National Art Library Research Articles

The National Art Library: into the 1990s

The National Art Library, at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, seeks to fulfil its national role by becoming the focal point of a wider network of libraries. In order to support this role, and to carry it forward into the 1990s, the Library has redesigned its management structure, developed a role as a training library for the art library profession, and applied a professional approach, involving the collection and consideration of management data, to the Library’s administration. Collection development has been redefined, shifting the emphasis from the past to the present; this has resulted in an increased intake of material, in spite of a frozen budget, with a consequent need for more space which will be provided through a reorganisation of the Library’s existing accommodation. A plan for the conservation of items in the Library’s collections is being devised. Automation, installed in 1990, brings with it further possibilities and the critical question of whether to prioritise the development of the collections or the development of access to the collections.

News from the Sous-Section des Bibliothèques d’art

The Sous-Section des Bibliothèques d’Art gathered in a successful and perhaps historic meeting, at St-Etienne, in October 1989. In spite of their different types, and in spite of being linked with central government in differing ways, French art libraries are collaborating more and more. Plans for five projects -on periodical indexing, periodical microfilming, the adoption of a thesaurus, the cataloguing of exhibition catalogues, and networking - were discussed, as was the creation of a new national art library which will occupy the site of the Bibliothèque Nationale and which can be expected to play a key role in coordinating future developments. A resolution regarding the national art library is appended.

Stage dans des Bibliotheques d’Art en Grande Bretagne organise par la BPI et le British Council

During October, 1987, Nicole Picot, arts librarian of the Bibliothèque Publique d’Information at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, worked at the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She also visited several other British art libraries in order to gain a wider view. Her report is printed below. As part of the same arrangement, Gillian Varley from the National Art Library spent two weeks, in June, 1988, at the Bibliothèque Publique d’Information; her report, and extracts from the diary of her visit, are also published in this issue of the Arts Libraries Journal.

Archival resources in the Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum, itself an archive of material culture, houses several collections of archival records. The Museum’s Registered Papers are divided between the Museum itself, which holds those papers relating to objects in the Museum, and the Public Record Office, where papers relating to Museum buildings and administration can be found; all papers produced since 1984 are to be housed together in a newly established V & A Archive. The quality of the archive of Registered Papers is uneven due to the lack of a controlling and unifying policy; this, and questions of conservation and administration, are being addressed as part of the current restructuring of the Museum. For the same reason the archives of the different Departments, though important, vary considerably not only in content but also in their organisation. The National Art Library, part of the V & A, includes archival collections of ephemera, comprising examples of printing and graphic design, and of manuscripts, including artists’ papers; it also includes the Archive of Art and Design, founded in 1978 to avoid the splitting up of significant archives between the Museum’s Departments.

An English art librarian in Paris: a report and diary

Following Nicole Picot’s visit to England, the subject of the report printed above, Gillian Varley from the National Art Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London spent two weeks at the Bibliothèque Publique d’Information at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, during the summer of 1988. She also visited a number of other art libraries in Paris. The text of her report is followed by extracts from her diary of her trip.

National art libraries: monoliths or artels?

The ideal of a single, national art library is no more practicable than that of a single national library. The alternative is to regard all of a nation’s art libraries as comprising the national art library, taking advantage of their diversity and of their provision of a range of access points and policies. This requires effective co-ordination, preferably combining maximum co-operation with a minimum of centralisation, and including the rotation of specific responsibilities among participating libraries. An example of such a confederation of art libraries is represented by the network of art libraries within the Research Libraries Group (RLG) in the USA. A new RLG plan for achieving efficient co-operative cataloguing of exhibition catalogues demonstrates how a confederation of libraries can work together to act as a national art library, more effectively than would be possible for a single ‘monolithic’ library.

SCOAD: its inception and aims

In response, to initiatives from the Association of Art Historians and from ARLIS/UK & Eire, the British Library Working Party on the Provision of Materials for the Study of Art was established. Its Report (1983) proposed the setting-up of a permanent consultative body. This body, the Standing Committee on Art Documentation (SCOAD), was set up in 1985, to survey, and consider the co-ordination of, the provision of art library collections and services in the United Kingdom and in particular, by the British Library, the National Art Library, and other specialist libraries with notable contributions to make to a national service.

The Art Libraries and Research Resources of the Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution, a public organisation established in 1846 “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge”, includes ten museums and several research bureaux. Most but not all of the associated libraries are linked through the Smithsonian Institution Libraries; they include several art libraries which contribute significantly to the overall provision of art library service to the American people but do not of themselves constitute a “national art library”. Most of the Smithsonian’s libraries enter their records in a database (SIBIS) which is accessible online via OCLC. Co-ordinated collection development has been pursued since 1984. In two areas in particular, American and African art, Smithsonian libraries aim to provide a national service.

Image and Reality: the National Art Library

The Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum originated in the mid-19th century as the library of a School of Design, and adopted the title ‘The National Art Library’ later in the century following publication of the Universal Catalogue of Books on Art. Decades of steady growth and of low usage ended in the late 1960s, when sudden growth of art publishing, and of interest in art history, generated demands the Library was not equipped to meet. The Library possesses one of the world’s outstanding collections of art publications but is still funded, staffed, and administered as if its role was merely that of a Department of the Museum. Currently all aspects of the Library’s procedures and policies are under review; government funding is to be sought for a programme of computerisation, and it is hoped to redefine the Library’s role in national and international contexts and to re-establish it as the ‘heart and core’ of art library provision in the U.K., as an active participant in cooperative schemes and projects, and as a training centre for art librarianship, or in other words, as an active and truly national art library.

Catalogue of the Engraved National Portraits in the National Art Library

Journal Article Catalogue of the Engraved National Portraits in the National Art Library Get access Notes and Queries, Volume s8-X, Issue 239, 25 July 1896, Page 88, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s8-X.239.88b Published: 25 July 1896