As of 22 April 2009 this website is 'frozen' in time — see the current IFLA websites
This old website and all of its content will stay on as archive – http://archive.ifla.org
As of 22 April 2009 this website is 'frozen' in time — see the current IFLA websites
This old website and all of its content will stay on as archive – http://archive.ifla.org
    Newsletter of the Section of Art Libraries (Web edition)No. 41 (1997, No. 2)Chair:
Jeannette Dixon, Museum of Fine Arts, P.O. Box 6826, Houston, Texas 77265, USA Secretary and editor:
Geert-Jan Koot, P.O. Box 74888, 1070 DN Amsterdam, The Netherlands Amsterdam 1998Announcement and Call for Papers!IFLA's 64th general conference will take place inAmsterdam from 16 - 21 August 1998. The overall conference theme will be: On crossroads of information and culture .The Art Libararies Section is pleased to announce that it will hold a one-day Workshop and an Open Session during the conference. The Workshop will centre on the theme: Art libraries at crossroads . The topic could be approached from a number of angles:
The Art Libraries Section Open Session will be Bridging cultures .
You are invited to take part in these meetings 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 Amsterdam should include the following information:
Institutional affiliation Address (professional) Telephone no., fax no. Email address (professional) Address (personal) Telephone no., fax no. 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
The Proposal plus a brief description of the paper's contents (200 words) must be sent at latest by 31 January 1998 . If a proposal is selected , the final paper, which should be between 8 and 10 A4 pages, will be required by 1 April 1998. The proposal to be sent to:
Jeannette Dixon c/o Hirsch Library, Museum of Fine Arts Houston P.O. Box 6826 Houston, Texas 77265 USA Tel: +12 713 639 7326 Fax: +12 713 639 7399 Email: hirsch@mfah.org Conference hotelWhilst normal practice is 'first come, first served' the conference organisers recommend that you should mark your conference registration form at the first line at the Name preferred hotel entry with: 'Art Librarian'. At the second line please mark the name of hotel you prefer. We made reservations in three different hotels in different price categories in the vicinity of the Rijksmuseum.
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. Detailed information and registration forms for the conference can be obtained from
Congres secreteriat Congrex Holland 1000 AH Amsterdam The Netherlands Fax: +31 20 50 40 225 Email: ifla@congrex.nl
Information about the IFLA Amsterdam conference can be found on the general IFLA net website at: IFLA, Amsterdam 1998Preliminary Programme
IFLA Section of Art Libraries Annual Report, September 1996 - August 1997ScopeThe 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.MembershipMembership reached 93 during the yearOfficersChairman
Jan van der Wateren Victoria and Albert Museum Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL United Kingdom Tel: (44) 171 938 8303 Fax: (44) 171 938 8275 Email: j.vanderwateren@nal.vam.ac.uk Secretary
Hiroyuki Hatano 7-7 Ueno-Koen, Taito-ku, 110 Tokyo Japan Tel: (81) 3 3828 5131 Fax: (81) 3 3828 5135 Email: hatano@nmwa.go.jp Treasurer
Catherine Heesterbeek-Bert 9, rue du Musee, B-1000 Bruxelles Belgium Tel: (32) 2 508 3211 Fax: (32) 2 508 3232 Email: pc29@fine-arts-museum.be Information co-ordinator
Jan van der Wateren (As above)
Membership of the Committee 1997-19991997 being an IFLA election year the Standing Committee was reconstituted as follows.
Jean Adelman Philadelphia PA 19146-1124 USA Tel: (1) 215 545 4444 Email: adelman@sas.upenn.edu
Svetlana Artamonova Ul.Vozdvizhenka 3 101 000 Moscow Russia Tel: (7) 095 222 8435 Fax: (7) 095 200 2255
Mary Ashe California 94118 USA Tel: (1) 415 751 3010 Fax: (1) 415 331 5446
Stephen Bloom The University of Fine Arts 320 South Broad Street Philadelphia, PA 19102 USA Tel: (1) 215 875 1013 Fax: (1) 215 875 2296 Email: bloom@shrsys.hslc.org
Jeannette Dixon Hirsch Library PO Box 6826 Houston Texas 77265 USA Tel: (1) 713 639 7326 Fax: (1) 713 639 7399 Email: hirsch@mfah.org
Ana Paula Gordo Biblioteca General de Arte Av. De Berna, 45-A 1067 Lisboa Codex Portugal Tel: (351) 1 7935131 Fax: (351) 1 7935139
Marie-Françoise Guillermin Promenade du Pin 5 CH-1204 Geneva Switzerland Tel: (41) 22 311 4411 Fax: (41) 22 418 2701 Email: marie-francoise.guillermin@baa.ville-ge.ch
Hiroyuki Hatano 7-7 Ueno-Koen, Taito-ku 110 Tokyo Japan Tel: (81) 3 3828 5131 Fax: (81) 3 3828 5135 Email: hatano@nmwa.go.jp
Herlof Hatlebrekke Norway Tel: (47) 67 54 3050 Fax: (47) 67 54 3270 Email: herlof.hatlebrekke@eunet.no
Catherine Heesterbeek-Bert B-1000 Bruxelles Belgium Tel: (32) 2 508 3211 Fax: (32) 2 508 3232 Email: pc29@fine-arts-museum.be
Beth Houghton Millbank London SW1P 4RG United Kingdom Tel: (44) 171 887 8827 Fax: (44) 171 887 8007 Email: beth.houghton@tate.org.uk
Ada Kolganova 8/1 Pushkinskaja Street Moscow 103031 Russia Fax: (7) 095 2920653 Email: mabis@artlib.msk.ru
Geert-Jan Koot PO Box 74888 1070 DN Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel: (31) 20 673 2121 Fax: (31) 20 679 8146 Email: bibliotheek@rijksmuseum.nl
Francoise Lemelle 2/4, rue Vivienne 75083 Paris Cedex 02 France Fax: (33) 1 470 38925
Anja Lollesgaard Bredgate 68 DK-1260 Copenhagen K Denmark Tel: (45) 33 149 452 Fax: (45) 33 113 072
Ulrike Michalowsky Gesamthochschulbibliothek/ Landesbibliothek Kassel Diagonale 10 D-34111 Kassel Germany Email: michalowsky@bibliothek.uni-kassel.de
Nicole Picot 6, Rue des Pyramides 75041 Paris Cedex 01 France Tel: (33) 1 4020 5895 Fax: (33) 1 4020 5169
Olga Sinitsyna Rudomino Library of Foreign Literature Ulyanovskaya 1 109189 Moscow Russia Tel: (7) 095 227 3280 Fax: (7) 095 916 2039 Email:olgas@openmail.irex.ru
Miriam Tam Department of Library Services American Museum of Natural History Central Park West at 79th Street New York NY 10024-5192 USA Fax: (1) 212 7695009
Marie-Claude Thompson Bibliothèque Nationale de France 58, Rue de Richelieu 75084 Paris Cedex 02 France Tel: (33) 1 4703 8393 Fax: (33) 1 4703 8307 Email: marie-claude.thompson@bnf.fr
Jan van der Wateren Victoria & Albert Museum Cromwell Road London SW7 2RL United Kingdom Tel: (44) 171 938 8303 Fax: (44) 171 938 8275 Email:j.vanderwateren@nal.vam.ac.uk Corresponding Members, Observers, Special Advisers The Standing Committee agreed to appoint the following as corresponding members.
Josephine Andersen PO Box 2420 Cape Town 8000 South Africa Tel: (27) 21 451 628 Fax: (27) 21 461 0045 Email: joey@gem.co.za
Veronica Lavin Isax Apto D c/o Parraga y Poey Vibora CP 10500 La Habana Cuba Email: seladqui@ceniai.cu The SC confirmed the reappointment of the following Corresponding Member, Observer and Special Adviser.
Elsa Barbarena Universidad Nacional Autonóma de Mexico Aptdo Postal 20234 CP 01000 Mexico D.F. Mexico Tel: (52) 5 550 0843 Fax: (52) 5 622 1801
Javier Docampo Head of Fine Arts Section Biblioteca Nacional Servicio de Dibujos y Grabados Paseo de Recoletos, 20 28071 Madrid Spain Tel: (34) 1 5807885 Fax: (34) 1 5775634
Margaret Shaw National Gallery of Australia GPO Box 1150 Canberra ACT 2601 Australia Tel: (61) 6 271 2532 Fax: (61) 6 273 2155 Email: margarets@nga.gov.au
MeetingsThe annual Standing Committee meeting was held on Saturday 30 August 1997 at the Danish Museum of Decorative Art, Copenhagen. 34 people attended. The following officers were elected for the period 1997-1999. Chairman
Jeannette Dixon Hirsch Library PO Box 6826 Houston Texas 77265USA Tel: (1) 713 639 7326 Fax: (1) 713 639 7399 Email: hirsch@mfah.org Secretary
Geert-Jan Koot PO Box 74888 1070 DN Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel: (31) 20 673 2121 Fax: (31) 20 679 8146 Email: bibliotheek@rijksmuseum.nl Treasurer Catherine Heesterbeek-Bert (As above)
Information Co-ordinator Geert-Jan Koot (As above) The meeting discussed planning for forthcoming conferences in Amsterdam 1998, Bangkok 1999, Jerusalem 2000 and Boston 2001. The Standing Committee (SC) agreed that greater use should be made of the annual conference to exchange information formally about developments in different regions of the world. The incoming Executive officers would address this issue and schedule such a session as part of the proceedings during the Amsterdam conference 1998. The SC further concluded that the format of a whole day SC meeting was very successful indeed compared to the two separate meetings traditionally allocated for SC meetings during the annual conference. Since the SC meeting was dependent on space made available by the central conference organising committee this was an issue which would need to be resolved in conjunction with IFLA Headquarters. When a location separate from the main conference venue was available, as in Copenhagen, there would be no space problem. After reviewing the status of the Section's projects, the major item discussed at the meeting was the Medium-Term Programme 1997-2001. The Standing Committee debated and finalised the MTP and agreed goals for 1998-1999. The MTP follows below. Medium Term Programme 1998-2001ScopeThe 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, art departments within national, college, university and public libraries, government departments and agencies, libraries in cultural centres and other collections of art information. The Section is also concerned with the creation, study and enjoyment of the visual arts through these libraries and with the encouragement of activities of national and regional societies of art librarians and visual resources curators. It provides an international forum for the free exchange of information and materials on art, the continuing education of art librarians and furthers the aims of the core IFLA programmes.
Goals for 1998-2001
Action plan 1998-1999
ProjectsInternational Directory of Art LibrariesThe Editor, Thomas Hill, engaged the support of 53 Regional Co-ordinators covering most of the world. This dedicated team provided the Editor with a complete update of facts and he was able to produce camera-ready copy for K.G. Saur to publish the Directory in time for the Copenhagen conference. ARLIS/NA deserves our gratitude for undertaking the development of the Directory in electronic form, and especially Thomas Hill, staunchly supported by Vassar College, for single-mindedly pursuing the objective. Future tasks will include not only keeping the data up-to-date but also gathering information on some countries for which no data is as yet available - North and South Korea, Georgia, the former Soviet states of Central Asia, Burma, Viet-Nam, Albania, Macedonia, Iraq, Iran and Cambodia. Project leader:
Thomas Hill, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601, USA, Telephone: (1) 914 437 5791, Fax: (1) 914 437 5864, Email: Thhill@vassar.edu The Multilingual Glossary for art librarians The SC discussed the desirability of making the Glossary available online and the new Executive officers were asked to pursue this with IFLA HQ. Portuguese and Japanese versions of the Glossary were presented during the SC meeting. It was agreed that given the problems associated with Japanese characters the Japanese could mount the Glossary on their closed museums network. A Russian version of the Glossary was planned to be available by December 1997. PublicationsDuring the year under review the Section published the following:
Beijing conference, 25 - 31 August 1996 Papers presented at the Beijing conference Section of Art Libraries Workshop and Open Session were published as follows.
Conference programme, Copenhagen, 30 August - 6 September 1997Pre-Conference WorkshopA pre-conference Workshop was held in conjunction with ARLIS/Norden on Saturday 30 August at The Danish Museum of Decorative Art addressing the theme Art libraries as centres of culture and information The Workshop was attended by 120 to the Workshop people. There was no simultaneous interpretation but facilitators were available for French and Spanish during discussions. The following papers were presented.
Jan van der Wateren, Chairman, IFLA Section of Art Libraries, National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England.
Open Session An Open Session was held on Monday 1 September 1997 at the Bella Centre on the theme Studying Scandinavian art and design at home and abroad . There were 100+ attenders. There was no simultaneous interpretation but facilitators were available for French and Spanish during discussion. The following papers were presented.
Mirjam Gelfer-Jørgensen, The National Library for Art and Design, Danish Museum for Decorative Art, Copenhagen, Denmark. Available electronically at http://archive.ifla.org/IV/ifla63/63gelm.htm ABSTRACT: Compared to the international interest in the phenomenon 'Scandinavian Design', it is surprising to find that the interest in studying Scandinavian decorative art and design on a scholarly level is not at all widespread in the Scandinavian countries. In order to further research in this field an effective means is to give scholars the possibility to publish in order that they get a response, first directly with an editor and translator, and further with colleagues. This made me start publishing Scandinavian Journal of Design History 7 years ago. It is published in English, once a year, and contains scholarly articles by Scandinavians on all topics, Scandinavian as well as non-Scandinavian. Another important instrument is documentation of the widespread field covered by the designation 'decorative art and design'. In Denmark this responsibility has for 100 years been placed at the Library of the Danish Museum of Decorative Art; the development within the last 10-15 years of design as well as design history has caused us to re-evaluate the criteria for information retrieval, both as to books and printed matter as to drafts and drawings. The problem of a proper terminology for this relatively new field is also dealt with - in Danish, but also in other Scandinavian languages - seeing that we cannot take over the English vocabulary without first making sure that the content of the two words are identical. These considerations are more important now, seeing that we are all able to search via the Internet.
Relationships with other bodies
Jan van der Wateren Report of the Pre-Conference Workshop Art libraries as centres of culture and informationCopenhagen, 30 August 1997in conjunction with ARLIS/Norden Morning SessionThe IFLA Section of Art Libraries all-day Pre-Conference Workshop was held on Saturday 30 August at the Danske Kunstindustrimuseum (Danish Museum of Decorative Art). Organised jointly by the Section in liaison with ARLIS/Norden it immediately followed the ARLIS/Norden annual conference at the same venue, allowing many of those who had attended the latter to stay on for the workshop and swelling the numbers to an impressive 120.In gratitude to the hosts and for the immense amount of work which the Danish organisers had put into the arrangements, Jan van der Wateren opened the proceedings with a vote of thanks to all involved and, in particular to Anja Lollesgaard and Mirjam Gelfer-Jorgensen of the Museum Library. Mirjam Gelfer-Jørgensen (who, besides being the chief librarian is also editor of the annual Scandinavian Journal of Design History ) provided a brief history of the Museum and of its Library. Established in 1896 to collect documentation about and examples of applied art, and originally sited in the Tivoli castle, it was transferred to the present building, the former Frederiks Hospital (1756), refurbished for the museum's use by architect Kaare Klimt in the 1920s. It is the main national library of decorative arts, design and the traditional arts of Asia. The service comprises a library, a prints and drawings collection, the official Danish poster collection and, most recently, design archives which include a wide range of documentation and materials for research. There was an opportunity to visit the Library and prints and drawings and poster collections later in the day. The first part of the workshop was chaired by Angela Giral. First Margrethe Tottrup, of the Danish National Library Authority in Copenhagen, spoke on Internet and copyright regarding pictorial art - seen in an international perspective . This had been the subject of a research project at the Danish Royal Library School and would be documented in her dissertation. The speaker provided a historical account of copyright legislation as it had developed to meet the needs of the pre-electronic world, and a selective geographical survey of how certain countries were currently dealing with copyright issues and facing up to (or in some cases ignoring) the complexities arising from the advent of global communications and the internet. She pointed to the differences in approach to the protection of intellectual property which often arise from differing traditions and the status of the artist in particular societies. The nature of internet communications has, in any case, made it impossible to enforce much of the existing legislation. The speaker drew attention to the World Intellectual Property Oranization (WIPO), a special agency under the United Nations, which she felt was relatively little known but was doing extremely useful work in raising awareness of the issues and encouraging responsible behaviour and the introduction of legislation in various parts of the world. In the ensuing discussion the question of the extent to which WIPO was interested in (and was capable of) implementation rather than merely establishing legislation was raised, as was the suggestion that the way forward might be through licensing agreements rather than the law (because legislation took too long to enact and was impossible to enforce). Some delegates, particularly those from the US, expressed the view that licensing tended to conflict with the concept and practice of 'fair dealing'. It was generally recognised that the current situation was extremely complex and the future solution of the problem of reconciling protection of creators' rights with the need to access knowledge and promote scientific and cultural development was far from assured. The second speaker, Kathy Martinez of the Research Libraries Group (RLG), was unable to attend the Workshop, but the full text of her paper was available and the key passages were spoken to by Jeannette Dixon of The Houston Museum of Fine Arts. The Research Libraries Group and access to art information provided an overview of the history, mission and structure of the RLG and, within that, the particular concerns and achievements of the Art&Architecture Group (originally established 1979) which, based on an extremely dedicated and energetic membership of North American art librarians has developed a wide-ranging group of initiatives which are of potential benefit to the international art library and research communities. RLG now has 157 members in Europe, North America and Australia, including many of the major art research libraries. Core RLG on-line services such as the RLIN bibliographic database (82 million records), Citadel (citations and document delivery) and Marcadia (retrospective conversion), are enhanced for the art librarian by services such as SCIPIO (union database of auction catalogues) and the Art Serials Preservation Project. The recent partnership between the RLG and the Getty Information Institute has brought together this body of work with the enormous range of art documentation work carried out by Getty: standards and authority control work such as the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, the Union List of Artists' Names; bibliographic and research resources such as the Bibliography of the History of Art and the Provenance Index. This new partnership has set itself a number of new and ambitious goals which develop its work beyond the library and information sector into the museum world and will attempt to bridge the gap between the domains of secondary and primary materials in the field of art research. The REACH project (Record Export for Art and Cultural Heritage) aims to export existing machine-readable data from heterogeneous museum collection systems and test the feasibility of designing a common interface for access to sit alongside RLG's other resources. The solid achievements of the Art & Architecture Group of RLG and the Getty Information Institute to date provide a sound basis for confidence in these exciting new objectives. Kathy's paper contains a wealth of detail about the numerous projects underway or planned and I commend it to anyone wanting a good overview of the current state of progress. Next, Jean Paul Oddos, of the Documentation du Musee national d'art moderne/Centre de creation industrielle, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, delivered his paper entitled: Le role des bibliothèques d'art dans la formation et l'information des jeunes artistes: le traitement de l'actualité . Commencing with a description of his own library within the Pompidou, the speaker then went on to develop a proposal for a broadening of the rather narrow concept of the museum research library into a service which would both provide contemporary artists with the wide-ranging types of information they need and would also provide access to their work in a less selective way than that offered by the filter of museum and gallery exhibition. Libraries also have a unique and specific role to play in collecting and preserving the traces and records of ephemeral or fugitive manifestations of contemporary art (such as performance and time-based events). Saying that it would indeed be paradoxical (is, in fact paradoxical) that the art library which concentrates on the contemporary provides everything except a place where artists are encountered, Jean Paul Oddos put forward a proposal to change this situation. The difficulties of combining the need for access to a fairly universal library collection able to satisfy the creative artist's most arcane request, with an inviting and unintimidating service and an in-depth, highly specialised collection of documentation of the latest artistic output are easy to imagine (although it could be said that the average art school library has a stab at it!). However, once art students have left education they no longer necessarily have access to such collections, and the Centre Georges Pompidou offers perhaps a unique situation in which the creation of such an environment could be tested. The collocation of the massive (and massively successful) Bibliotheque publique d'information (BPI) and the highly specialised Documentation of the Museum, in the context of the current closure and refurbishment of the Pompidou Centre offers the opportunity to rethink the respective roles of the two services, to bring them closer together and to create a new, bridging service which may well serve a new, and currently invisible group - the artists themselves. We shall watch the development of this proposal with interest.
Beth Houghton Afternoon SessionJean Adelman (recently retired head of the University of Pennsylvania Museum Library) chaired the afternoon session, introducing first Kyoko Tomatsu whose paper Art in the art library: small faces of 'library products' was written in cooperation with Masaharu Taneichi (Art Catalog Library/Japan Association for Cultural exchange, Tokyo). Ms. Tomatsu's experience in libraries ranging from that of the National Diet to that of the Musashino Art Library led her to the foundation of her own consulting firm, the Library Point Co. (Tokyo) in and from which she carries out her strongly-felt ideas for the 'attractive' art library. In such a library one finds not only a center of culture and information, but a center of inspiration.Ms. Tomatsu emphasized the importance for the art library to go beyond the generally accepted elements of architecture and environmental conditions, design and furnishings, even quality and size of collections and high standards of public service. In addition, what she terms 'library products' (and what many of us may think of as equipment and accessories) should be selected with the greatest of care. Slides illustrated a number of these: bookends, pamphlet files, book stands, bookmarks, paper weights, stationary. No item is too small or insignificant (pen stands, magnets) to require attention in its choice, so that it will contribute to the ambience of the particular library. Pictures and their frames, posters and their holders, plants and flowers, seasonal decorations for both Western and Japanese festivals, all must add to the satisfying art library encounter. If the proper product cannot be found readymade, the art librarian should create it. And when that advance of our era, the library shop, comes to Japan, its stock T-shirts and book bags will also have a role to play. Further slides showed art libraries, chiefly in museums from different parts of Japan (Tokyo, Nara, Yokohama, Nagoya) and ranging in size from a corner of a lobby to a corridor to full-scale facility with room for lounge furniture and exhibition cases. The Art Catalog Library (Tokyo) was covered more fully as an example in which all the many components mentioned above (along with signage, security installations and scroll cases) complement one another. They add not only to the enjoyment of the user, but also the effectiveness of the studies undertaken and even to artistic creation. It was the second speaker of the afternoon, Josephine Andersen (South African National Gallery, Cape Town) who voiced what many in the audience were probably thinking when she remarked (was it somewhat wistfully?) that even the libraries with which Ms. Tomatsu found fault seemed remarkably attractive to her and what a luxury it would be to have the time to search for and select, perhaps even invent, all such library products. Her own paper, Redressing past cultural biases and imbalances in South Africa: a contribution by the Library of the South African National Gallery , obviously treated art libraries as centers of culture and information on a different level - - and for some of us it was along the order of a continuation, the next installment of what it is hard to believe was presented to us as long ago as three years, when IFLA met in 1994 in Havana.* South Africa's Government of National Unity has passed legislation in many areas as a foundation for rebuilding a country torn apart and crippled by forty years of apartheid rule, following years of colonial repression. In no area are the challenges greater than in education, with 15,000,000 illiterate out of a population of 42,000,000. This is one of the legacies of the past neglect not only of cultural or arts-related education, but of the most basic forms. The scale of this condition is such that in spite of the familiar alphabet soup of legislative acts, committees, ministries, task forces, working groups, etc., improvement in literacy in the black population can be accomplished only through the participation of individuals and institutions outside the actual, formal educational system. The new standards, the new curriculum (in which Arts and Culture is recognized as one of eight learning areas), and the longer period of compulsory education all focus on the younger segment of the population, while the degree of adult illiteracy has a crushing effect on millions in their personal lives and on national development as a whole. Museums since the l990's were moving away from the Eurocentrism deeply entrenched in their collections and policies, incorporating traditional African art in art museums rather than in ethnographic art museums. Collecting contemporary South African, especially the work of black artists, has made great strides. Libraries, including ones like that of the South African National Gallery (SANG), joined in this change, and they are the agencies most strongly involved in outreach programs, as well as 'inreach', so to speak, opening quarters usually cramped and inadequate even for staff to the public. Ms. Andersen has now entered a new stage in her profession as she combines art and librarianship with advancing the highly important cause of adult literacy. Having obtained the credential or qualification needed to instruct in the Adult Basic Education and Training program (ABET), she uses an approach based on the Language Experience Method of Brazilian educator Paolo Freire, which advocates dialogue between student and teacher. The student chooses an art object, a painting for example, as a subject for discussion. The aim is the development of vocabulary to serve as a foundation for reading and writing. As she presented examples we were introduced to Bertie Krueger, 23 years of age, who always avoids images in which there is any violence. Like one at the Gallery entrance, a sculpture by Kevin Brand showing 19 black boys fleeing the police. And to Winston, a 50-year-old Gallery employee, who wants to obtain a driver's license, and who found in the painting 'The Butcher Boys' (a work shown at the Venice Biennale) something to trigger a remembrance of his parents when they were angry: three figures, half-human, half-animal, glower out at the viewer from the bench on which they sit. Further images showed art that can arouse thoughts and feelings strong enough to motivate learners to the effort to express and communicate: European works ('Flowers in a Glass' by Jan Brueghel, a still life by Floris van Dijck); South African works ('Town by the Sea' by Jackson Nkumanda, 'Hair Do' by George Pemba). Among the most effective were similar themes treated by cultures far apart in time and space, like the contrasts between weddings: 'The Village Bride' by Jean-Baptiste Greuze or 'Peasant Wedding Feast' by Pieter Brueghel versus the intriguingly titled 'On 8th to 9th December Married Mr. T and Evelyn Motswai' by Tommy Motswai. It would seem that there is a great advantage in this method of teaching with works of art over the use of simplified texts that so often prove a barrier to progress for the adult illiterate. It was clear that Ms. Andersen finds satisfaction and fulfillment in these activities (and thinks members of the audience would, too), even though the drain on stamina and energy sometimes results in a state that could be summed up as 'the librarian is down.' In the absence of the final speaker of the afternoon, Jan van der Wateren made the enlightened decision to refer us to the paper as printed, diverting the time to fresh air in the garden, further exploration of the Museum collections, or exposure to the temptations of the Museum shop. We were thus spared the effort of expanding our horizons to global proportions, after the 'small faces...' and one-on-one literacy sessions of the previous speakers. Abdelaziz Abid (Information and Informatics Division, UNESCO) sent in his paper Memory of the world - preserving our documentary heritage , a comprehensive survey of this vast and impressive project, launched in 1992. The aims of the program are ensure the preservation of documentary materials (extending to any medium, including oral tradition) from the great range of threats to their existence, natural and man-made; and to make this heritage accessible to as many as possible. Obviously selecting candidates from the mass of possibilities requires rigorous criteria. The governing body, the International Advisory Committee for the 'Memory of the World Programme', specifies seven basic criteria for inclusion in a 'Memory of the World' Register, modeled after the World Heritage List, a compendium that will be a significant document in itself. In response to the distribution of nomination forms to all UNESCO member states there have been proposals by thirty-three nations of elements they feel meet the standards for the List (and for consideration as actual projects in the future). These criteria of world significance are: influence on the history of the world; setting in a time or place of special importance; association with a person or people who have made an outstanding contribution to world history or culture; a major theme of world history or culture; outstanding form or style; cultural and social or spiritual value transcending national or regional boundaries. In addition qualities of integrity and rarity may be taken into a account. Raising the consciousness of nations and regions of their documentary heritage as a foundation for identifying materials of varying degrees of importance is another objective of the Programme. Encouragement along these lines has resulted in the establishment of 'Memory of the World' National Committees in twenty-six countries to date. There have been meetings on national and regional levels, (Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe), as well as the first international conference held in Oslo in June of 1996. Pilot projects include seven involving chiefly the digitization of manuscripts, along with others covering Latin American photograph collections, Latin American newspapers, postcards from sixteen countries of the Economic Community of West African States, to give idea of current activities. Some thirty other projects are under consideration, many of them involving audio-visual collections. If nothing else, it is hoped this summary gives an idea of the scope and complexity of 'Memory of the World'. Along with the proliferation of committees and conferences, sub-groups for preservation standards, technology, intellectual rights - and, yes, for fund-raising and marketing of 'Memory products' - have been developed. Finally, in cooperation with a number of professional bodies (including IFLA and ICA) three databases are being created:
UNESCO has published both the first and third of these (CII-96/WS/i and CII-96/WS7) in basic form, but all three databases will be updated regularly. After the presentation of the papers, Mirjam Gelfer-Jørgensen, director of the library of the Museum of Decorative Arts, expressed the pleasure she felt, after the constraints of recent years, in being able to mount not just one, but two exhibitions of materials from the Museum's Library of Art and Design. She linked the first to the present-day in the currently produced work of 'Claus Achton Friis - a Danish Graphic Designer', though it might be noted that the eighty-year-old artist is carrying on a long-established national tradition of making alphabets. Ulla Houkjaer (also from the Museum Library and one of the expert guides on the Wednesday city tours) introduced us to her exhibition, 'The Grotesque Ornament', which displayed examples that traced the developments, changes, variations, new interpretations over a period of almost two thousand years. To end the day, we were welcomed to the reception opening of the exhibitions with a concert of sixteenth-century music performed by an ensemble of lute, recorder and soprano.
Ms. Andersen served as one of the guest editors of the ALJ special issue: 'Art Libraries and Art Librarianship in South Africa, ' volume 20, number 4, 1995. It contained in addition to articles on the topic, a valuable detailed checklist of more than 60 art information resources in South African libraries.
The texts of these papers, to a varying extent, are available on the IFLA web-site:
Mary Ashe Report of the Open Session Studying Scandinavian Art and Design at Home and AbroadCopenhagen, 1 September 1997This excellent session was well attended and enthusiastically received by both members of the Section of Art Libraries and other conference delegates.The paper Promoting Scandinavian Design History , presented by Mirjam Gelfer-Jørgensen, National Library of Art and Design, Danish Museum of Decorative Art, Copenhagen, traced the history of the promotion in Scandinavia of the discipline of design history, the first step in which was the establishment in 1982 of the Nordic Forum for Design History (Nordisk Forum for Formgivningshistorie), followed in 1991 by the inauguration of the independent Scandinavian Journal of Design History . The Journal has proved an important catalyst for encouraging dialogue and an invaluable vehicle for disseminating internationally the work of historians of Nordic design. Ms. Gelfer-Jørgensen was a founder of the Nordic Forum for Design History and is the editor of the Scandinavian Journal of Design History . This contribution is complimented by her work at the National Library of Art and Design at the Danish Museum of Decorative Art. The mandate of the Library is to promote Danish design and design history; to this end it collects a wide range of published, ephemeral and archival materials, documenting in breadth the activities and contribution of contemporary Danish design. Ms. Gelfer-Jørgensen spoke as well of the need for the development and adoption of standardized terminology in this relatively young discipline, at both the national and international levels, in order to clarify concepts and facilitate communication. The project described in Bibliografía sobre arte y artistas de los países Nórdicos a través de las monografías y catálogos de exposiciones en España , presented by Alicia García Medina, Instituto Patrimonio Histórico Espagñol, Madrid, reflects the liberalisation and broadening of cultural interests in Spain since the 1980s, as well as a significant growth in the Spanish national bibliography during this same period. Drawing from the resources of the Instituto des Patrimonio Histórico Español, the Bibliografía Española, Libros españoles en venta , the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the project has produced artist-level content analysis for all current trade publications (with the exception of journal articles, which are captured by the Bibliography of the History of Art ), exhibition and collection catalogues published in Spain (including translations) which deal with Nordic art and architecture. This exhaustive approach provides access beyond that found in other library catalogues or published indexes. The text of this paper (published along with the other two papers given at this Section of Art Libraries Open Session, in IFLA 1997 conference Booklet 2, Division of Special Libraries ) includes a bibliography of recent Spanish publications on Nordic art, titles which were the basis of this indexing project. (A CD-ROM of work accomplished to date can be requested from Ms. García Medina.) Ingrid Fischer Jonge, Royal Library, Copenhagen, described the inauguration and collection of the National Museum of Photography, an institution which is being created from the photograph holdings of the Department of Maps, Prints and Photographs of the Royal Library. This initiative reflects the importance of the Royal Library's collection of photographs, begun in 1945, and a recognition of the need in Denmark for a venue devoted to the history of the art of photography. The photograph collection of 11 million images of the Royal Library has been viewed much as a national picture archive, arranged thematically with little emphasis on the creator. The daunting (but potentially rewarding!) task at hand is to extract from this picture archive those photographs which will make up the core collection of the National Museum of Photography, an exercise which, it is estimated, will establish a collection of approximately 50,000 prints for the new institution. The collection spans the full history of the medium, from Henry Fox Talbot's The Pencil of Nature , to the work of contemporary Danish and foreign photographers. Work has begun on the digitization of the images in order to provide knowledge of and access to the collection via the World Wide Web. The National Museum of Photography is scheduled to open in the autumn of 1999.
The texts of these papers, to a varying extent, are available on the IFLA web-site:
Murray Waddington Call for topics for National Reports on Art LibrarianshipAt the Standing Committee Meeting, Copenhagen 4 September 1997, a proposal was put forward for receiving reports from individual regions at future conferences.
The proposal for a lecture and/or written reports for the Newsletter must be sent at latest by 1 March 1998 to:
Jeannette Dixon c/o Hirsch Library, Museum of Fine Arts Houston P.O. Box 6826 Houston, Texas 77265-6826 USA Tel: +12 713 639-7326 Fax: +12 713 639-7399 Email: hirsch@mfah.org Electronic Discussion List for Art Information ProfessionalsParticipating in ARLIS-LARLIS-L is an electronic forum for the dissemination of information and the discussion of issues of interest to art information professionals. Your ARLIS-L subscription will put you in daily communication with professionals from more than 20 countries!
Anyone may subscribe (for free) by sending an e-mail message to: The list is moderated by Mary Molinaro, Associate Director of Libraries for Electronic Resources, University of Kentucky, 216 A King South, Lexington, KY 40506-0039; e-mail: molinaro@pop.uky.edu
Jeannette Dixon ARLIS WorldwideJapan Art Documentation Society (JADS)c/o Hatano Office,The National Museum of Western Art, 7-7 Ueno-koen, Taito-ku, Tokyo 110, JAPAN Tel. +81-3-3828-5166 Fax +81-3-3828-5797 E-mail LDT02307@niftyserve.or.jp President:
Hiroyuki HATANO JADS affiliates: IFLA, ARLIS/UK & Ireland, ARLIS/NA Founded in : 1989 Purpose/goals: The purpose of JADS is to contribute to the development of art documentation among librarians, curators, art historians and all the persons concerned. Region covered: Japan Number of individual members: 364 (Annual fee: 4,000 Yen) (As of August 1997) Number of supporting members: 31 (Institutional; Annual fee: 30,000 Yen) Structure of association: President, Secretary General, Board of Secretaries consisting of 13 members, 5 Committees (Editorial Committee of the Bulletin, Editorial Committee of the Newsletter, Survey Committee, International Relations Committee, Membership Committee), Clearinghouse on Art Documentation, 2 Working Groups (Art Reference Services WG, Visual Resources WG), 1 Regional Chapter in Kansai District
Principal publications:Periodicals:
Newsletter of Japan Art Documentation Society , No.1 (1989.4)- Quarterly, (in Japanese) ISSN 0915-7956, Monographs:
Survey Committee of JADS. comp. Directory of Art Documents and Visual Resources in Japan , 1995. 145 p., (in Japanese) ISBN 4-9900326-0-8, Activities: General conference (Annual), Meetings for paper presentation, Lectures, Observation tours, Researches, International Forum (almost every five years: First Forum in 1994)
Hiroyuki Hatano International Directory of Art Libraries, second editionThe publication of the second edition of IFLA's International Directory of Art Libraries is a testament to the excellent health of the formal and informal association between people interested in the documentation of art and its history. The Directory has been compiled to serve as a finding aid to 2,781 art, architecture, and archeology libraries and library departments, as well as to their professional personnel, throughout the world. The printed edition of the Directory has been produced as an alternative to the electronic edition,Chair: Jeannette Dixon, Hirsch Library, Museum of Fine Arts, P.O. Box 6826, Houston, Texas 77265, USA Secretary and editor: Geert-Jan Koot, Library Rijksmuseum, P.O. Box 74888, 1070 DN Amsterdam, The NetherlandsAMSInternational Directory of Art Libraries / Répertoire Internationale de Bibliothèques d'Art / Internationales Adressbuch der Kunstbibliotheken / Directorio Internationale de Bibliotecas de Arte
Compiled and ed. by Thomas Hill XIV, 251 pp. Hardback, ISBN 3-598-21807-9 DM 98.00 (for IFLA members DM 73.00) Call for Papers Round Table on Audiovisual and Multimedia WorkshopThe Round Table on Audiovisual and Multimedia will hold a half-day workshop during the IFLA Amsterdam Conference (16-21 August) on 'Looking for digital images'. This workshop will emphasize on the access, and compare structure of image banks and retrieval systems.
Please contact: Bibliothèque nationale de France Direction des collections spécialisées - Informatique et numérisation 58, rue de Richelieu 75084 PARIS CEDEX 02 France Tel: (+33 1) 47 03 83 55 Fax: (+33 1) 42 96 84 47 Email: pierre-yves.duchemin@bnf.fr ARLIS/NA Annual ConferenceThe annual conference of the Art Libraries Society of North American (ARLIS/NA) will be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from March 5 - 12, 1998. For further information, call ARLIS Headquarters at (919) 787-5181 in Raleigh, North Carolina, or check the ARLIS Website at:http://www.lib.duke.edu/lilly/arlis/ If you are in need of travel assistance, look at the travel awards description on the ARLIS/NA Website to see if you may qualify. Several of the awards are specifically aimed at promoting travel to ARLIS/NA from outside the U.S.A.
Jeannette Dixon InspelInspel , the official organ of the IFLA Division of Special Libraries, of which the Section of Art Libraries is a member, published three of the papers presented at the 62nd IFLA Conference in Beijing, 25-31 August 1996 in the Workshop of the Art Section: 'Pay or profit: fee or free'.
Inspel , vol. 31(1997), no. 2 Strasse des 17. Juni 135 10623 Berlin, Germany Tel: +30 314-23980 Fax: +30 314-24741 1 Hour VHS Video Available! Highlights of IFLA Art Libraries Section in Cuba August 1994Featuring scenes of the conference and views of Havana with comments by:
Stephen Bloom, Institute of the Arts, Philadelphia Clayton Kirking, Phoenix Art Museum Jim Findlay, Wolfsonian Foundation, Miami Maria Prates, Gulbenkian Foundation, Portugal Zenaida Terry, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Havana Hatano Hiroyuki, Tokyo Catherine Schmidt, Centre Pompidou, Paris Ida Kolganova, Russian State Arts Library, Moscow Sylvia Harris, University of Wales School of Architecture Margaret Shaw, National Gallery of Australia Cecilia Puerto, San Diego State University Jose Manuel Varela, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Havana Jean Adleman, University of Pennsylvania Deirdre Stam, Syracuse University Amy Piccard, Musee de la Ville de Paris Jeannette Dixon, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Angela Giral, Avery Library, New York Jan van der Wateren, Victoria & Albert, London (Institutional affiliations given at time of taping)
To order send $25.00 to William Howze, P.O. Box 131122, Houston TX 77219 Biographical information on artists born after 1950At the IFLA Section of Art Libraries Standing Committee meeting in Copenhagen on 4 September the following proposal was put forward for addition to the Section's Medium Term Programme (1997-2001):That the Section create a directory of sources for biographical information on artists born after 1950. The original proposal, made by Ana Paula Gordo (of the Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon), was to identify databases of such biographical information but the meeting felt that actual databases were probably relatively rare and that extremely useful resources for this type of information often exist in the materials themselves within collections which specialise in contemporary art - within exhibition catalogues or collections of ephemera. Since this type of material is most effectively collected 'locally' the best collections of material and information on the youngest contemporary artists of particular nationalities were most likely to be found within their own country. It was therefore agreed in principle that it would be an important and worthwhile task to identify the most important resources for this often difficult-to-locate information and to provide a directory of them, ranging from the conventional specialist library collection to databases constructed for this purpose. However, it was also decided to begin with a feasibility study to be carried out during the twelve months up to the next IFLA Conference in Amsterdam. Beth Houghton (of the Tate Gallery, London) agreed to co-ordinate this, in collaboration with Ana Paula Gordo. It is proposed to carry out a limited survey in order to:
The limited survey will be carried out by using the network provided by the IFLA Section Standing Committee and by approaching those countries where there is a national art libraries organisation which provides a focus. However, we would very much like to hear from any readers of the Newsletter who have a particular interest in this area of documentation and/or work in a library or other information service with a particular concentration on artists born after 1950. Please contact either:
Beth Houghton, Library and Archive, Millbank, London, SW1P 4RG, UK, e-mail: beth.houghton@tate.org.uk or
Ana Paulo Gordo, Biblioteca Geral de Arte, Av.Berna, 1093 Lisboa Codex, Portugal, e-mail: apg@Gulbenkian.pt La cinquième réunion nationale des bibliothèques d'art à ParisPour fêter son trentième anniversaire, la Sous-Section des Bibliothèques d'Art de l'Association des Bibliothécaires français a organisé à Paris les 19, 20 et 21 septembre 1997, 3 journées de formation ayant pour thème 'L'avenir du passé: Les nouvelles technologies'.Les très nombreux articipants, venus de tous les coins de France et même d'Espagne, de Suisse, d'Angleterre et de Belgique, ont été reçus dans le prestigieux Hémicycle d'honneur de l'Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.Après l'introduction par Nicole Picot, présidente de la Sous-Section, Catherine Lupovici, responsable des normes afnor-iso pour bibliothèques de la Société Jouve, a fait un exposé très intéressant sur les applications en bibliothèque du nouveau support DVD (Digital Versatile Disc). Le DVD, disque numérique à usage varié comportant 5 formats sur un seul support, est appelé à remplacer à l'avenir tous les autres CD et à transformer les bibliothèques en bibliothèques vraîment éléctroniques. Marie-Claude Thompson, du Département des Estampes et de la Photographie à la Bibliothèque nationale de France, a ensuite fait un exposé sur la norme de catalogage (numérisation) de l'image fixe. Cette norme reposant sur l'ISBD permet différents niveaux de catalogage (images uniques, portfolios, collections de cartes postales, par exemple). Jean-Paul Oddos, directeur de la Documentation au MNAM-CCI, est ensuite venu présenter et démontrer son tout nouveau catalogue sur Internet. Grâce aux liens hypertextes entre les différentes notices, ce catalogue offre la possibilité de recherches multicritères par mots des différentes zones sans jamais perdre la recherche initiale. La consultation de ce catalogue (http://mnam-doc.cnac-gp.fr/doc-generale/) nécessite un navigateur supportant les frames. Après un très bon déjeûner servi à l'ENSBA, Catherine Donnellier a présenté le MICROMUSEE, qui est la banque d'images des collections de l'ENSBA où 200.000 oeuvres (estampes,dessins, photographies, archives) ont été mumérisées selon un système WINDOW interactif. Daniel Renoult, directeur des systèmes d'information de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, a ensuite fait un exposé sur les projets et les réalisations du futur système d'information de la Bibliothèque nationale consultable sur internet (WWW.bnf.fr). Après la lecture de Pierre Piccotti, responsable de la gestion automatisée des recherches bibliographiques et documentaires de l'Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia (http://asii.iuav.unive.it/webiuav/new/), Odile Blanc a fait une présentation-démonstration de la très intéressante banque d'images du Musée des tissus à Lyon. Le dernier orateur de la journée fut Michel Laclotte. Il a longuement parlé du grand projet de l'Institut national d'Histoire de l'Art qui vise à regrouper en une fédération juxtaposée tous les centres de recherche en histoire de l'art, toutes les bibliothèques et iconothèques d'art, tout en laissant à chacune de ces unités de recherche leur autonomie. Une brillante réception au Musée Missim de Camondo est venue clôturer cette première journée .La matinée du samedi a été consacrée à trois tables rondes particulièrement animées et intéressantes.Ont été abordés successivement les problêmes des bibliothèques de musées, ceux des bibliothèques d'écoles d'architecture et des écoles d'art et finalement ceux des bibliothèques d'art du XXe siècle.L'impact sur les lecteurs de la fermeture temporaire de certaines bibliothèques, e. a. celle du Musée des Arts Décoratifs, et celle du MNAM a longuement été discuté. Ces tables rondes ont démontré la très grande collégialité et l'esprit de coopération qui anime les bibliothécaires d'art français. Après un buffet champêtre exquis, servi dans les jardins ensoleillés de l'Institut français d'Architecture, les participants ont été divisés en petits groupes pour la visite guidée de la bibliothèque d'art parisienne de leur choix. Ma visite au Département des Estampes et de la Photographie de la Bibliothèque nationale m'a révélé des trésors insoupçonnés. Pour finir en beauté, la jounée de dimanche s'est déroulée à Versailles.
Catherine Heesterbeek-Bert
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