   
Section of Art Libraries
Annual Report
September 1999 - December 2000
Scope
The Section endeavours to represent libraries and organizations concerned with all formats of textual and visual documentation for the visual arts, including fine arts, applied arts, design and architecture. The Section strives to improve access to information about these subjects for users of independent research libraries, museum libraries, art libraries attached to educational institutions, and art departments within national, college, university and public libraries, government departments and agencies and libraries in cultural centres.
Membership
Membership reached 97 during the year (December 1, 2000) from 30 countries. This represents one of the best geographic coverages of any of the IFLA sections.
Officers
Chair - Jeannette Dixon, Library Director, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, PO Box 6826, Houston, Texas 77265, USA. Tel: (1) 713 639-7326; Fax: (1) 713 639 77784; Email: jdixon@mfah.org
Secretary & Information Coordinator - Geert-Jan Koot, Head, Rijksmuseum Library, PO Box 74888, 1070 DN Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Tel: (31) 20 6747250; Fax: (31) 20 6747001; Email: g.koot@rijksmuseum.nl
Treasurer - John Meriton, Head of Public Services, National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL, United Kingdom, Tel: (44) 171 5146 638, Fax: (44) 171 5146 597, Email: j.meriton@vam.ac.uk
Meetings
The Standing Committee of the Section of Art Libraries met twice during the Jerusalem conference, on Saturday, 12 August, 2000 twenty-three people attended; on Friday 18 August, thirty-four people attended.
Financial Report - The treasurer, John Meriton, distributed the financial report and noted the following. The Section has been running at a deficit as a result of the lapse of funding for the last two years. We did not apply for operating expenses to IFLA, and failed to request a continuation of support by The Getty Research Institute at a patron subscriber level. It was reported to the second standing committee meeting by Susan Allen, the Director of The Getty Research Library, that the library will continue to pay a patron subscription to the Newsletter in return for 40 copies.
The Section must return monies left over from completed or abandoned projects. It was reported to the second standing committee meeting that the Section's officers met with Winston Tabb, IFLA executive, who approved the retention of project funds for the updating of the International Directory of Art Libraries. The financial report was accepted as circulated.
Projects
Sources of Information on Artists Born in 1950 and Later
This proposal began with the idea of collecting information about libraries with holdings of original archival materials from contemporary artists, but turned into a list of institutions maintaining artists' ephemera files. Because this type of file collecting is common in some countries, there was confusion as to the purpose and scope of the project. The responses to Anja Lollesgaard's mail-out, the most extensive polling conducted, also reflected varying interpretations of the project in different countries. This project is not to be continued at present but has led to the inclusion of a session on cataloguing ephemera in this year's programme.
Multilingual Glossary for art librarians
The Glossary is now on-line but it is not being updated. There was general agreement among the standing committee members that a major revision of the glossary was not appropriate at this stage given levels of usage and other sources. It was also felt that our resources were best used for one major project each year. There was support for the update of the on-line version to cater for changes in usage and where volunteers were available to do this work. Javier Docampo, Biblioteca Nacional Madrid, volunteered to update the Spanish terms. John Meriton, National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum London, called attention to the need for a similar update for the German list.
International Directory of Art Libraries
The editor, Thomas Hill, Vassar College, reported that 200 corrections had been added last year, largely from ARLIS/New Zealand and Australia. It is still difficult to get up-dated information. Hill has used students to trawl relevant web-sites. Messages were sent out on ARLIS-L, IFLA-L and other appropriate lists in July 1999. John Meriton mentioned that the National Art Library would be able to offer administrative support.
On-line Bibliography of Image Sources in the Visual Arts
The goal of this proposed project is to create a Website that brings together resources, both computerized and in print, to lead people to images in the visual arts. The scope is worldwide, not restricted by language. We will work to discover the tools art librarians use to help people locate images, and put them into a usable database. This project should be set up as a collaborative project, with submissions from both organizations and individuals.
There was strong support at the standing committee meeting for this proposed project, which would result in an on-line database mounted on the IFLA server of sources for visual images in both hard copy and on-line formats. Priority: establish a study committee to report in Boston (volunteers: Marie-Claude Thompson, Laurence Camus, Margaret Shaw, Anja Lollesgaard, John Meriton, Olga Sinitsyna, Javier Docampo).
Future Conferences
Boston 2001
Hugh Wilburn of the Harvard Design School, Cambridge Massachusets, and head of the task force of ARLIS/NA's International Relations Committee, outlined proposed agenda for the joint IFLA Section of Art Libraries / ARLIS/New England satellite meeting planned for Boston, 16 and 17 August 2001. Carol Terry, Rhode Island School of Design Providence, issued an invitation to delegates to attend the Boston meeting. The theme of the pre-conference will be: How do I find a picture of...? : the changing nature of image research. Kenneth Soehner, Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, offered a post-IFLA tour to New York art libraries. Cecelia Chin, National Gallery of Art Washington, noted that a Washington tour would also be possible. Please contact them if you are interested.
Glasgow 2002
Debby Shorley, Chair ARLIS/UK & Ireland, issued an invitation to attend the 2002 conference in Glasgow. She proposed on behalf of ARLIS/UK & Ireland a 2-3 day pre-conference as is planned for Boston 2001. This would comprise a professional programme and opportunities to visit the rich art collections in Glasgow.
Publications
During the year under review the section published the following:
- Section of Art Libraries Newsletter, edited by Geert-Jan Koot. Three illustrated issues have been published: No. 45, November 1999, 16 pages; No. 46, April 2000, 12 pages; No 47, Oktober 2000, 12 pages). Also available electronically (without illustrations) at: http://www.ifla.org/VII/s30/news/4502.htm, 4601.htm and 4702.htm. Increase of circulation up to 1150 printed copies. No. 46 has been sold out. The mailing list count 325 addresses. Each Newsletter is also inserted in approximately 700 issues of Art Libraries Journal.
- Promotional Art Section Brochures
Ana Paula Gordo, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian Biblioteca General de Arte Lisbon, took care of the printing and the distribution of the Spanish and the revised Portuguese brochures, and also the updated English insert listing of office-bearers and committee members. Olga Sinitsyna, Head of the Arts and Children Literature Dept. of the Rudomino Library of Foreign Literature in Moscow produced the glossy Russian brochure. The following versions of the Art Section brochure are now available: English, Thai, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish. Unfortunately, the finished Chinese version could not be printed due to problems with the script. The English and Spanish versions are also available on-line at http://www.ifla.org/VII/s30/pub/broch99s.htm
- The IFLA Section of Art Libraries Annual Report Sept. 1998 - Aug. 1999, published in Newsletter No. 45, p.4-9. Revised Annual Report September 1998-December 1999 electronically available at: http://www.ifla.org/VII/s30/annual/ann99.htm.
All the papers presented at the Bangkok conference Section of Art Libraries workshop and open sessions have been published as follows:
Workshop presentations
Workshop presentations
- Electronic resources on art in Thailand (ERA): experiments at Silpakorn University Library / Poot Veraprasert and collegues. Art Libraries Journal, vol.25 (2000) No. 2, p.10-13. Available electronically: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla65/papers/074-157e.htm
- The art librarian as mediator: the art of being a librarian / Wilbert Helmus and Petra van den Born. Available electronically: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla.65/papers/075-157e.htm
- Information literacy in the electronic arts library: strategies for the hybrid professional / Aniko L. Halverson and Joye Volker. IFLA Journal, vol.26 (2000) No. 2, p.120-122. Available electronically: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla.65/papers/999-157e.htm
Open Session papers
- Connecting art images and bibliographic data: creating a tool for distance education through collaboration / Roger Durbin. Art Libraries Journal, vol.25 (2000) no. 2, p. 21-25. Available electronically: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla.65/papers/007-112e.htm
- Network access to visual information: a study of costs and uses / Howard Besser. Art Libraries Journal, vol 25 (2000) no. 2, p. 5-9. Available electronically: http://www.ifla.org/IV/papers/021- 112e.htm
- Las bases de datos sobre artes plásticas y arquitectura mexicanas : necessidad, logros, problemática = Mexican art and architecture databases : needs, achievements, problems / Elsa Barberena. Art Libraries Journal, vol. 25 (2000) no. 2, p. 14-20. Available electronically in Spanish: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla.65/papers/087-112s.htmAvailable electronically in English: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla.65/papers/087-112e.htm
Conference Programme, Jerusalem 13 - 18 August 2000
Report from the Workshop
The Workshop was held on Tuesday 15 August at the Israel Museum. We were treated to a compelling lecture to open the session by the curator emeritus, Mr. Magen Broshi, on the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This was followed by three papers on the theme, Art reference in the digital age. Over 80 people attended this session, although no simultaneous interpretation was available. Russian translations of the papers were prepared by members of the Russian delegation, and John and Marie-Claude Thompson prepared French translations. After the Workshop guided tours through sections of the museum were offered to the delegates, including the Shrine of the Book, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were on display.
Electronic art reference
Rüdiger Hoyer, Bibliothek des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte Munich, Germany
Available electronically: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/papers/076-109e.htm
To be published in Art Libraries Journal vol. 26 (2001) No. 3.
ABSTRACT: This paper evaluates the state of providing access to electronic reference material in German art and museum libraries. The analysis takes into account the services provided by German university and state libraries. It caracterizes to what degree the research facilities of art libraries and universal libraries complement each other. The very heterogenous state of education and knowledge concerning these materials is discussed, both on the side of the library staff as on the side of the specialized public. Finally a proposal is formulated for a cooperative form of providing access at least to the metadata of those electronic reference resources and thematically indexing them. New ways of cataloguing and indexing reference materials and other electronic resources are discussed within the German context of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft's virtual research program. For example, a cooperative project of German art and universal libraries, uses the possibilities of automatic linguistic indexing and aims at constructing a specialized art history gateway, giving access to relevant e-resources on the basis of a so-called ‘assoziatives fachliches Begriffsystem' and through a dynamic web register. This should eventually create an alternative to intellectual collecting and indexing e-resources, among them reference material.
The library as developer of digital visual aids for university courses
Lia Koffler and Ora Zehavi, Media Department, Library of Haifa University, Haifa, Israel
ABSTRACT:This paper discusses the role of the library in developing digital visual course resources for the use of faculty at the University of Haifa. The projects that were undertaken are original creations of the library using the professional and technological resources at the librarian's disposal. The purpose of these projects are twofold: first organizing visual materials for a specific course and facilitating use and accessibility to this material. Second, exposing the student to the new concept of ‘visual knowledge' and to relevant digital resources that are available on the web. The projects provide an effective and efficient learning environment that supports the courses for which they were designed, and they provide an effective bibliographic aid to the visual information of the course. In the course of working through the various aspects of preparing these projects, librarians acquired extensive experience and expertise in this area. As a result, librarians have become a valuable resource to faculty and students seeking visual information, and the library has become an active participant in the development and diffusion of new instructional technologies in the university.
Building a collection and implementing an instructional programme: on-line reference resources in an art research library
Kenneth Soehner, Hazen Center for Electronic Resources, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Thomas J. Watson Library, New York, USA
ABSTRACT: On-line resources include reference material and journal articles have been growing exponentially in the sciences for more than a decade. However it is only in the past few years that art historians have witnessed an efflorescence of on-line resources in their field. This process began with the availability of basic indexes such as Art Index and BHA on cd-rom, and quickly accelerated to an expanding universe of full text databases including major dictionaries, encyclopedias and on-line journals, massive image databases, museum websites and extensive auction and sale information. This rich and wide range of resources and new technologies demands a new concern with information literacy. Successful implementation of on-line resources and new technologies also demands a reevaluation of a library's staffing and organization, including assignment of personnel, allocation of acquisition budget and persistent needs for equipment, and technical support. It also demands a review and often a revitalization of the instructional component of the library's activities.
Marketing and promotion. Implementation of on-line resources requires effective multi- dimensional marketing, promotion, and an outreach program to the institution's administration, the library's users and, just as important, to the library's staff. We must be prepared to welcome the enthusiasm and address the inevitable anxieties created by the expansion of on-line resources.
Instructional programs. The introduction of new on-line resources must be accompanied by a program of instruction in the effective use of these resources. Practical demonstrations, courses and workshops should be combined with a ‘point need' approach in which the learner is the principal driving force with the instructor as facilitator of the process.
Revitalizing and reinventing reference work. New resources place a new emphasis on instructional skills. Librarians must apply core concepts of reference work, e.g. how to phrase information needs, where to look, how to structure an inquiry and how to evaluate results. The unfiltered nature of the web, and the increased number of commercial products increase the need to train users in evaluating on-line resources.
Open Session
The Open Session was held on Wednesday 16 August on the theme Cataloguing ephemera in the digital age. Translations in French and Russian were prepared and distributed. Sixty-five people attended this session, which was held at the Conference premises.
Artists in Canada: a national resource
Jo Beglo and Cyndie Campbell, National Gallery of Canada Library, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Available electronically: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/papers/067-165e.htm
To be published in Art Libraries Journal vol. 26 (2001) No. 2.
ABSTRACT: ‘Artists in Canada' is a bilingual union list of documentation files on Canadian artists held by the National Gallery of Canada Library and by twenty-two libraries and art galleries across the country. More than 42,700 artists are represented in ‘Artists in Canada', with biographical information as well as locations for files which typically contain artist information forms, press clippings, exhibition announcement and other ephemera. Originally compiled manually, ‘Artists in Canada' first appeared as a printed checklist in 1969. It has been automated since the late 1970s and has been accessible on the world wide web since 1995 at http://www.chin.gc.ca. The most recent print version, published in 1999, is a volume of nearly 750 pages. Records in the database contain up to thirty searchable fields. A data dictionary and guide for contributors provide protocol and standards for input. To ensure consistent and validated information, controlled vocabulary is used, and work has begun on name authorities. ‘Artists in Canada' has evolved into a unique collaborative resource of national scope and international importance. Technology now provides additional possibilities, such as enhancing name authorities, exporting records, and providing links between ‘Artists in Canada' and other databases.
Cataloging artist files: one library's approach to providing integrated access to ephemeral material
Daniel Starr, Museum of Modern Art Library, New York, USA
Available electronically: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/papers/068-165e.htm
To be published in ICBC Journal (2001).
ABSTRACT: Ephemeral material often contains important documentation on artists that is not easily found anywhere else. It documents obscure artists and the early careers of well-known artists. It is not widely distributed, but many libraries have important collections of this material, often concentrating on local artists and on material produced by local galleries and museums. Ephemeral material is rarely cataloged, and even if it is the cataloging information may not be in on-line databases which may be searched over the Internet. Many libraries create a card catalog listing files on individual artists or rely on simply going to the filing cabinets to see if a file exists. This makes discovering which repository has information time-consuming, since it is often difficult to predict which library has collected and preserved ephemeral material about a particular artist.
No one disputes the value of a unified database of information about artists, but it is difficult to provide this, even within our own institutions. How can we accomplish this admirable goal given our perpetual understaffing and overwork?
Creating a database is a substantial investment in time, but any time spent on one may be repaid by removing hidden burdens in using artist files. Library staff or researchers can predict which files exist before making a trip to a library or to the filing cabinets. Cataloging records provide security, both in identifying the existence of files, and in helping control circulation of the material if that is allowed. Finally, by highlighting the types of information contained in files, catalog records may help in identifying later preservation or digitization projects, for example, by identifying files that contain photographs or slides that may need special housing or that might be candidates for digitization.
This paper demonstrates how cataloging of over 40,000 files on individual artists is made available to researchers around the world by incorporating MARC records for each file in an on- line catalog that can be searched over the Internet. While each library handles this material in different ways, the approach presented in this paper may provide one example that will help begin the process of creating an international automated catalog of artist files.
Are the last exhibition brochures available? Problems and solutions for a neglected material in museum libraries
Javier Docampo, Servicio de Dibujos y Grabados, Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, Spain
and Rosario López de Prado, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Biblioteca, Madrid, Spain
Available electronically: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/papers/069-165e.htm
To be published in Art Libraries Journal vol. 26 (2001) No. 2.
ABSTRACT: Every museum generates a considerable amount of printed and graphic ephemeral material, which provides first-hand information on their permanent exhibitions and their temporary activities (exhibition brochures, didactic material, activity announcements, cards, etc). Frequently these data are the only source of direct information on the active life of the organism precisely reflecting their public image. However, there are but a few of the museums devoting a certain effort to preserve this material and their custody is not always guaranteed. This paper intends to establish a classification of the different types of ephemeral publications, which are common in museums (informative, educational, commercial, of internal use, etc). To this purpose, it sets forth an elementary system of automated technical treatment which, by using the MARC format (in those libraries having normalized systems) or database in ACCESS (for the ones lacking of them), a secure system for storage, retrieval and diffusion of this data can be established.
Relationships with other bodies
The Art Section co-sponsored the Open Session on manuscripts relating to the Middle-East, organised by the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section on Wednesday 16 August at the Jerusalem conference.
Other events
The papers of the International Conference ‘Libraries in the Museums - Museums in the Libraries' and the Second Annual Meeting of the IFLA International Art Documentation Advisory Group, 15-23 May 1999 have been published in INSPEL vol. 33 (1999) No. 4, and also available electronically at: http://www.ifla.org/VII/d2/inspel/cont334.htm
Action Plan 2000-2001
In general, the Art Section will continue to explore ideas to bring together useful tools for use of art researchers and artists. The Section will also try to collaborate with other groups within IFLA, especially in the areas of cataloging, collection development and preservation.
The International Directory of Art Libraries on-line will continue to be updated, both with contact information, and with URL's for the libraries' Web page. The possibility of adding fields to describe a library's collection that doesn't have a Web page will be explored.
The IFLA Art Section electronic mailing list has been developed to carry on communications during the year. It is being maintained by the staff of the Gulbenkian Foundation Library.
National reports of art librarianship in all the participating countries will continue to be solicited and published in the section's newsletter. These reports serve as a state of the art report on activities, associations, and projects in different countries.
It is the intention of the Section to work closer together with other Sections. Possible joint sessions for Boston with the Section on Rare Books and Manuscripts on the history of printing in the Americas, and possibly with the Section on Preservation. The Section will investigate the possibility of a joint future conference session with the Section on Services to Disabled Persons on such a topic as art for the visually impaired.
Topics for next year's sessions:
- Open session (formal papers) - Image resources in the visual arts
- Workshop (interactive, short presentations) - Current issues in art library management
- Satellite meeting (interactive, short presentations and formal papers) - ‘How do I find a picture of ...?': The changing nature of image research
Geert-Jan Koot
Secretary, IFLA Section of Art Libraries
December 2000
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