Dear Shelly
Well, firstly, as we are a university library and deal mostly with
graduate students, the issue of language is not so critical. The students
expect that all their material will not be available in English.
But, I admit, it can be somewhat daunting to be faced with such
magnificent detail - in a foreign tongue.
Much of the detail can be quite easily figured out - birth dates, who were
the teachers, death dates, correct spelling of the artists' names,
existence of the artist. With a small German dictionary (which you might
already have), it isn't difficult to work out the medium the artist worked
with. But, the most useful thing about Thieme Becker is the "literature",
the bibliography that appear at the end of each entry. The early entries
are not indexed anywhere else.
I can say that Thieme Becker is *the* most useful biographical dictionary
of artists that we have.
I hope our experience with this wonderful reference work gives you some
pointers.
Enjoy
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Diana E.M. Cooper 604-822-3943
Fine Arts Reference Librarian
Fine Arts Library
University of British Columbia
1956 Main Mall [log in to unmask]
On Fri, 3 Aug 2001, Shelly Emmons wrote:
> Good morning,
> I ordered and just received Thieme-Becker Kunstler Lexikon per a request
> from staff. Now I am wondering how I can make this useful to my users as it
> is all in German. I know that many of you have publications like this, in
> foreign languages, and I wonder, if you do not know the language, how do you
> use the publication, and how do you make it useful to your users.
> Thank you for your advice,
> Shelly
>
>
>
> Shelly Emmons
> Librarian
> Peter M. Wege Library
> Frederik Meijer Gardens
> Grand Rapids, Mi 49525
> 616-975-3144
> "For it is the greatest truth of our age: information is not knowledge."
> Caleb Carr
>
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>
__________________________________________________________________
Mail submissions to [log in to unmask]
Administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc)
to [log in to unmask]
ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance:
http://lsv.uky.edu/archives/arlis-l.html
Questions may be addressed to list owner (Kerri Scannell) at: [log in to unmask]
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