The Edo-Tokyo Museum Library is the specialist library of a museum that opened in 1993, and that has a particular focus on the history and culture of Tokyo (known in pre-modern times as Edo). It houses a collection of books, documents, secondary materials and microfilms covering history, performing arts, customs and traditions, architecture, literature and much else. The Library’s holdings are a part of the Museum’s collections; we record them and store them, making them available for public consultation on the understanding that they are objects to be treated with care, preserved for future generations, and may also be used in the museum exhibitions. At the same time, we also make a point of collecting art exhibition catalogues, and we have characteristics of an art library. On the eve of our 20th anniversary our operations are due for a review, but here I will concentrate on giving a brief summary of our activities.

Otto Pächt came to England already formed as an art historian of the Vienna school. His natural orbit was the Warburg Institute, but with the outbreak of war he moved to Oxford and began to catalogue the illuminated manuscripts in the Bodleian Library. The catalogue was destined to have a major impact on the field; but by the time it was published Pächt had taken up the chair of art history in Vienna, one of the few refugee scholars to have returned to live and work in his native country.

Established in 1999 within the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, in Bremen, the Studienzentrum für Künstlerpublikationen (Research Centre for Artists’ Publications) is today one of the most significant institutions worldwide in the field of artists’ publications, with holdings of more than 200,000 items, and important programmes of exhibitions and publications. The Research Centre traces its roots to the Archive for Small Press & Communication (ASPC), founded in 1974 by Anne Marsily and Guy Schraenen, and incorporates more than 40 individual archives and special collections, including the PLG Friesländer’s Mail Art Archive, the Klaus Groh Collection and the Kunstradio Archive.

Modern and contemporary books, easily replaceable in the internet age, are weeded from collections and disposed of because of their poor quality materials and construction. For an art library, where obsolescence is rarely an issue, the 20th- and 21st-century book can be a problem. Rare and seminal works in our collections are crumbling because they are acidic or perhaps they just cannot withstand the handling (and photocopying). We have become alert to the conservation of books from the hand-press period, but do not always know what to do with recent publications, or we cannot afford to undertake the measures necessary. As the artist’s book as an art form reaches its 50th birthday, we highlight the conservation of one such volume, in hopes of opening up discussion about the care of our contemporary treasures.

Since 2010, Book Works has been digitising material from its archive – whether finished works, ephemera, correspondence, photographs, or manuscripts – to give access to the working processes of the organisation (at www.bookworks.org.uk). The archive database is constructed around a chronological timeline and includes a search facility that allows visitors to filter and select material using a bespoke classification system. It currently comprises detailed content relating to two case studies from Book Works back catalogue: After the Freud Museum by Susan Hiller and Erasmus is late by Liam Gillick, as well as ephemera and material from other works. The project has been developed in collaboration with Ligatus Research Centre, University of the Arts London, with support from the AHRC Knowledge Transfer scheme.

In 1961 Elisabeth Jastrow retired from her position as Professor of Art at the Women’s College of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). That same year her friends and colleagues established a scholarship for advanced art history students in her name. Jastrow devoted 20 years of her life to teaching at Greensboro. These were both difficult and rewarding years, fraught with financial worries, lack of library facilities, personal losses and a constant struggle to obtain teaching materials for her classes. At the same time she immersed herself in providing a high quality education despite the limited resources at her disposal. Her career began far from North Carolina under very different circumstances and with plans for a considerably more active academic life.

Princeton University’s Marquand Library of Art and Archaeology is one of the oldest and most extensive art libraries in America. Founder and namesake Allan Marquand was both an art historian and the creator of a ‘logical machine’ that prefigured modern computers. This shared science and humanities heritage is echoed in the Blue Mountain Project, a new digital humanities initiative to which Marquand Library is a major contributor. This article begins with a brief description of the library’s origins and the development of its facilities and collections. It then reports on Blue Mountain, a digital library of the avant-garde that chronicles the emergence of modernity in the literary, visual and performing arts from 1848 to 1923.

The National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo had its beginnings in the Institute of Art Research, which was the first institution to specialise in research in fine art in Japan. The library at the Institute played a central role from the very start, acquiring and making accessible its large collection of material related to fine art, with an emphasis on books and photographs. In recent years, we have also begun to play a role as an archive and information centre. What were the original aims and objectives behind the establishment of the library, and how have its activities changed? Amidst the many developments in recent years – the role of the internet, now a major information tool, the organisational changes at the Institute itself – it is essential that we continue to do the work for which we have long been recognised in art history research and the preservation and utilisation of cultural properties, and at the same time find ways to collaborate with related institutions.

From 1993 onwards a number of plans have been made to create an extension of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. City politics, changing views on what kind of a museum the Stedelijk wants to be, and budgetary problems were the reasons two consecutive plans, one by Robert Venturi, the other by Alvaro Siza, were not realised. Finally the Dutch firm Benthem Crouwel designed a new wing, doubling the space of the Museum. In this building, known as ‘The Bathtub’, the library has been given a prominent place.

Bernard V. Bothmer left his mark on the world of Egyptology in three of the United States’ great art institutions: the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Brooklyn Museum and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. He created gallery displays, developed library collections and founded image collections that continue to influence scholars worldwide. One can wonder how the course of American Egyptology would have developed if circumstances had not driven him out of his native Germany. Despite hardship, fear and a career interrupted, he trained and profoundly influenced at least four generations of historians of Egyptian art. BVB, as he was affectionately known to those close to him, inspired all who worked with him to the highest level of achievement, a standard which came to be known as “Brooklyn Quality”.

This article offers a brief summary of Cultural Heritage Online, a web portal that contains information and images illustrating Japan’s cultural heritage. What are some of the site’s recently-added features, which are aimed at increasing opportunities to find out about 96,000 objects and places of historical and cultural interest? The map navigation feature, for example, which allows users to search for works of art, sites of interest, and museums, in a particular location; and the Associative Search function, which has a Limit Search option that gives them the opportunity to narrow down results? What will be the effect of the new link that allows data to be added directly by participating museums and art galleries? The author takes readers through a sample search sequence and explains some of the possible options. He also considers ways in which this web portal might develop in the future: a database of artists will be shared online in due course, and an English version of the website is in preparation.

In situations characterised by complex and ambiguous economic conditions, it becomes necessary to structure organisations in ways that will meet the challenges. This paper introduces the innovative strategic plan currently being implemented at the Centro de Documentación y Biblioteca del Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. This is still in its early stages, but a contrast can already be drawn with the status quo five years ago when, despite being involved in various initiatives, the Library had no strategy of its own and no established reputation for contemporary art research.

The National Diet Library (NDL) is Japan’s national library, established in 1948 to provide research facilities for members of parliament, but now used most by the general public. Similar in purpose and scope to the US Library of Congress, the NDL is a deposit library, and collects copies of all publications that originate in Japan. For nearly a decade and a half the Library has been making digital reproductions of paper documents and printed material, but the pace at which it has added to its digitised content has speeded up remarkably in recent years. It has also developed and continues to enhance integrated search services that allow users to cross-search the databases of many other museums, libraries, archives and research institutes in Japan and retrieve information resources from them. A digital archive of records of the earthquake and related disasters that struck Japan in March 2011 is under way.

The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011 was a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions even for a country that is one of the most earthquake-prone in the world. The saveMLAK project, which came into being in response to this earthquake and its related disasters, comprises an online network of museums, libraries and archives, as well as kōminkan, or community centres (hence the acronym MLAK), and is the first organisation of its kind in Japan. What was the genesis of saveMLAK, and what kind of activities does it engage in? Who are saveMLAK’s participants? What needs to be done to help the saveMLAK network develop further and become even more effective in coping with future natural disasters?