Changing times and art librarians

Abstract

Excellent organisational and communication skills, familiarity with available digital technology, and the ability to anticipate new developments are attributes art librarians require if they are to continue to be respected and valued professionals. Collaboration between museums, knowledge-sharing and merging library collections will cause individual museum libraries to disappear or be transformed into knowledge centres affiliated with museum collections. These will be a forum for discussion and the exchange of ideas between researchers and intellectuals who share a common passion. The infrastructure for art-related information will be a digital research environment where the indexing of research material is both unambiguous and exhaustive and integrally available.