artlibraries.net, formerly the VKK, is an international specialised meta catalogue allowing the integrated retrieval of bibliographic records and, should the occasion arise, other objects from distinctive art historical databases. This article analyses artlibraries.net from a functional point of view, but also discusses the cataloguing and subject indexing practice prevailing in art libraries internationally. It aims to identify some parameters for the future of art bibliography.

This article describes some unusual ways of working with the special collections in the University of Southampton Library of Winchester School of Art. Two of these collections have proved particularly fruitful: numerous successful activities centred on the Knitting Reference Library have aroused great interest, and there is now a strategic aim of making it the primary research resource for knitting for artists, students, and researchers in the University, and also for the wider community locally, nationally and globally. The contents of the Artists’ Books Collection too are being shared with a new audience, through exhibitions, events and participation at artists’ books fairs.

Founded in Montréal in 1980, the Centre d’information Artexte is a non-profit organisation devoted to the collection and distribution of information on all aspects of contemporary visual arts. The organisation has developed two subject areas in support of its objective (the exhibition catalogue and Canadian art) and sponsors activities on 3 fronts (documentation, distribution and publication). The Centre d’information Artexte’s collections are noted for their comprehensive holdings in contemporary art (1965-). A bibliographic database was developed by the Centre to support advanced research in contemporary art. A bilingual tool, it indexes indepth information found within the exhibition catalogue. Artexte serves both the French and English communities in Canada and promotes Canadian publications in contemporary art abroad.

In July of 2003 Corbis Corporation began an initiative to offer educational institutions fair-use access to the world’s largest and most diverse archive of digital images. At a time when many visual resource collections are struggling with how to satisfy the digital needs of their faculty and students, Corbis is hoping to help meet this challenge. Our experience with digital archive development and image management, albeit on a larger scale, closely mirrors much of what visual resource collections are tasked with today. This article introduces readers to Corbis and gives details about our collection of images, outlining what is available through the new Corbis Education program.

The Melva J. Dwyer Award was established in honour of Melva Dwyer, a founding member of CARLIS, upon her retirement after 31 years of distinguished service on behalf of Canadian art librarianship and as Fine Arts Librarian at the University of British Columbia. The award is presented to the best Canadian art reference work, broadly interpreted, produced by a Canadian author. Unlike other awards, the Dwyer Award is a limited edition print by Calgary artist Susan Ford that incorporates both the concept and title of the prize. Eight awards have been presented so far, in addition to the first of the ten prints which was presented to Melva Dwyer in 1987.

Following the FAB Supplemental Meetings held 21-23 June 2010 at the Getty Research Institute (GRI), there was general agreement that two prototype applications should be built to provide new ideas and technical approaches to compare/contrast to the artlibraries.net model. Jim Michalko, Vice President of OCLC Research, agreed that OCLC would build a prototype modeling a group catalog of art history libraries within the OCLC membership, while the GRI committed to building one on a Solr/Lucene platform that combined heterogeneous data sources from some of the FAB members. The resulting prototypes were publicly demonstrated at the artlibraries.net Users Group Meeting in Lisbon in October 2010. Other articles in this issue detail the deficiencies of the current bibliographic model and the information needs of the 21st-century art history scholar. The prototype development was based upon and informed by these issues, and sought to define possible technical solutions to overcome some of these inadequacies. The prototypes must also extend the paradigm of bibliography being contained within an abstracting and indexing construct, and move towards a concept of ‘complete bibliography’.

Gaining access to primary research materials is critical to the support of research and learning. The Research Libraries Group’s initiatives to make archival materials, and museum objects and their records, available in an electronic environment are exploring the technical possibilities of achieving international, integrated access to textual and visual materials. That seamless web of resources so desired by researchers is getting ever closer to reality.

The Centre for Fashion Studies was established at Stockholm University in Sweden, in July 2006 through a generous donation from the Erling Persson Family Foundation, connected to clothing manufacturer H&M.

Fashion Studies at Stockholm University is an independent, theoretical discipline with an interdisciplinary approach looking at the past, present and future, and it includes different areas of critical discourse within the humanities and social sciences. Stockholm University Library plays a key role in research and education conducted at the university, and the library works in close collaboration with all disciplines to provide adequate support to researchers and students in a rapidly changing information society. In this article I will focus on and describe the process of acquiring fashion literature at Stockholm University Library from 2006–2013.

Based on the open-source IIIF image viewer Mirador 3, the Specialised Information Service Art, Photography, Design - arthistoricum.net, in cooperation with NFDI4Culture, the consortium for research data on material and immaterial cultural heritage, provides a platform for collaborative exploration of image resources. Within the virtual research environment, users can create their own workspaces and image collections individually or in groups, share them for collaborative efforts, and jointly create persistent annotations. This article outlines the development and integration process of this web-based research platform and highlights future areas of improvement.

The New Brunswick illustration index is an index to the illustrations in the Legislative Library’s New Brunswick Collection. The illustrations include photographs, engravings, woodcuts, etc. and each is described in a database entry comprised of ten distinct fields. The project, begun in 1989, is not yet complete. The Index is designed to make the unique New Brunswick Collection more accessible.

Early users of the internet and the World Wide Web soon realised that there was a need to gather together links to sites of interest to art and design researchers. The Art, Design, Architecture and Media (ADAM) information gateway attempted to satisfy this demand, whilst also helping to develop appropriate methodologies and standards. One of ADAM’s successors, Artifact, adopted an expanded role and provided additional services. Artifact subsequently became part of Intute: Arts and Humanities, which covers a broader range of subjects. Surveys, usage figures and social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us suggest that some – but not all – users and potential users appreciate the services that gateways, portals and hubs can provide.

The author describes a librarian’s effort in community-building in an academic setting, through the development of a podcast radio interview program. The paper addresses the professional rationale for this type of outreach endeavor, the communities served, types of content, the labor involved, tools employed and technical requirements, as well as the question of audience.

ARLIS/ANZ Art Libraries Society, Australia New Zealand was formed in August 1976. Since then, ARLIS/ANZ has arranged a number of seminars and workshops for art librarians in both countries; found finance to bring three noted art librarians to the antipodes to give talks and workshops which stimulated both members and other interested professionals; and has published thirteen issues of ARLIS/ANZ News. ARLIS has served as a valuable support for art librarians working in isolation, at great distance from international centres of publishing and art activity. Distance between ARLIS/ANZ centres led to the formation of local interest groups and cooperation between art libraries in art galleries and museums, universities, schools of art, and national resource libraries.

Artists’ books have been collected at the Fleet Library at Rhode Island School of Design for over 40 years. They include early multiples, conceptual books, fine press books, livres d’artistes, unique books, limited edition handmade books, books as sculptural objects, artists’ archives and ephemera. With between three and eight classes and individual appointments each week, artists’ books have become important teaching tools, fostering creativity among students, faculty and outside researchers. How do they speak to the creative process on so many levels? What is it that makes these resources so compelling?

Given the complexity and diversity of resources in art history, the research student needs a thorough and systematic programme to guide him through the range of information sources from catalogues and indexes to esoteric and elusive art works and individuals. Such a programme is described in detail and also a survey made of the literature on bibliographic instruction in art history.

Special thanks are extended to Phillip Heagy for bibliographic assistance and manuscript preparation and to Sue Ramage for manuscript review.