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The article looks at the challenges and opportunities of collecting and disseminating performance art from an art library's perspective. Based on the collecting experience of the Mediathek at the Academy of Art and Design FHNW Basel (Switzerland), the text contextualizes its own digital collections within the Swiss performance art context. What is special about Mediathek's collection is; (1) the fact that a remarkable number of documents of performance art are accessible for free via the internet, without login, in a structured, searchable and sustainable way. Because the policy permits, upon certain conditions, the acceptance of content from individuals, groups, and institutions not associated with the university, there is; (2) a considerable amount of 'external' materials in the collections. The aim of the essay is to make this treasure of sources known. Therefore, digital access points to the projects and collections described in the text are mentioned in the references. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which explores the revaluation of the 15th century Italian sculpture style Quattrocento by Italian art historian Leopoldo Cicognara. Topics discussed include the significance of this revaluation to the history of European sculpture, the reliance of Cicognara on literature which he collected for his art library, and the impact of the research conducted by Cicognara on the works of Venetian sculptor Antonio Canova.

The influential art library of Count Leopoldo Cicognara (1767-1834) testifies to his scholarship and bibliophilic passions; it testifies equally to his devotion to providing others, artists and scholars alike, with tools for their work. He valued provenance from contemporary collections, such as that of Giuseppe Bossi (1777-1815), or historic collections, such as that of Jacques-Auguste de Thou (1553-1617). Key, however, were personal connections with artists, scholars, librarians, and book dealers, who helped shape Cicognara’s library through donations, advice, and their own connections. To document the construction of Cicognara’s library this study analyses his annotated catalogue and draws on correspondence with friends and colleagues, including Gaetano Pinali (1759-1846), Giovanni de Lazara (1744-1833), Francesco Girolamo Cancellieri (1751-1826), and Giovan Battista Vermiglioli (1769-1848). This documentation deepens our understanding both of Cicognara’s conception of his library and of how it represents the cultural world of northern Italy during the Napoleonic era and its aftermath.

‘The early years of Leopoldo Cicognara’s book collection’, the first of two articles by Barbara Steindl that follow, was first presented at the 2019 College Art Association Annual Conference. This article forms a prequel to the second, ‘Collecting art books: the library of Leopoldo Cicognara and his bibliographic system’, which first published in 2014 in Italian. Translation of this article into English forms part of a larger project to expand the reach of the Digital Cicognara Library. Funds for this project have been provided by a grant from the Kress Foundation’s History of Art Grants Program. Steindl’s studies of the Cicognara Library are indispensable to a solid understanding of the history, scope, and organization of the Cicognara library – a historic collection that survives intact as the Fondo Cicognara in the Vatican Apostolic Library.

This article is written by Eleonor (Ellie) Botoman. Ellie is a poet-critic based in New York City. She currently works in PR at Elle Communications and previously worked as library coordinator at Brooklyn Art Library's Sketchbook Archive. In this article, Ellie details the history, collection scope, challenges, and adaptations the Sketchbook Archive has undergone during its history, both before and during the COVID pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reminiscence on the positive influence of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) through the perspective of the author's career as she moved from university libraries into the specialized realm of a research library within a museum. The author describes her service on the PCC Policy Committee, how The Frick Art Reference Library joined PCC, and how New York City art librarians facilitated best practices in partnership with PCC trainers and the ArtNACO Funnel. The mutual benefits of PCC and the unique contributions of special libraries are emphasized. Challenges to this community's participation in PCC are outlined, with suggestions for going forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academic library's art collection has a history of fluidity and flux. Teaching and learning materials that support visual art education can range from traditional formats like image collections and monographs to the curious, the rare, and sometimes the downright unusual. Art library professionals must plan for the future of the academic library collection with intention and sensitivity to the learning styles of their students while adhering to the environmental realities of their governing institutions. One constant is clear, which is that art students are not content to be mere consumers of information and images; they are creators. It is this creative habit of mind that brings them to the study of art in the first place, and it is what will turn them into the makers of the future art library, if we listen to their voices. Though collections will vary in depth and breadth between institutions, the enduring truth is that libraries will need to listen to student input and build lasting partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If I'm being honest I still feel as though I am a bit of an imposter in the world of art librarianship. I often feel as though I have a very conservative, corporate and conformist approach to librarianship within the art library environments in which I work. I also often feel naïve when it comes to discussing and affirming 'what makes art librarianship different?' Acknowledging such naivety, I will also openly admit that until last year I had not heard of 'critical librarianship' as a concept, let alone 'critical (art) librarianship', which is how I was introduced to it at a day-long conference held by colleagues from the University of the Arts London in 2018 at Chelsea College of Arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an insider view of engagement with critical librarianship in a higher education and arts library context. The gains from this engagement include a stronger voice in institutional dialogue and collaboration, and the development of exploratory practices in collection development and information literacy that are increasingly informed by critical perspectives. Our experiences and examples of emerging practise highlight some of the complexities and ambiguities of critical librarianship, around novelty, compliance, institutionalisation, and the challenge of how we convert these theoretical insights into the power structures at play in libraries and archives into meaningful changes for the benefit of all of our students. Ultimately the conclusion is that if we recognise these power structures, and the particular role of the library in knowledge production, consumption and validation, we must take critically informed action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Art libraries face unique challenges with collection care of their print monographs. In addition to being large, heavy, and densely illustrated, art monographs are at risk for accelerated wear and tear through routine use because of the construction and materials. At the same time, libraries everywhere face budget constraints along with increased demands on financial and human resources. This article describes the steps taken to design and implement a low-cost proactive collection care program in a non-circulating art library. High-use areas in the stacks were selected through analysis of use data and surveys of selected subject areas to determine condition and risk of damage. Finding that the high-use areas have a higher percentage of at-risk books, the article outlines the process and decisions involved in a collection care program that prioritizes items most likely to be used, while also minimizing costs, staff time, and required expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Art museum library collections are unique in scope and invaluable as a principal institutional asset; therefore, extensive preservation and conservation activities for these collections can be justified. By conducting a survey and literature review, the author examines and explores current preservation and conservation activities for art museum library collections: how these actions are realized, staff structures required, the historical contexts of preservation, and how decision-making affects collections and value. She also clarifies the necessity for funding and collaboration to achieve higher standards of integrated preservation for art museum library collections in all formats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ArtFrame Project, a part of the Linked Data for Production (LD4P) collaboration, was a domain-specific, linked-open-data (LOD) initiative that explored the metadata practices of art libraries and museums. The project, headed by Columbia University Libraries and including major art institutions and the Cataloging Advisory Committee (CAC) of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA), focused on developing an extension to the Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME) tailored to the needs of art catalogers. This article describes the history of the project and its collaboration with the LD4P Rare Materials Extension Group to produce a shared ontology, the Art & Rare Materials BIBFRAME Ontology Extension (ARM). [This article is an expansion of a presentation at the ARLIS/NA conference held in New York, New York, in February 2018.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing copyright varies from institution to institution along with the specific workflow and end-user notices. This article looks at tools used in art libraries in a range of contexts along with pragmatic perspectives on copyright evaluation from a museum art library, a public research library, a university copyright advisory office, and a public university. Pain points for determining copyright presented by various formats, ownership issues, and digitization are addressed through cases encountered by the authors. Helpful tools and workflow strategies for moving forward, including widely available charts and resources, as well as software for copyright determination, are shared. Finally, the authors describe how different institutions are handling rights metadata. [This article is an expansion of a panel presentation given at the ARLIS/NA conference held in New York, New York, in February 2018.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Caguayo Foundation Library is an information center for visual, monumental and applied arts. Due to the importance of the information that it holds, for the institution and for the Cuban cultural heritage, it was necessary to carry out a technological and organizational innovation that allowed to organize the documentary and bibliographic fund manually and automatically. The proposal consisted of the implementation of the Library Management Integral System. Direct observation was used to assess the status of available information, observational techniques and content analysis to identify the collections present, the method of qualitative study and technical feasibility for the selection of the Library Management Integral System to be implemented and the Dewey Decimal Classification System, the Standards and standard formats for the processing of the funds. As a result of the above, it was possible to organize the documentary and bibliographic fund, offer greater functionality to the library, facilitate communication with users and increase the provision of services to face-to-face users and via the web. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the spring of 2017 I was fortunate enough to receive the ARIAH-RIHA Professional Exchange Fellowship that allowed me to travel to London and conduct research there for a month. While in London I looked closely at the collections, services, and clientele of several important art libraries in London but the main focus of my investigation was the photo archive collections that make up a part of many of these art libraries. The photo archives in my own institution at the Yale Center for British Art and our efforts toward digitisation, discovery, and open access made my close examination of similar collections in London particularly relevant – I wished to see how these libraries approached similar challenges and if these institutions share a common understanding of photo archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a survey of 31 informational world cities, we investigate the state of the art public library core services. For this study, we applied the core service catalog developed by (Mainka, A., S. Hartmann, L. Orszullok, I. Peters, A. Stallmann, and W. G. Stock. 2013. “Public Libraries in the Knowledge Society: Core Services of Libraries in Informational World Cities.” Libri 63 (4): 295–319. 10.1515/libri-2013-0024), counted the services offered by the libraries and compared findings with the results from 2013, allowing us to calculate a score for each library and rank them accordingly. An overall improvement of the range of services was observed, with North American libraries taking the top three positions in the ranking. To get a clearer picture of the challenges facing libraries today, personal interviews were also conducted with (chief) librarians, especially concerning developments such as maker spaces, increasing demand for information literacy instruction and the changing role of physical library space. The results presented in this paper highlight best practice examples of library services in prototypical cities of the knowledge society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors investigate Berlin’s art auction market as it developed between 1930 and 1945. By analyzing Berlin’s auction data from the Getty Research Institute’s recently published database of German auction sales catalogs dating from 1930 to 1945, this paper explores the Third Reich’s influence on the Berlin fine art auction market. The analysis is separated into two main categories: the overall market and the auction houses, in particular a close examination of the auction houses Graupe and Lange. Key findings include the inverse relationship between median selling price and the number of paintings sold over several years, indicating that paintings sold in Berlin during this time functioned more like normal goods rather than luxury items; the interconnected relationship between the ownership and operations of many auction houses, including Graupe’s transition to Lange after fleeing from anti-Semitism in Berlin; and the evidence that stolen artwork was auctioned for sale on several occasions, with most of the proceeds benefitting Hitler’s Nazi regime.[This article is a revision of the paper that won the 2018 Sotheby’s Institute of Art Research Award. The award recognizes excellence in a student paper or digital art history project on a topic relevant to collecting or the art market. This paper was presented as part of the “New Voices in the Profession” panel at the ARLIS/NA conference held in New York, New York, in February 2018.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Webcomics are an increasingly popular format for comic artists and creators that should be collected by libraries and archives to both complement and expand existing comics and artist collections. The unique nature of webcomics production requires that libraries and archives consider the ways in which these materials intersect with current collections. This article presents both the opportunities and challenges of collecting webcomics materials, situating the argument within the larger context of web archiving and evolving collection practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discovering that a traditional classification scheme was not working for a departmental branch library, Seattle Art Museum research library staff embarked on a multi-year project to create a special-subject classification system with a special class scheme. Three key areas—user-specific taxonomy, cataloging and classification expertise of the library staff, and the department’s particular information-seeking behaviors—were key in the development of a successful scheme. This article describes the process by which the new classification scheme was developed, discusses its challenges and successes, and emphasizes how the library staff and departmental branch users are committed to the scheme’s continuous review and expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The University of Louisville’s Margaret M. Bridwell Art Library is one of the first institutions to employ the Art Libraries Society of North America’s Artists’ Books Thesaurus (ARLIS/NA ABT) vocabulary to describe images of artists’ books within a CONTENTdm collection. Over the course of three months, the art librarian and a graduate intern worked with multiple stakeholders to build a digital collection designed to reveal unique structures for patron browsing and searching. This article describes the implementation of the project, detailing the process of creating an online artists’ books index from inception to the initial upload of final records. Suggestions are offered for future engagement with the ARLIS/NA Artists’ Books Thesaurus for digital access to artists’ books. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the art library need re-placing? Using the commentary of an OCAD University faculty member concerning “a perception issue with the library and its use,” librarian Daniel Payne uses theorist Henri Lefebvre's spatial triad to decode, in general terms, undergraduate students’ understanding of libraries as articulated in the OCLC Perceptions of libraries surveys. In an attempt to re-align concepts of the library as place at OCAD University, an exhibition review interpretation of student site-interventions demonstrates how visual communication can offer more insightful “spatial practices” for both students and library staff. In the process, librarians were challenged to accommodate student creative voices that pushed both policy boundaries and comfort zones. Although a small-scale information literacy initiative in which no formal quantitative data was collected, the ability of having conceptual models of librarians interact and even clash with those of students helped realign both stakeholders’ understandings of libraries as complex spatial entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using methods from library and information science in conjunction with art and art history, the author explores the challenges and possibilities associated with "queering" the art library. The author underlines the importance of providing access to materials relating to non-normative sexualities, genders, and identities and suggests that queer art and theory can intersect to critique traditional library structures. This is demonstrated through a description and analysis of a course-long collaboration in a Memphis College of Art art history class in which students produced finding aids for the library on topics relating to gender and sexuality in art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents user experience data collected through surveys and interviews at an art museum library to offer a comprehensive picture of a diverse population of patrons’ print and digital access preferences for serials. The results of this study show that the line between digital and physical research preferences is incredibly nebulous, as patrons who start with digital sources often print out a copy for taking notes, and patrons who begin with physical resources often make a digital copy for future reference. Patrons do not necessarily prefer one format over the other in all cases, but rather realize that each new project requires a customized approach to research. This type of user experience data informs library services and empowers librarians to curate access to electronic and print serials in response to patrons’ specific research habits, impacting collection development, acquisitions, and outreach efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fleet Library at Rhode Island School of Design is a successful reinvention of the art library through the adaptive re-use of an historic bank building in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. In addition to reviewing how the library's goals were met during its first decade, the most significant change, the transformation of the slide library into a material resource centre and the growth of a community of such collections and related initiatives, will be described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The renovation project of the Forney Decorative and Applied Arts Library in Paris, belonging to the Paris Specialized Libraries' Network, not only concerns the modernization, restructuring and security of the building, an historical monument, but also the library usage, with an ambitious cultural project underpinning the rooms' refurbishment aimed at providing greater public access to the library, the building, and the spectacular visual collections. New visitors, alongside established readers, are welcomed in the heart of the tourist centre of Paris. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that the Sunshine Coast and its hinterland have been, at least for a time, the haunt of several of several eminent Australian writers - the Palmers, Dark, Herbert, Astley,Wright, Cato,Williamson and Carey, to name a few-it seemed worth asking whether the principal, and for most of the twentieth century the only, newspaper servicing the region since 1903-the Nambour Chronicle and the North Coast Advertiser-was part of a literary culture to which these writers felt they belonged and were contributing in the first half of the century. If not, why not? And if so, what kinds of contributions did it make to that culture? The tentative finding is that while the Chronicle did not make the kinds of direct, 'homegrown' contributions that some other metropolitan and provincial newspapers did, it maintained a literary presence and function by means of a regular diet of imported features, and by its particularly close and consistent relationship with the Nambour Town Library (and also, less consistently, with various School of Arts libraries in the district). The continuing connection between these two Nambour institutions - the Chronicle and the library - was personal and familial as well as civic in nature, and clearly suited the literary demands and expectations of a highly dispersed community that found its unity and identity by other means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a resurgence of the do-it-yourself movement in the twenty-first century. As a result, libraries are becoming laboratories in which students learn to think, explore, and meet other like-minded individuals outside the classroom. Although makerspaces in public libraries have received much attention, many academic, museum, and special libraries are seeing the benefits as well. Makerspaces provide opportunities for self-driven hands-on learning that encourages creative thinking and builds problem-solving skills. This article describes the benefits of makerspaces for art libraries, highlights art libraries where "making" is happening, and provides practical examples of ways libraries can create high-impact low-cost makerspaces that engage and educate their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do artists, designers, architects and craftspeople seek and deploy information in support of their practice? It is a question that is of central importance to the learning and teaching that art libraries provide, yet one that has also been subject to much debate within the historical and contemporary literature. An attentive reading of this literature reveals three fundamental metanarratives, each underpinned by a particular epistemology, and it is these narratives that have then informed how institutions construct, embed and assess the teaching of information skills to their readers. Only by critically evaluating the literature is it possible to resituate our own practice and that of our respective institutions within a paradigm that is most appropriate for our particular contexts. It is also possible to identify gaps in our collective professional understanding, in the hope of signposting avenues of research potential for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its first part, the article focuses on the subject of alternative libraries and infoshops, but also on that of zines, and it defines a few of their characteristics, while in the second part, it offers an overview of the functionality and activity of the Urban Collectors Library in Bucharest which was founded in 2015 by the interactive platform Urban Collectors whose mission is to facilitate dialogues between street artists and the community, to create opportunities for street artists, but more importantly, to create them for the female street artists, to study the street art phenomenon and so on. Lastly, the article presents a small study based on a questionnaire aimed at the users of this alternative street art library that is focused on the profile and the degree of satisfaction experienced by them with regards to the services offered by the library. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on the result of the joint efforts of the Library and Documentation Center of São Paulo Museum of Art and the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo to develop a methodology to update, improve, and manage a controlled vocabulary to optimize access to art documentation. The linguistic, terminological, and documentary criteria support the construction of this controlled vocabulary to standardize the representation of specialized information in art libraries in São Paulo, Brazil. The project is supported by a grant from the São Paulo Research Foundation under its public policy program. As a final goal, the authors hope to implement this methodology as the best practices and guidelines for creating and maintaining controlled vocabularies within Brazil and to promote interoperability with other international controlled vocabularies in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A calendar of events related to libraries in Germany in 2016 is presented which includes meeting entitled "Communication: Professional Worlds Meet," the conference "The Future in Art and Museum Libraries: Digital knowledge spaces extended," and symposium "Handschriften and Old Prints."

The vast expanse and volatility of art ephemera based on the World Wide Web pose significant threats to the completeness of the art historical record. Towards its mission to enhance the resources available for current and future research through collaboration, the New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC) collects, preserves, and provides access to art ephemera born in digital formats native to the web. It leverages its member institutions' collecting strengths and resources to establish a permanently sustainable web archiving programme. This article introduces NYARC's web archiving practices at the principal stages in a typical web archive's lifecycle, describes how each benefit from collaboration among its member libraries and external programme partners, and identifies opportunities for further art libraries and consortia to participate in this important effort to preserve at-risk art historical resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, art librarians saved ephemera—exhibition checklists, gallery announcements, biographical information, and reproductions of works of art—in collections known as artist files. Increasingly, this information is created only in digital formats. While one hopes that art galleries and artists are preserving this information, in many cases they are not, or at least not in ways that are accessible or intended for long-term access. To remedy this situation, the Artist Files Special Interest Group of the Art Libraries Society of North America has been exploring ways to preserve and provide access to these resources for future scholars. This article describes two collaborative projects. The first is a national directory, created by the group in 2007, which helps users locate these often elusive materials. The second is a collaborative initiative that currently involves representatives from four institutions using Archive-It to capture, store, and provide access to this information, now and into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]