TENTH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE, Cont'dAuthor(s): Trevor Fawcett, Thomas E. Hill and Andrea Morris GruhlSource: Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, Vol. 1,No. 3/4 (Summer 1982), pp. 96-98Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Art Libraries Society of NorthAmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27946935 .

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96 Art Documentation, Summer, 1982

TENTH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE, Cont'd

KEYNOTE ADDRESS Friends, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen!

I feel deeply honored and privileged to have this opportunity to address you. For me it is of course a great bonus that my first trans atlantic ARLIS conference should happen to coincide with your tenth anniversary. I count myself particularly fortunate to be joining you like this not only for a conference but for a celebration.

At this moment of corporate thanksgiving my first and most wel come duty is therefore to congratulate you warmly, to salute you all on the many achievements of the past decade, to wish you well, and to

urge you on to even greater deeds in the future. In saying this I am

surely not speaking for myself alone, but for all your many friends around the world?and not least in the United Kingdom. The current Chairman of ARLIS/UK, Philip Pacey, has entrusted me with a mes sage of congratulation which I hope may be printed verbatim in Art

Documentation. In it he refers eloquently to the cordial links between our two societies, to the frustrations of the physical distance that

separate us, and to the pleasure of meeting with North American

colleagues. ARLIS/UK, he promises, will continue to hope and work for an even closer relationship, and in the meantime wishes you good fortune and well-merited success in the years to come.

Looking back twelve years to the founding of ARLIS/UK in 1969, I realize just how ill-informed we then were about similar move

ments in other countries. It was only by degrees, for example, that we learned about the French art librarians who had begun to meet in Paris from time to time under the stimulating leadership of Jacqueline Viaux. And about the specially funded organization of art libraries in West Germany that had set itself the astonishingly ambitious task of acquiring, on a co-operative basis, all publications on Western art.

From across the ocean there came further exciting news. The Cana dian art librarians had, it seemed, formed a special section within their

Library Association; while here in the United States we gathered there was talk of a possible independent organization which would supple ment the special interest groups already existing inside the ALA and SLA. I suppose it was about this time that contributions from Califor nia first began appearing in our Newsletter. These welcome items about the North American art library scene were followed in due course by the contributor in person, a certain Judy Hoffberg, who seemed eager to test our reactions to the idea of another ARLIS, an

American one. I well remember my first rendezvous with Judy?we met in the great Romanesque cathedral at Norwich?and how in the course of our conversation I soon became persuaded that an ARLIS of some sort in America could and would succeed.

Even so, the speed with which it all seemed to come about surprised those of us who had witnessed the sometimes hesitant early growth of our own society. In an amazingly short space of time, considering the vast distances of this half continent, you had a viable structure, annual

gatherings, a newsletter, 250 members, 600 members, then heading for 1,000... And as you survived and increased and flourished, we

could only watch in respectful admiration and attempt to come to terms with a dynamic, exotic world of SIGs and TOLs and chapters that appeared to proliferate with every issue of those information crammed Newsletters. Of course by this stage we were becoming

acquainted with some of you personally, through correspondence, by occasional visits, and then much more significantly at the first interna tional conference at Brighton six years ago. Since then our contacts have continued and the Art Libraries Section of IFLA has struggled into being to encourage our further international efforts. Nevertheless, the barrier of the Atlantic has turned out to be more psychologically formidable than I could have wished. I regret that we in Europe have not exerted ourselves even more to strengthen our individual ties with

you. I must hope that my own presence here in Boston will help to

remind you how much we value your support and friendship. The benefits of professional associations like ours must be apparent

to all of us. Without them we work in isolation; we cope with all our problems on our own; we have no common standards and no united voice. During the last dozen or so years art librarianship has taken root

and become recognized as a distinct species of the profession. By corning together we have defined our contours. We have discovered

the common interest that unites art librarians in many different institu tions and in many parts of the world. The very fact of associating has

brought self-recognition and confidence, which in turn have allowed the process of active collaboration to begin.

It would seem that the main thrust of art librarianship, as it has been directed so far, has been towards the establishment of acceptable standards of good practice?whether in the handling of slides, the preservation of ephemera, the attempted improvement of cataloging rules, the compilation of directories and bibliographies, the education of library users, or in meeting any other everyday requirement. In other words, we have been concerned most of all with organization and methods, techniques, tools of the trade. This emphasis on the

pragmatic has been natural. We are still searching for solutions to

many traditional problems?let alone the new challenges of net

working systems, information technology, the videodisc revolution, and all the rest. But as time goes on, and while paying due regard to these more utilitarian aspects of our daily work, we must clearly resist being transformed, microchip by microchip, into biblio graphical technicians skilled only in machine-readable data-handling and the management of electronic image banks. This suggests to me

that, faced with such a prospect, our best safeguard might be to insist

quite strenuously on the scholarly, critical role we also play. Quite recently I came across an article paying tribute to that great

bookman Otto Kurz, formerly Librarian at the Warburg Institute in London. The author, Ernst Gombrich, at one point refers to "the effortless virtuosity" with which Kurz could "play on the instrument of the library." That rather striking phrase proposes a standard of

mastery towards which we should all aspire. Otto Kurz's virtuosity did not, I need hardly remind you, arrive through studying art library manuals, helpful though these can sometimes be, nor by manipulating computerized indexes. It arose from the sophisticated nature of the

library and the astute purchases by Kurz and his predecessors over the

years; it came from his humanistic education and extraordinarily wide

reading in the literature of art and other subjects, and from a memory

richly stored with texts, images, and intellectual reference points. We cannot all be scholar-librarians in this full sense. Men like Kurz and institutions like the Warburg Library are few and far between. But speaking here in Boston, a city that in the last century fostered its libraries like few others in the interests of a civilized and informed community, I trust I can plead the case for the educated, critical art librarian with some justification.

The meaning I would here attach to the word "educated" is a broad

one, for the visual arts intersect with many other areas of knowledge that we need to have some acquaintance with. Within this general framework of understanding we must naturally be supposed to be well read in our particular subject field, including its historiography, the study of the ways in which discussion about art is presented. I would also expect an art librarian to be a specialist in images and iconog raphy, to be aware of the psychology of visual communication, and to

appreciate the significant drawbacks as well as the value of the repro ductions that crowd our libraries by the millions. No other subject literature is perhaps so dependent on the visual image. In literature,

philosophy, economics, law, visual imagery is almost non-existent. Music and mathematics employ their own symbolic languages. Pub lications on subjects like history were little illustrated until com

paratively recently. It is in the practical sciences and artefact-based

disciplines that drawings, diagrams, maps, photographs, and other

"exactly repeatable pictorial statements," as W. M. Ivins calls them, come into their own: and here the visual arts are preeminent. The only competitor in wealth of imagery, though imagery of a different type, would be children's literature; and this is a category, along with other

illustrated books, that some art libraries claim anyway. If I have tended to dwell on this topic, it is simply to emphasize my belief that art librarians should be acknowledged, as they are not always, as

having special expertise in matters of pictorial imagery and visual communication as well as in the written documents of art literature.

But beyond all that, we also need to cultivate a critical awareness of our wider objectives, of the structural meaning of our institutions and the ideological role they have in relation to the artworld in general, to education and scholarship, and to the cultural purposes of the Western

society in which we live. This raises very large political and ethical issues which it would be presumptuous to pursue on this occasion even supposing there were time. Yet if we are to understand what the

purpose of an art library is, or what it really means to be an art

librarian, they cannot in the end be evaded.

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Art Documentation, Summer, 1982 97

In the Museum of Fine Arts in this city hangs a well-known paint ing by Gauguin with the questioning title: Where have we come from?

What are we? Where are we going? I think we are close enough to our recent history to say where art librarianship has come from, and we can take some pride in that short but eventful journey. But as to our true nature and our intended destination I feel less sure. The constitu tions of both our associations state that our aim is to serve as

4 'a forum

for the interchange of information and materials"?surely a rather

timid, insufficient expression of our ideals? I would be glad to see our

corporate expectations raised higher than this, and would hope that at the end of the next ten years we might be able to answer Gauguin's second and third questions with real confidence.

Trevor Fawcett

University of East Anglia

BRITISH ART CENTER TOUR On February 24 thirty ARLIS/NA members on route to CAA in

New York from Boston attended a special tour of the libraries of the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven.

Joan Friedman, Curator of Rare Books, presented a brief introduc tion to the collection of Rare Books at the Center. Approximately 20,000 titles comprise this collection of British illustrated books from the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries, concentrated on the late

eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Some of the strong subject areas included are travel or topographical books, especially those illustrated in aquatint and lithography, and books about the practice of the fine arts in Britain during this period. Among the latter group are several hundred early drawing manuals, histories of art, works on

aesthetics, and descriptions of early art collections. The collection is

being cataloged on RLIN, with tracings made for illustrators, both original artists and engravers; special files of provenance, printers and publishers, chronology, and graphic techniques were of special interest. Also included was a tour given by Thomas Hill of the Center's

Reference Library & Photo Archive, whose holdings include 10,000 volumes of works pertinent to the study of British art, a complete run

of Sotheby's sales catalogs, a 200,000 image microfiche reproduc tion of the British School holdings of the Witt Library in London, and the Center's own archive of 100,000 photographs of works of British art.

Of special interest was the computer indexing project attached to the Photo Archive, where a demonstration was given of the Center's information retrieval system for British art. Lists of works were pro duced for particular artists, collections, media and subjects in various combinations suggested by the visitors.

Thomas E. Hill Yale Center for British Art

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MEMBERS' PUBLICATIONS EXHIBITED AT THE BOSTON CONFERENCE Compiled by Andrea Morris Gruhl

This bibliography is arranged alphabetically by name of ARUS INA member submitting work. Thirty-one members contributed a total of thirty-eight publications. Abid, Ann B., and Bellos, Alexandra. Documents of Surrealism,

1918-1942. St. Louis, St. Louis Art Museum, 1981. 4pp. illus.

Chiarmonte, Paula. Art Microform Collection Development Policy Guidelines. September 30, 1981. 8pp.

_A Systems Approach to Art Microform Collection Develop ment. September 30, 1981. 8pp.

[_] Unofficial Russian Art; Politics and Culture in the Soviet Union. Las Vegas: Reed Whipple Cultural Center, 1981. 16pp. [Chiarmonte was program director.]

Collins, Christiane C. "Concerned Planning and Design: the Urban Experiment of Germany in the 1920's." In: Germany in the Twenties?the Artist as Social Critic, pp. 30-47. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1981. illus

_"Concerned Planning and Design: The Werkbund. "

In: De

sign for Urban Living in the 1920's, p.3. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1981. illus.

_, and Collins, George R. Camillo Sitte y el acimento del Urbanismo Moderno: Sitte, Camillo. Construction de Ciudades

Seg?n Principios Art?sticos. Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gill, 1980. (Series: Biblioteca de Arquitectura) 462pp. illus.

Dole, Wanda V. "Processing Architectural Drawings Collections." The Southeastern Librarian, vol. XXXI, no. 3 (Fall 1981), pp. 107-9.

_Survey of Methods for Treatment and Processing of Collec tions of Architectural Drawings. Monticello, 111.: Vance Bibliog raphies, March 1981. (Architecture Series: Bibliography A-451) 13pp.

_,and Urquiza, Belinda. The Word into Flesh: The Art of Eric

Gill. [Exhibition: January 30-February 7, 1982, University of Miami Library, Coral Gables] Poster and invitation.

Dratch, Gladys, comp. Childs Gallery, Boston: Exhibition Chronol

ogy and Publications, 1937-1980. A Listing of Exhibitions, Catalogues, and Sales Publications with Protocol. Boston: Boston Public Library Fine Arts Dept., 1981. 44pp.

[Dvorak, Anna] Mucha's Figures Docoratives; 40 plates by Alphonse Mucha. New York: Dover, 1981. 44pp. illus [Introductory essay by Dvorak]

[Findlay, James] Jos? Clemente Orozco, 1883-1949. Berlin: Leibniz-Gesellschaft f?r kulturellen Austausch, 1981. 359pp. illus.

[Bibliograhy by Findlay] Gurney, Susan. "A Bibliography of Little Magazines in the Arts in

the U.S.A." Art Libraries Journal,vol. 6, no. 3 (Autumn 1981), pp. 12-55.

Haskins, Katherine. Review of: Arntzen/Rainwater: Guide to the

Literature of Art History. In: Library Quarterly,vol. 51, no. 4

(October 1981), pp. 474-76. Irvine, Betty Jo, with the assistance of P. Eileen Fry. Slide Libraries:

a Guide for Academic Institutions, Museums, and Special Collec tions. 2d ed. Littleton, Col.: Libraries Unlimited, 1979. 321pp.

Ison, Mary, comp. "Index to Architects and Architectural Firms Cited in Architectural Resources of New York City and the Five Boroughs published by the Committee for Preservation of Architec tural Records, 1977." Washington: Library of Congress, 1981.

26pp. _, ed. A Newsletter for COPAR, new series no. 5, December

1981. Washington: Library of Congress. 4pp. McKenzie, Karen, and Williamson, Mary F., eds. The Art and Picto

rial Press in Canada: Two Centuries of Art Magazines. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1979. 71pp.

Melville, Annette, comp. Special Collections in the Library of Congress: a Selective Guide. Washington: Library of Congress, 1980. 464pp. illus.

_, ed. "Book Reviews."Picturescope, vol. 29, no. 4 (Winter

1981), pp. 151-54. Meyer, Valerie, comp. Index of the Most Common German Abbre

viations Used in Thieme-Becker's Kunstler-Lexicon. Ann Arbor:

University of Michigan, 1972. 17pp. M?ller, Karen, and Haskins, Katherine. "Art Libraries Are Working

as a Team to Meet Challenges." The Research Libraries Group News, no. 3/4, 1981, pp. 11-12.

Phillpot, Clive. "ARLIS/NA?The Art Libraries Society of North America: Present Structure and Some Recent History." INSPEL, vol. 15, no. 1, 1981, pp. 50-53.

_Introduction to Entrapped: the Book as Container. New

York: Center for Book Arts, 1981.

Roberts, Helene E. "The Sentiments of Reality: Thackeray's Art

Criticism. "Studies in the Novel, vol. 13, no. 1/2 (Spring/Summer 1981), pp. 21-39.

_"Victorian Medievalism: Revival or Masquerade?" Brown

inginstitute Studies, vol. 8, 1980, pp. 11-44.

[Schr?ck, Nancy Carlson, ed.] Preliminary Checklist of the Records of Pre-1970 Archtectural Firms of Greater Boston. Cambridge: Mass COPAR, 1980. 30pp.

_"Preservation and Storage." Picture Librarianship, edited

by Helen Harrison. Phoenix: The Oryx Press, 1981. _Records in Architectural Offices; Suggestions for the Proper

Organization, Storage, and Conservation of Architectural Office Archives. 2d. ed. Cambridge: Mass COPAR, 1981. 26pp.

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98 Art Documentation, Summer, 1982

[Shaw, Renata; Grier, Margot; Gurney, Susan; and Walker, William] Art Serials. Washington: Washington Art Library Resources

Committee, 1981.

Smith, Jean. "Linton Park, Pennsylvania Painter." The Magazine Antiques, vol. CXX, no. 5 (Nov. 1981), pp. 1203-9.

[Starr, Daniel] Sopie Taeuber-Arp/Carolyn Lancher. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1981. 53pp. illus. [Bibliography by Starr]

Swartzburg, Susan G., and White, Susan B., eds. Preservation Edu cation Directory; Educational Oportunities in the Preservation of Library Materials, 1981. Chicago: American Library Association, 1981.

Teague, Edward H. "Cross Index Guide to World Architecture. "

[In

progress] _ Henry Moore: Bibliography and Reproductions Index.

McFarland&Co., 1981.

[_, ed.]Serials Review, vol. 7, no. 2 (June 1981).

[Toppan, Muriel] Italian Paintings XlV-XVIIIth Centuries from the Collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art, edited by Gertrude Rosenthal. Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1981. [Index of artists by Toppan]

Ulehla, Karen Evans, comp. & ed. The Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston Exhibition Record, 1897-1927. Boston: Boston Public

Library, 1981. 289pp. 4,^,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,

CORRECTION In the report on the Boston Architecture Tour which appeared on page 46 of the May 1982 issue of Art Documentation, on line 4 of para

graph 3 in the second column the word "Gothic" should be "Romanesque."

REPORT ON THE JOINT CAA/VR ARLIS/NA SURVEY ON THE NEED FOR A NEW VR ORGANIZATION

Last December a questionnaire sponsored by the CAA/VR group and ARLIS/NA was sent out to Visual Resources Curators to poll their opinion on whether or not a new organization for visual resources professionals was wanted or needed. Nancy Kirkpatrick, head of the Slide Department at the Art Institute of Chicago, was in charge of tabulating the results and reported on them at both the CAA/VR business meeting in New York in February and in the spring 1982 (vol. 9, no. 1) issue of the International Bulletin for Photograhic

Documentation of the Visual Arts. A summary of that report follows.

SURVEY RESULTS Of the 915 questionnaires mailed out, only 142 valid responses

were received. Answers to the 17 questions asked are as follows:

(1) Which of the following publications do you receive or subscribe to?: AASL Newsletter (13), ARLIS INA Newsletter (92), Art Bulletin (73), Art Journal (69), International Bulletin (113), Picturescope (28), Positive (32), SECAC Review (7), Special Libraries (27), Visual

Resources (64). (2) Please rank 3 publications from the above list which you find

most useful for your professional needs: International Bulletin (112), ARLIS INA Newsletter (85), Visual Resources (51), Positive (28), Pictur escope (15), Art Bulletin (12), Art Journal (11), Special Libraries (10), AASL Newsletter (A), SEC AC Review (2).

(3) In which of the following organizations do you currently hold membership?: Association of Architecture School Librarians (14), ARLIS/NA (94), CAA (70), Southeastern College Art Conference (6), SLA (20), Universities Art Association of Canada (7).

(4) Please indicate which of the following national conferences you have attended since 1 January 1978: AASL (8 responses/9 meetings attended), ARLIS/NA (66/109), CAA (69/143), MA-CAA (36/53), SECAC (8/12), SLA (11/18), UAAC (8/13).

(5) Which organizations at present best serve your professional needs and interests? List two: ARLIS/NA (85), CAA ( 57), MA-CAA (37), SLA (12), AASL (6), SECAC (5), SAA (4), UAAC (3), SAH (2), Image Access Society (1), MESA (1), CARLIS (1), ALA (1), ASIS(l).

(6) Where are the shortcomings (if any) within these organizations with regard to your needs and interests as a VR professional? (check

any number): Organizational structure (28), leadership (28), programs (37), organization's policies (14), conference program planning (22), non-VR emphasis (51), publications (s): content, format (32).

(7) Do you think your needs and interests as a VR professional are

being met effectively by these organizations?: Yes (55), No (72). (8) Do you think there is a need for a new organization which

should formally address itself to the needs and interests of VR profes sionals?: Yes (54), No (77). Note: at this point 34 respondents chose to stop while the rest continued (all of these respondents had answered

"No" to question #8). (9) If a new organization or society were founded, should it address

itself to VR professionals in the field of art only, or should it have a broader appeal?: Art only (32), Broader appeal (53) (especially architecture & computerization).

(10) Should it constitute itself initially as a national or an inter national organization?: National (60), International (31).

(11) What sort of publication should it issue or adopt?: Newsletter (48), Journal (18), Inter national Bulletin (45), no publication (0).

(12) If a new society were founded, should it seek affiliation with other organizations?: Yes (51), No (26). Which organizations?: ARLIS/NA (31), CAA (31), SLA (3), WCA (1), SAH (1), ALA (1), MA-CAA (1), AASL (1), all relevant organizations (5).

(13) If a new society for VR professionals were established would you be willing toj?in?: Yes (87), No (5).

(14) Would you be willing to serve as an officer in that organization or to participate actively?: Officer: Yes (24), No (26) Active Partici pant: Yes (69), No (12).

(15) Would you retain your other current memberships if you were

to join a new organization for VR professionals?: Yes (77)?All of them (20), some of them (34) No (4).

(16) How should annual meetings be planned?: Independently (20) In conjunction with: CAA (40), ARLIS/NA (32), MA-CAA (8), SLA (3), ALA (2), AMA (1) SAH (1).

(17) Should it have regional chapters?: Yes (64), No (21). These responses show that, in addition to the problem of the low

percentage of replies, there was no clear consensus or mandate for the formation of a new organization. At the CAA/VR business meeting it was therefore decided to resubmit a new group of alternatives to the visual resources professionals. The results of the first survey, an ex

planation of the four new alternatives, and a ballot were published in the International Bulletin for Photographic Documentation of the

Visual Arts, volume 9, number 1 (March 1982). For any readers of

this Bulletin who qualify as visual resources professionals and who did not receive the ballot (or have not yet responded), the four alter natives currently being considered are to:

(A) Maintain the status quo (B) Make an existing group the focus for all national VR activities. (C) Form an information network to coordinate the VR activities of

other organizations. (D) Form a separate new VR organization.

With no editorializing here, you are urged to make your voice heard. Please indicate your choice of one of the four alternatives

above, along with your name, title and institution, and send to:

Nancy Kirkpatrick, Head, Slide Dept., The Art Institute of Chicago, Michigan at Adams, Chicago, IL 60603.

Trudy Buxton 1982 VR/SIG Moderator

REPORTS OF CONFERENCES & MEETINGS

INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON INFORMATION PROBLEMS IN ART HISTORY:

Oxford, England, March 20-22,1982 The invitational seminar that took place in the neo-gothic ambience

of Keble College on a rainy Spring weekend was convened under the sponsorship of the British Library's Research and Development Department. The overall organization lay in the able hands of Jill Heberden of the RILA-UK Office and of Michael Doran, Librarian of the Courtauld Institute of the University of London, who was the official host. The group of delegates numbered about 35 and in

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