Newsletter of the Section of Art Libraries (Web edition)

The Art Libraries Section Open Session theme will be Studying Scandinavian art and design at home and abroad. You are invited to take part in this meeting by delivering a paper or by recommending speakers to lecture on either of the two themes.

The Proposal for a paper at either of these Art Libraries Meetings in Copenhagen should include the following information:

Author's name
Institutional affiliation
Address (professional)
Telephone no., Fax no.,
Email address (professional)
Address (personal)
Telephone no., Fax no. (personal)
Brief biographical information
Title of the paper
Original language version:
English/French/German/Russian/Spanish
Translated version/s:*
English/French/German/Russian/Spanish
Audiovisual or other equipment required

*As it is not possible to provide translations of lectures centrally, prospective contributors will be required to provide a translation into at least one other IFLA language if at all possible.

The Proposal plus a brief description of the paper's contents (200 words) must be sent at latest by 31 January 1997 . If a proposal is selected the final paper, which should be between 8 and 10 A4 pages, will be required by 11 April 1997. The proposal to be sent to

Jan van der Wateren
Chairman
IFLA Section of Art Libraries
c/o National Art Library
Victoria and Albert Museum
South Kensington, London SW7 2RL
UK
Tel: +44 171 938 8303
Fax: +44 171 938 8275
Email: 100316.3515@COMPUSERVE.COM

Section of Art Libraries
Workshop

Preliminary Programme

08:30-09:00 Registration. A charge will be made to cover lunch

09:00-12:00 Contributed papers

12:00-13:00 Lunch at the Museum

13:00-16:00 Contributed papers

16:00-17:00 Visit to the Museum of Decorative Art:

the Museum and the museum shop will

be open exclusively for the art librarians

1830-1930 Reception at The Royal Library

An architectural and museum tour of Copenhagen will be arranged for sometime during the conference. All colleagues who wish to attend the Workshop should register with the Chairman or Secretary as soon as possible at the address given elsewhere in this Newsletter.

CONFERENCE HOTEL

Whilst normal practice is "first come, first served" the conference organisers recommend that you should mark your conference registration form at the Position/Title entry with "Librarian (ARLIS)". The conference organisers will use this information as their guide to place people in the Hotel Neptun. The cost will be round about 900 Danish Kroner for a single room and about 1,200 Danish Kroner for a double room per night. The conference organisers recommend that if we wish to stay together we should register as soon as possible because the rooms cannot be held specially. Please note that the shuttle buses from the hotel to the main conference centre will be available only to those who have booked their hotel via IFLA.

REGISTRATION FOR COPENHAGEN 1997

The art librarians are requested to register at the main conference venue on Friday 29 August between 1400 and 1800, that is the day before our Workshop.

Information and Registration forms for the conference can be obtained from

IFLA 97
Nyhavn 31E, DK-1051 Copenhagen
Denmark
Tel: +45 33 930735 Fax: +45 33 930788
Email: ifla-97@inet.uni-c.dk
WWW: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla63/63intro.htm

IFLA, Copenhagen 1997
Preliminary Programme

Saturday August 30

Evening
Reception for IFLA Officers (by invitation only)

Sunday August 31

Afternoon
Council I

Evening
Exhibition opening/Reception in exhibition area

Monday September 1

Afternoon
Opening session followed by Plenary session

Evening
1997 Gala Reception hosted by the Danish
Minister of Culture

Tuesday September 2

Midday
Guest lectures
Poster sessions

Evening
City Hall receptions

Wednesday September 3

Midday
Guest lectures
Poster sessions

Thursday September 4

Afternoon
Standing Committees

Evening
Library receptions

Friday September 5

Afternoon
Council II followed by
Closing Session

Saturday September 6

Nominations for Standing Committee Members 1997-2001 Term

In conformity with IFLA's Rules of Procedure, Art. 8.3, all qualified IFLA Members ("qualified Member" means one whose dues for 1996 have been paid in full) are invited to submit nominations for member(s) of Standing Committee(s) of the Section(s) for which that Member is registered.

Please consult IFLA Directory 1996/97 for:

1. The list of Standing Committee members of the Art Libraries Section and their term of office (page 39)

2. Note that Standing Committee members have a maximum term of 8 years (4 + 4)

When nominating, one must bear in mind:

1. Each Member registered for a Section may not nominate more than one candidate for the Standing Committee of that particular Section

2. Nominations in writing and signed by a competent authority of the nominating Member must reach IFLA HQ not later than 1 March 1997. Nomination forms can be had from IFLA HQ.

3. To be placed on the ballot, a candidate for election shall be nominated by:
a) one Association Member or
b) no fewer than two Institutional Members. These nominations may be sent separately.

4. To be placed on the ballot, a nominee should have working knowledge of at least one language of the Federation, and should have reasonable expectation of attending meetings of the Standing Committee without cost to the Federation. IFLA's forthcoming conferences will be held in Copenhagen (31 August - 5 September 1997), Amsterdam (16-21 August 1998), Bangkok (19-28 August 1999) and Jerusalem (August 2000).

5. Please also bear in mind that IFLA's Rules of Procedure give Standing Committee members the possibility to select up to 5 corresponding members to provide for experts from countries or geographical areas which would not otherwise be regularly represented. Corresponding members are entitled to participate and speak in Standing Committee meetings, but have no voting rights (Art. 8.3.17). This possibility allows interested persons to become involved without entering into a regular commitment to attend conferences. At present the Art Libraries Section has only one Corresponding Member. Dr Elza Barbarena, Mexico.

6. The nomination must be accompanied by:
a) a statement of the nominee that he/she accepts the nomination
b) a short statement of qualifications and present position
c) a statement by the nominee that he/she can meet the requirements specified under item 4.

IFLA Section of Art Libraries Annual Report September 1995 - August 1996

Standing Committee and Membership

The Standing Committee met twice during the Beijing conference. Many less than the usual number of Committee members could attend Beijing. Those who could were Jean Adelman (USA), Mary Ashe (USA), Jeanette Dixon (USA), Hiroyuki Hatano (Japan), Herloff Hatlebrekke (Norway), Geert-Jan Koot (Netherlands), Nicole Picot (France), Margaret Shaw (Australia), Olga Sinitsyna (Russia) and Jan van der Wateren (UK). However, there were a number of observers coming from France, Great Britain, India, Sweden and the United States.

Membership of the Section grew rapidly during the year and in July numbered 86 as compared to 71 the previous July. This will have an impact on the sum of money allotted to the Section for administrative purposes by IFLA. However, plans were laid during the conference to increase membership even further.

The Committee was concerned about Committee member attendance at conferences. They noted that when individuals agreed to stand for election they had to indicate that they will be able to attend at least three out of four conferences. The Standing Committee now agreed that members who have missed more than one conference should be advised that in future the policy would be strictly applied and that members who miss more than one meeting, unless there were exceptional personal reasons, will be asked not to stand again for membership of the Committee because the Section of Art Libraries Committee is very hard-working and much of its business is conducted at the annual meetings. The question of funding was raised but, whilst this is a problem which may earn more sympathy, it was recognised that ability to obtain funding is implied in accepting election to the SC. It was noted that those who fail to attend deprive others of a possible place on the Committee. It was agreed that Corresponding members who have not been in touch during the term of the current Chair should be dropped.

Projects

International Guide to Literature and Art Archives in Libraries, Museums and other institutions. The Chairman communicated unofficially with the Chair of ICA/CLA during the year but did not attend meetings in Washington DC. The International Directory of Art Libraries was recommended to ICA/CLA. A prototype making use of UNESCO's CDS/ISIS software was to be demonstrated at the ICA conference immediately following the IFLA conference in Beijing.

Education/Training for art librarians. Pressure of work prevented the translation of the questionnaire into the different languages envisaged in Istanbul. In the meantime however, Nicole Picot in France had circulated a French version to approximately 600 French colleagues. Of the 101 replies only five reported an organised training scheme but they were not willing to share this. Similarly, Olga Sinitsyna found in Russia, where there was an 80% response rate to the 200 questionnaires she distributed, that only 5% had something to offer and that 80% wanted only Russian language materials. These two surveys thus showed similar results to the first international survey, that very few organisations had formal internal training materials and that only a very minute percentage were willing to disseminate these programmes. The Committee felt that it was not justified to expend time and money to pursue the project further.

The Committee decided not to initiate any new projects before the adoption of a new Medium Term Programme at the Copenhagen conference.

Publications

Multilingual Glossary for Art Librarians. It is with profound relief and satisfaction that I can report that the Glossary editing was completed in January 1996 and that in a supremely efficient manner IFLA and KG Saur had it published a few months later. A copy of the printed text as well as an electronic format was forwarded to Terry Kuny of IFLANET administration who will be mounting it on the World Wide Web. The Chairman agreed to act as a liaison point for any further suggestions to add terms to the Glossary until the end of his term as Chairman in September 1997. In the meantime Olga Sinitsyna undertook to prepare a Russian version of the Glossary to be ready by July 1997. Hiroyuki Hatano reported that JADS was enthusiastic to prepare a Japanese version but that that would be available in July 1998. It was agreed that the Chairman would reopen discussions with Portuguese volunteers who had wished to translate it into Portuguese. All in all the Glossary represents a major milestone in the history of the Section, from its inception and publication in a first in-house format to this massively reworked second edition.

International Directory of Art Libraries. Again, it can be reported with great pleasure that the International Directory went live on the Internet at the beginning of 1996. All contributions had not yet been received but the gaps are being filled, including coverage of Chinese libraries and those of Central America, Central Africa and the South Pacific. Thomas Hill, the Editor-in-Chief, is continuing his search to find co-ordinators to add to the current 35 co-ordinators. It is planned to prepare a hard copy publication, possibly by region, during the early part of 1997 so that it can be published by the 1997 conference in Copenhagen. The on-line Directory can be accessed at http://iberia.vassar.edu/ifla-idal/

World Wide Web site. The Section of Art Libraries pages on the IFLA World Wide Web site were in the early stages of development and it was hoped that during the forthcoming year a number of additions could be made to the site.

Newsletters. During the year two issues of the Newsletter , No.37, 1995, No.2 and No.38, 1996, No.1 were published. The Committee agreed that the numbering of the Newsletter needs to be changed so that it follows a more standard format. No.37, 1995, No.2 carried a Call for papers for Beijing, an Annual Report of the Section and a full report on the Open Session and Workshop held in Istanbul. No.38, 1996, No.1 carried the draft programme for the Open Session and Workshop in Beijing, as well as a list of new members of the Section, in addition to a number of other news items.

During the Standing Committee meetings it was decided, after a report from a sub-committee, that regional co-ordinators should be appointed in order to increase the scope of the Newsletter. They were appointed as follows: Margaret Shaw (Australia/New Zealand), Geert-Jan Koot (Europe), Marie-Claude Thompson (Francophone countries), Hiroyuki Hatano (Japan) and Jeannette Dixon (North America). The Editor of the Newsletter, Hiroyuki Hatano, further reported that Newsletter No.38, 1996, No.1 will appear on the IFLANET at http://www.ifla.org/index.htm

Conference papers. The papers of the Barcelona Satellite conference were published early in 1996 as Bibliotecas de arte, arquitectura y diseño:perspectivas actuales, [Art, Architecture and Design Libraries: current trends] Barcelona 18-21 de agosto de 1993 , IFLA Publications 74 (Netherlands: KG Saur, 1996).

Two papers from the Havana conference were published in INSPEL , 29 (1995), No.4. They were 'Libraries as a bridge between artist and society' by Deirdre C. Stam and 'Twentieth century Latin American women artists, discovery and record: a work in progress' by Cecilia Puerto. Andr s Riedlemayer's Istanbul paper Libraries are not for burning: international librarianship and the recovery of the destroyed heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovinia' was published in INSPEL , 30 (1996), No.1. All the papers of the Workshop held in Istanbul in 1995 at The Sadberk Hanim Museum entitled Libraries of the future: the impact of modern technology, such as imaging, on art librarianship were published in Art Libraries Journal, 1996, Vol.21, No.1 and all the papers of the Open Session at the Istanbul conference on the theme of Islamic art library collections were published in Art Libraries Journal , 1996, Vol.21, No.2.

Three papers from the Beijing conference will be published in INSPEL during the forthcoming year: 'Paying for services: experiences at the Smithsonian Institution' (Cecilia Chin & Ildiko DeAngelis), 'Free to fee: the current account from an academic librarian (Karen Latimer) and Subsidizing end user access to research databases: from card file to the World Wide Web' (Angela Giral & Joseph Busch). All the papers of the Open Session and of the Workshop will be published in future issues of the Art Libraries Journal .

Finance

The increase in membership means that in the forthcoming year the Section will receive a higher amount of money for administration. Expenditure during the year was very low and related to publications. Full accounts will be forwarded to the Divisional Treasurer by the beginning of October.

Medium Term Programme

The first steps in developing a Medium Term Programme for the years 1998-2001 were taken and the Committee agreed that the existing note explaining the scope of the Section was still the best formulation. Further details appear elsewhere in this Newsletter .

Future Conferences

Beijing 1996 . Three papers were delivered at the Open Session during the Beijing 1996 conference and six papers during the Workshop. A full report of both sessions appear elsewhere in this Newsletter .

Copenhagen 1997 . The committee received the plans for Copenhagen from the Conference Organisers there. As far as a theme is concerned, the Committee wished to make it possible for the Scandinavian request that copyright should be addressed to be met. It therefore adopted the following theme: Art libraries as centres of culture and information and added intellectual property rights to the sub-themes of the conference. A full description of the conference theme is contained in the Call for papers for Copenhagen 1997 elsewhere in this Newsletter.

Amsterdam 1998 . The Committee received a request to combine with the Art and Conservation Sections in a Satellite Pre-conference in Portugal and the Netherlands Organising Committee would be looking into this. In the meantime the theme for Amsterdam 1998 was set out as: Art libraries at the crossroads , a theme which could cover issues such as the virtual art library, the identity of the art librarian, etc. This will be fully in line with IFLA s strategic direction over the next four years which is to focus on the electronic environment as it affects IFLA s objective of promoting librarianship globally.

Bangkok 1999 . The Committee took note of an informal suggestion by the Round Table for Audiovisual Media to have a combined Workshop in Bangkok.

Advance notice was given of IFLA conferences as follows: 2000 - Jerusalem, 2001 - Boston, 2002 - Edinburgh.

Vote of thanks

The Committee requested the Chairman to convey their unanimous good wishes to the retiring Editor of the Art Libraries Journal , Philip Pacey, and to thank him for his outstanding work to advance the work of art librarianship. Philip was one of the first Chairs of the Section and has been a solid support to the Committee throughout the years. He will be followed as Editor of Art Libraries Journal by the current Chair of ARLIS/UK & Ireland, Gillian Varley.

Jan van der Wateren
Chairman
IFLA Section of Art Libraries

IFLA Medium-Term Programme 1998-2001

The MTP will consist of a Scope Statement which describes the nature and purpose of the Section. This will be followed by a statement of general and specific goals which the Sectionplans to accomplish between 1998 and 2001 to effect improvements to the relevant aspects of library service specified in the Scope Statement. A goal must specify the benefit to be derived from meeting the goal, and the goals must also be able to be evaluated, i.e. it should have clearly defined and/or quantifiable targets. The Statement of Goals will be followed by an Action Plan for 1998-1999. The Action Plan specifies how and what part of the goals are to be achieved in the 2 years through activities such as projects, research, studies, surveys, publications, preparation of standards as guidelines, holding of meetings, workshops, seminars, training sessions, professional visits and other activities. Activities should be quite specific and should include target dates. Plans should target IFLA's strategic focus on the electronic environment. The MTP must be completed by the end of May 1997.

All colleagues in the Art Library Universe are herewith invited to contribute to the development of the MTP of the IFLA Section of Art Libraries. To help you on the way here follows the Scope Statement desiged for the MTP 1992-1997.

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.

Please send your ideas and proposals to:

Jan van der Wateren
Chairman, IFLA Section of Art Libraries
National Art Library
Victoria and Albert Museum
Cromwell Road
South Kensington
London SW7 2RL
UK
Tel: +44 171 938 8303
Fax: +44 171 938 8275
Email: 100316.3515@COMPUSERVE.COM

Twinning Between Libraries: A New IFLA Initiative

The IFLA Twinning Database will be established by the IFLA Core Programme for UAP(Universal Availability of Publications) and maintained initially by that Office. Records of libraries seeking partnerships will not be freely available to applicants; rather libraries will need to send their details to the Office, who will then aim to find a suitable partner. Partners will be matched according to a number of criteria, which will vary in importance with each application. Libraries which wish to identify potential partners for establishing a twinning arrangement are invited to contact the IFLA Office for UAP at the address below. The Office will then send you a questionnaire which will ask you for full contact details, brief information about your library and areas of co-operation in which you wish to build links. They would also like to know what you can offer to bring to the twinning partnership, as well as the benefits you hope to gain. Further questions about the IFLA Twinning Database can also be directed to the same address.

Sara Gould
IFLA Offices for UAP and International Lending
c/o The British Library
Boston Spa
Wetherby
West Yorkshire
LS23 7BQ
Tel: +44 1937 546254
Fax: +44 1937 546478
Email: sara.gould@bl.uk

INSPEL

Prof. Dr. H.-Chr. Hobohm
Fachhochschule Potsdam
Postfach 60 06 08
D-14406 Potsdam
GERMANY
Tel: +49 331 5801514
Fax: +49 331 5801599
Email: Hobohm@fh-potsdam.de

Obituary

Jan van der Wateren

Van Eyck Core Record Structure: Draft Proposal for a Standard

Everyone interested in helping to develop this important Documentation Standard should contact the Van Eyck project for a copy of the Draft Proposal. It can be obtained from

Jan H.E. Van der Starre
RKD
Prins Willem Alexanderhof 5
PO Box 90418
2509 LK s - Gravenhage
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 70 3471514
Fax: +31 70 3475005
Email: jvdstarre@artnet.xs4all.nl
or rkd@bart.nl

Report of the Open Forum: Chinese libraries and collections within and outside China

At the Open Forum three papers were scheduled on the theme of Chinese libraries and collections within and outside China. The meeting was greatly facilitated by the use ofsimultaneous interpretation.

Hartmut Walravens (Director of Bibliographic Services, Berlin State Library, Germany)documented how the European art form of copper engraving was adopted in 18th century China. He showed slides of examples from German collections of large, detailed engravings of battle scenes, views, and atlases executed in China. He described the transmission of the technique, and commented that not only is this interesting in terms of art history but also in the history of printing and illustration: "While paper and printing were developed in China and spread westward, at least this special technique went the other way round".

The second paper addressed the range of resources for the study of Chinese art in libraries and collections in London, England. Haiyao Zheng (National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England) spoke of Western interest in China and Chinese art dating from the time of Marco Polo. London, as one of the most important centers for the study of Chinese art outside of China has resources such as the British Library (which houses materials formerly in the British Museum including items from the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts), the great Percival David Foundation collections of Chinese ceramics and its library of East Asian and Western books relating to these holdings; and the National Art Library which has nearly 2,500 titles relating to Chinese art, two-thirds of which are in Chinese. Other resources including public libraries, collections of reference materials in major auction houses and galleries were also described. As part of her work for a library science Master's degree Ms. Zheng surveyed users of all these collections and as a result of her inquiries made interesting observations about differing services and access in the various collections. She detailed some of the difficulties of subject access at the scholarly level, and talked of the complementarity among the various collections and the need for more consistent cataloguing and general co-operation among the major repositories in order to provide better service to researchers.

The third paper, written by Dai Shujuan, (Director of the Reference Library, Chinese Academy of Arts, Beijing) was "Chinese Art Library, Towards the 21st century: an overview of the development of the Reference Library of the Chinese Academy of Arts". The author was unable to be present, so the Chair of the section summarized her paper, commenting on the specialized role of the library within the Academy, an institution which addresses a wide range of art forms including music, opera, folk arts, and the fine arts. The author stressed the need to "move away from the old concept of 'book orientation' and toward a 'service orientation'" and she detailed plans for not only a new building to house the collections but a new management orientation, as well as plans for an automated data base to serve the library and its researchers. Her Deputy was at the session and answered questions about the paper and the library. As a bonus, on the last day of the Conference members of the Art Libraries Section Standing Committee were able to visit the Academy library.

Jean Shaw Adelman
Philadelphia, USA

Report of the Workshop: Pay or profit: fee or free?

The Art Libraries Section Workshop theme was Pay or Profit: fee or free? There were six papers - addressing practices in Ireland, Romania, Russia, Spain, and the United States. In the absence of facilities for simultaneous translation, Haiyao Zheng provided summaries of the papers in Chinese and translated the questions and answers following each paper. The questions following most of the presentations in the workshop focused on policies of pricing, staffing, use of income, and on issues of intellectual property rights and other constraints on services.

Morning Session

Cecilia Chin (Head Librarian, National Museum of American Art / National Portrait Gallery Library, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.) and her co-author, Ildiko DeAngelis (Assistant General Counsel, Smithsonian Institution) described the Smithsonian guidelines for charging fees and handling permission requests for the use of photographs of items in the collection of the Smithsonian Museums. Issues of property rights (copyright, trademark, right of publicity) as well as the care taken to protect the Smithsonian's name from use with any implication of endorsement were discussed,

Karen Latimer (Deputy Science Librarian with responsibility for University-wide fee-based library and information services, Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland) described a fee-based service begun by the University in 1991, to provide architectural and environmental information to local professions in those fields. She mentioned links to the architecture library at University College Dublin and to professional architectural bodies in Ireland. Issues in establishing the service, marketing, problems such as balancing services provided by the library between internal and external users, staffing, staff training, quality control, contract issues, and pricing were discussed. And the author looked to the future of the program.

The paper, "Self-financing services in libraries: a method of increasing limited library budgets in post-communist Romania" was presented by both Sally Wood-Lamont (Library consultant, and one-time head of Donations and Exchange, Edinburgh University Library; presently at Central Library of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania) and Ioana Robu (Director of the above library). This was a case study of a structurally difficult situation in which both the law and custom preclude charging fees for any library service, and in which funds are nearly non-existent for equipment and consumables such as photocopy paper. Self-financing schemes were developed, especially payment for photocopying, the proceeds of which augmented the budget, maintained the ability to provide service, and enhanced the image of the library, and, in the process the culture of the library was modified as well.

Jean Shaw Adelman
Philadelphia, USA

Afternoon Session

The afternoon session of the Workshop continued to display a variety of responses to circumstances that appear to be prompting the institution of heretofore unheard-of fees and charges throughout the library world.

Javier Docampo (Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid), in his paper "Tariffing digital images: the Spanish background", focussed on a key factor: the cost of digitizing both for text and images. The Memoria Hispanica project, aptly termed "ambitious", in its initial phase of digitizing theLibrary's entire 8,000,000-unit collection, will scan some 500,000 items during 1996-1998, selection being based on bibliographic importance, frequency of use, and need for preservation. A background for proceeding with this first phase (estimated at some $8 million US) is provided by previous projects, notably the digitization of the 86-volume Diccionario Heraldico y Genealogico... by Alberto and Arturo Garcias Carraffa, a pilot version of which was exhibited at the 1993 IFLA Conference in Barcelona. Study of the use of and statistics for this work has demonstrated the importance of (1) flexibility in modes of retrieval of information, (2) filling gaps in data by adding other sources, and (3) increasing the availability of the database by issuing on CD-ROM or facilitating remote access.
Two other ongoing projects illustrate the value of, or perhaps the necessity of, some type of joint-venture approach to undertakings of such great scope. The Library's Prints and Drawings Section has almost completed production of Iconografia Hispana , an optical two-disk set containing about 20,000 images of Spanish portraits with accompanying documentation. The cost of the project was borne entirely by the Instituto Historico Taveria, cultural wing of the insurance company Mapfre, which will market 400 sets and deposit 100 in the Library. A similar partnership, this time with the commercial publisher Hobbypress, will result in the production of a CD-ROM based on the Library's exhibition celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of Goya. It will be the disk of the month , so to speak, accompanying an issue of the computer-interest magazine PCMANIA. In this instance, distribution will be in the 80,000 to 100,000 range, reflecting the size of the periodical's press run.

Use of these materials in and outside of the Library will result in greater use of the information, while at the same time promoting preservation of the originals. (Incidentally, reproductions will be charged at a rate designed to cover expenses, but not to earn a profit.) Partnerships like these, with non-profit cultural institutions and with for-profit commercial enterprises, seem the viable way to proceed, in the face of reduced or non-existent government funding and enormously escalating production costs. With the Library supplying the intellectual content and the partner supplying the technical expertise and processing, it might be considered an approach that, in a sense, combines "fee" and "free".

Olga Sinitsyna (All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature, Moscow) took our theme into a whole new dimension, as she discussed "Paid services at the Library for Foreign Literature: new objectives, experience, perspectives". Sweeping changes in the former Soviet Union left still in place Lenin s policy of "Libraries-free of charge for everyone", but those changes had also resulted in an economic situation presenting challenges most of us can envision only with difficulty as part of our working lives. It is almost as if the Library had to be self-supporting in order to survive. The Library as a whole was changed into an international cultural center, linking itself to the libraries of foreign cultural centers, with resulting enlargement of resources as well as some limited funds for new purchases. However, persistent shortage of funds, and particularly uncertainties and arrearages in the payment of even the substandard and inadequate salaries, mandated additional measures. In this, the Arts Department pioneered theway: first, by analyzing operations and defining those traditional and basic services that should remain free; and second, by determining what additional or supplemental services could realistically be undertaken and what clientele might be a market for these.
Pre-eminent as a candidate for fee-for-service was the researching of specific images and the representation of themes in art. Because filmmakers, television directors, and commercial firms (such as slide manufacturers) were the primary sources of these iconographic search requests, they formed an obvious target group--and one at least somewhat conditioned to pay for professional expertise and fast delivery. This group is also the source of requests for use of materials outside the Department, though this is held to a minimum in spite of its potential for generating "attractive sums of money". It was emphasized that this kind of research provides a high level of professional satisfaction for staff members, as it increases professional skills and unmistakably contributes to staff retention. The Arts Department's long-established ties with the educational community, with students and teachers on all levels, gave less prospect for income--with one imaginative exception. There proved to be an audience for services to children that could draw on the Department's strength, with the offering of foreign-language and art classes as a supplement to the school curriculum. The classes have proved popular and a source of relatively substantial revenue.

The 1987 "recommended" price list from the Ministry of Culture, updated as appropriate, is the basic document for certain services (e.g., photocopying), but the Arts Department had to establish prices for the others it has so creatively devised. This actually is something of an advantage, affording a degree of independence and flexibility so that a sliding scale can be used for some categories of patrons. An agreement between the Library administration and the Arts Department outlines the regulations governing management of paid services. It includes the breakdown of fee distribution: 30% to the general Library budget; 10% to the Department budget; and the remainder paid as extra salary to the Department staff, with a larger proportion to those personally involved in the research, teaching, etc. (From the response to a question about whether this leads to a lower official budget, we learned that the situation in Russia makes the question somewhat academic: only about half of the "signed" budget actually comes to the Library in any event.) So far, the services of the Arts Department have involved "brains and hands", but the Department looks forward to expanding into the realms of automation and electronic tools in the future.

In the authors absence, Ted Goodman (Editor, Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals , Columbia University, New York) delivered the final paper of the Workshop, "Subsidizing end-user access to research databases: from card file to the World Wide Web" by Joseph A. Busch (Program Manager for Standards and Research Projects at the Getty Information Institute, USA) and Angela Giral (Librarian, Avery Architectural Library, Columbia University, New York). It transported us from the microcosm of activities in a single library and in a single library department, as described in the two previous papers, to the macrocosm of activities of the Getty Information Institute (until recently, the Getty Art History Information Program [AHIP]) over the past ten years, in subsidizing scholarly databases in the arts and humanities and user access to them.

Following a brief review of the formation of AHIP at the Getty Trust, begun in the early 1980s to underwrite the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals and the International Repertory of the Literature of Art (now developed into the Bibliography of the History of Art [BHA]) , a detailed review of changes in pricing of the Avery Index introduced a number of us to the complexities of charges, surcharges, searching credits, formulas based on potential or simultaneous users, and similar elements in pricing strategies. As the Index has progressed from card file to book catalog to on-line database to CD-ROM, one constant stands out: the need for subsidizing the creation of the information in whatever form it is embodied. A summary of the findings of the 1989-1990 study of subsidized access to Dialog databases, by 28 scholars at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, followed. The reports of this project provide insights into the nature of research in the humanities--as opposed to the sciences and social sciences, which are of great value in the design of databases in the subject area and of access for retrieval.
Finally, a study of factors influencing the effectiveness of various methods of database distribution (information quality, number of accesses, royalties, producer subsidy, etc.) has been undertaken as even the Getty Trust seeks accountability in its projects, experiences competition for funding, and looks to decrease expenditures. Exact measurements are elusive, but at least a judgment call indicates that distribution through a non-profit service such as the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) offers a preferred approach. Accordingly, in March 1996, AHIP and the Research Libraries Group concluded an agreement to foster broader information access and participation by the international cultural community; results to be monitored.

Workshop attendees then dispersed in record time to seek the buses for various library visits- hoping for the guilty pleasure of the express/non-stop transportation to which we were becoming accustomed, as traffic was held during our IFLA journeys about Beijing.

Mary Ashe
San Francisco, USA

The state of the congresses: conferences on art libraries and related topics

Libraries and the reproduced image: from print to digitisation

This is the title of a conference organised by ARLIS (Art Libraries Society) UK and Ireland from 4 - 7 July 1996 in Edinburgh. No full set of papers is published but a selected number of presentations will be published in the Art Libraries Journal. One of the draw-backs of visiting conferences abroad is that information on the conference venue is often limited, although the city and its history may be of interest to the participants. For this reason the organisers devoted the first day to Edinburgh itself and to the artists who lived and worked in the city. Presentations on the history of Edinburgh, the publisher Blackie and the book illustrator Agnes Miller Parker set the tone. The second day concentrated on the digital image and possible cooperation between art librraries. Mike Spearman of the National Museums of Scotland gave an interesting overview of projects in the museum: production of educational CD-ROM's, creation of a large database with informative material on the museum collections, material which would be used in educational and informational programs (the SCRAN project). Huw Davies of Napier University showed a quartet of CD-ROM's which demonstrated the variety of ideas about lay-out, functional design and content. His thesis is that digital techniques, including manipulation of photographs, change our perception of reality. Nina Pope, a local artist, gave an account of a project of hers and a colleague. They followed the traces of a famous journey of Boswell and Johnson, and presented a day-to-day account on Internet, and added their own art work. The website may be still active (URL: http://doric.bart.ucl.ac.uk/web/Nina/Tour/proj.info/). The interface in particular is worth looking at. Such projects demonstrate that documentation of present day art is becoming more difficult and cumbersome due to the often transitory nature and the fact that time as a dimension may play an important role in the art work itself. The British Library has embarked on a major digitisation project which encompasses much of its precious material, such as manuscripts, stamps, photo's. The reasons for this are conservation, improving access, and making use of new technology for research purposes. Look at their website for more informattion: http://www.bl.uk/diglib/treasures/. An example of cooperation is AXIS, the National Art Register of the United Kingdom. AXIS is a multimedia database with works by approx. 1,600 artists, put together for promotional reasons. Regional and provincial organisations select the artists, and the artists themselves are responsible for providing AXIS with information. Another type of cooperation is the Scottish Visual Arts Group, an informal group of art librarians. One however may have doubts about the need for such a group next to ARLIS. Another topic was the production of book illustrations in Scotland and the important collections there of: children's books, botanical illustrations, cartoons, history of photography in St. Andrews and the authenticity of the digital copy were important subtopics. St. Andrews was during the 1850's an important place in the development of photography. The university library has a collection of approx. 300,000 partly unique photo's. The library has embarked on a pilot digitisation project. Other topics discussed during the conference were the ELISE project, and its struggle with indexing visual materials. Of course, copyright was a hot topic, but everybody had to admit it is a problem, and that they do not have an answer. It seems everyone in Europe is waiting for a solution.

Electronic Imaging and the Visual Arts (EVA'96)

Interactivity and Hypermedia in Museums Congres (ICHIM) in October 1995 in San Diego

The third and last -and somewhat older- conference to be discussed briefly in this article. Topics were:
- the Library of Congress project 'National Digital Library', a big digitisation project for objects and documents;
- quality of digital images and the mechanisms to control consistent quality;
- formal methods for design of multimedia products;
- integration of multimedia in exhibitions, e.g. the Haus der Geschichte in Bonn (Germany);
- search capabilities of multimedia systems and user behaviour;
- tens of case studies of in-house systems, networks and cooperative projects;
- standards for cultural information, technical, qualitative and legal.

I skip the IFLA general conference in August 1996 in Beijing, as I unfortunately could not attend it. A report on this conference you will find elsewhere in this newsletter.

What can be the conclusions after attending these conferences ? First of all, it seems to be a mixed bag, but taking a closer look it is perhaps not that mixed as it seems. If we take the titles of the conferences as a lead we end up with: art, libraries and museums, all treated a separate entities. However, if one would have been in my position and been able to attend these conferences, the first conclusion should be: two out of three are not far apart, but should be (and sometimes are) complementary. Art is the exception, it is 'just' the subject libraries and museums share. It could have been 'automotive technology' for that matter. Second conclusion: archives are not present, but should be. I attended not enough conferences, no doubt. Third conclusion: museums could learn from libraries. Libraries are (most of them) more technologically advanced, and -more important still-know how to apply technology in a way which suits the user; the spirit of cooperation is more present among libraries then among museums; libraries know more about the users of their systems. Fourth conclusion: libraries could learn from museums. Museums are much better in presenting their information in an attractive way. Fifth conclusion: what is needed now is a joint standardisation effort of libraries, archives and museums regarding the information/collection they keep. This standardisation is needed to ensure that users in the near future will be able to retrieve information, regardless of the source, and with high precision. Such a synergy could create a tremendous momentum in the development of informational systems. Let's join forces !

Jan H.E. van der Starre
Netherlands Institute for Art History
The Hague, The Netherlands

International Directory of Art Libraries

Thomas E. Hill
Vassar College Art Library
New York, USA

A Guide to the Collections of Art-Historical Documentation in the Netherlands

The booklet can be obtained from Erasmus Booksellers, P.O. Box 19140, 1000 CG Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Collections of Art-Historical Documentation in the Netherlands: a brief guide / OKBN-ARLIS-NL. - Leiden, Primavera Pers, 1996. - 78 p. - ISBN 90-74310-30-3. - NLG 15

Geert-Jan Koot
Rijksmuseum Library
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

A Tool for Today

Copies of the Glossary can be ordered from KG Saur Verlag, Postfach 70 16 20, D-81316 Münich, Germany.

Multilingual glossary for art librarians: English with indexes in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish / ed. by the IFLA Section of Art Librarries. -2., rev. snf enl.ed. - München ; New Providence ; London ; Paris : Saur, 1996, V, 181 p, 21 cm (IFLA publications ; 75) ISBN 3-598-21802-8

Jean Shaw Adelman
Philadelphia, USA

DECEMBER 1996 CONFERENCE IN TRIESTE "I CATALOGHI DEI MUSEI"

The conference theme is permanent museum catalogues, with particular reference to automation and real-time information.

Papers already accepted include:

• Nicole Picot: Les catalogues du Musée du Louvre; de l'imprimé au multimedia
• Chantal Bouchon: Les catalogues du Musée des Arts Décoratifs à Paris
• Geert-Jan Koot: The catalogues of the paintings of the Rijksmuseum 1808-1992: form and content
• Jan van der Strre: Van Eyck, a tool for retrieving art historical information
• Giovanni Lazzi: Il progetto di archiviazione elettronica delle imagini della Biblioteca Riccardiana, Firenze
• Roman Koot: The series collection catalogues of the Central Museum Utrecht related to the Collectie Nederland
• Jirmila Okrouhlikova: Art libraries in the Czech Republic

For details of hotels and further information contact:
Bianca Cuderi
Organizing Committee Trieste 1996
Museo Revoltella, Galleria d'Arte Moderna
Via Diaz 27
34123 Trieste
Italy
Fax: +39 40 302 742

Geert-Jan Koot
Rijksmuseum Library
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Art Libraries in the Cyber-Age ARLIS/UK & Ireland Annual Conference

The 1997 ARLIS/UK & Ireland Annual Conference will be held at the University of Canterbury, Kent. Situated a short distance from Canterbury's picturesque historic city of Chaucerian fame, the university campus boasts a rural setting with a fine view of Canterbury's wonderful Cathedral.

The Conference will address the latest developments in electronic information delivery for the visual arts. Topics will include aspects of electronic publishing and electronic journals, new navigational tooks, and digital imaging and delivery. The Electronic Libraries Programme's specific projects related to art and design, ADAM (the Art, Architecture, Design and Media Gateway) and DIAD (Digitisation in Art and Design), will feature.

We will move from navigating 'the Net' to navigating the narrow lanes of Kent in a planned afternoon of visits. 'The Garden of England' offers an ideal opportunity to discover Kent's historic gardens, houses, galleries and libraries.

For further information please contact one of the following:
Gaye Smith
Manchester Metropolitan University Library
All Saints
Manchester
M15 6BH
UK
Tel: +44 161 2476116
Fax: +44 161 2476349

Sonia French
Administrator
ARLIS/UK & Ireland
18 College Road
Bromsgrove
Worcestershire
B60 2NE
UK
Tel/Fax: +44 1527 579298

The ARLIS/NA Annual Conference

Change of Adress

New address of ARLIS/Norden is as follows:

Email address changed