How do courtyards, façades and luminous public spaces become not only painterly motifs but archival constructions of cultural identity? Joaquín Sorolla’s monumental series for the Hispanic Society of America was shaped as much by the library’s holdings as by the artist’s brush. Letters, visual documentation, rare books, and curatorial material reveal how the Hispanic Society Library informed Sorolla’s architectural imagination and preserved his vision of Spain’s built heritage. This article examines the dynamic relationship between artist and archive; tracing how specific resources guided the selection of architectural motifs and supported material accuracy across regional scenes. It also shows how this archival substrate continues to frame contemporary interpretations of Vision of Spain. In doing so, it invites broader reflection on the role of art libraries in shaping national identity, cultural memory and, scholarly narratives about built form.

In December of 2024, the VCUarts Qatar Comics Lab, created under the VCUarts Qatar Libraries and funded by VCUQatar’s Institute for Creative Research held a three-day Creating Comics Retreat that invited members of the larger creative community in Doha Qatar to participate in creating short comics around the theme of “Third Culture Kids.” The event made use of faculty expertise in comic and graphic novel development from the Creative Writing Department at VCUarts’ home campus in Richmond, Virginia. The retreat resulted in several scripts for short comics.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the preservation of opera aperta in art collections of libraries. Design/methodology/approach: The paper builds case studies of Ukrainian operas during the war which used of differing practices and styles, but used the approach of art-activism and art-therapy for pointed important social question about the war and trauma. Findings: The study finds that preservation challenges can be rated from very difficult in operas without any libretto, which included only a dialogical plot and a few stable fragments (like “Sirens”). Low rate of complexity preserving has operas with many stable fragment and museums/other cultural heritage institutions of their universe, like “Chornobyldorf”. Further research of Ukrainian open operas should sort out the unfinished issues of legislative regulation of copyright in Ukraine and to encourage authors to publish and share with libraries more materials about operas (access without reuse without the consent of the author to prevent re-traumatization of viewers by careless handling of the topic with trauma). Practical implications: The findings of this research suggest new ways for libraries and other memory institutions how to preserve of open operas.

How can a major cultural institution ensure that its collecting practices reflect the diversity of the publishing landscapes of the UK and Ireland? In 2022, I undertook a PhD placement at the British Library investigating regional representation in its Contemporary British and Irish artists’ books and fine press collections. This placement was funded by the Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership, Arts & Humanities Research Council. This project examined the use of small publisher fairs across the UK and Ireland as an acquisition channel for works falling outside legal deposit. Here, I reflect upon my experience of using these small publisher fairs as data sources to analyse the diversity of this collection, building on a paper I presented at the ARLIS UK & Ireland Conference 2023 (Generative Spaces: The Creative Powers of the Art Library). Using the Small Publishers Fair, London, and Dublin Art Book Fair as case studies, this article examines the British Library’s engagement with these fairs and the opportunities they provide to improve the regional diversity of their artists’ books and fine press collections.

My research was supervised by Jerry Jenkins and supported by curatorial staff in the Contemporary British and Irish department.

This study examined design research methods used by Master of Architecture II (M.Arch II) students at Yale School of Architecture. Design research is a requirement of the M.Arch II curriculum and intended for students “who are interested in pursuing cross-disciplinary design research that will expand their understanding of how the designed environment—interiors, buildings, cities and landscapes—is shaped by the intersection of broad cultural, political, economic, technical and environmental forces.” (“M.Arch II Post-Professional Design Research,” Yale School of Architecture, accessed January 9, 2025, https://www.architecture.yale.edu/academics/programs/2-m-arch.) The program culminates in a design research project that is flexible and corresponds with their individual interests. While the term “design research” appears in both library and architectural literature, arriving at a singular definition for this type of work is challenging, especially when distinguishing it from other methodologies, because there is no clear consensus. This ambiguity prompted two key research questions: What design research methodologies are M.Arch II students applying in their theses at the Yale School of Architecture? How do M.Arch II students define their research methodologies within the context of their work?

The author examined these questions by analysing the 2022–2024 M.Arch II theses through deductive content analysis (Kimberly A. Neuendorf in The Content Analysis Guidebook defines content analysis as “the systematic, objective, quantitative analysis of message characteristics.” (1). While content analysis is often applied to textual analysis, in this case, the author is applying Neuendorf’s definition that can be conducted on written text, visual images, etc. Kimberly A. Neuendorf, The Content Analysis Guidebook., Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc, 2017. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781071873045.) with the goal of identifying library support models for design research.

The interdisciplinary nature of comics often makes institutional funding for research, teaching and programming in the medium difficult to secure in US academic institutions. San Diego State University found success at the US federal level, securing close to half a million dollars in grant funding to support our efforts with the study of comics. However, the current upheaval at the federal level has plunged US researchers into funding uncertainty. Delving into what was accomplished with these grants and what is now happening with the grant programs themselves helps contextualize what US comics scholars may lose with the elimination of federal funding streams.

In 2024 The Library at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London collaborated with Subjectivities & Feminisms, a staff research group at University of the Arts London to create an exhibition in response to material selected from Library Special Collections. The exhibition was titled Undoing, redoing, revolting : A feminist response to the special collections at Chelsea College of Arts. This article discusses the process of developing the exhibition as a collaborative process and the challenges and opportunities it created.