservation. This is a revised version of a paper given at the two-day course on the Literature of Art and Architecture, organised by ARLIS and the Library Association in December 1979.

The information-gathering activities of art historians have been studied from three different perspectives: in terms of the books they use; through their own accounts of their working processes; and by informal, systematic observation, written up as ‘user studies’, by art librarians. While observation implies objectivity, a distance between observer and observed, in practice art librarians are very much involved with the art historian in the work of art history and in the development of its methodologies.

The specific properties of film, video recordings, audiotapes, cassettes and discs are described, and attention is drawn to problems and hazards. Methods of storage, cleaning, use and long term preservation are recommended, and environmental factors are considered.