Dear Colleagues, I am gathering information about collection development
in the field of contemporary art and architecture for an article that will
appear in ART DOC. In order to make it as meaningful as possible to the
membership, I would like to ask those of you who work in libraries with
strong collections in the area of contemporary art history (vs. studio
arts or design collections) to answer some questions for me. The questions
are listed below. THANK YOU SO MUCH IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR TIME! Ray Anne
Lockard
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1 - What time frame does your institution use to define the perimeters of
"contemporary art"? (i.e., 1945 to the present; 1965 to the present or
some other time period)
2 - What art media are covered by your library's collection (video art,
installation art, cyber art, etc.)?
3 - Does your collection include special formats of materials? If so,
what are they (i.e. videos, films, digital projects, sound art, artists'
books, etc.)?
4 - If so, did your library have to educate the library administration
about the special formats of contemporary art and that they needed to be
in the "art" library rather than the general collection or the music
library or the media center on campus? How did the library handle the
education process?
5 - If so, did your library need to create new space for such materials or
do new things to house and preserve those special materials? If so, what
did your library do?
6 - If so, did your library need to locate new funds to purchase those
unique materials? If so, what did you do to locate the new funds and
where did you find those resources?
7 - If so, did you need to shift budget priorities in other periods of art
history to accommodate the contemporary period? Or has your library
always provided collection coverage of contemporary art?
8 - Does the faculty at your institution actively participate in
collection development decisions? If so, how do they participate (i.e.
suggest titles for purchase, work as a library committee advising the
librarian, other).
9 - How does the librarian work with the unique challenges of collection
development in this field? For example, material on contemporary artists
if often only found in journal articles rather than books. It is
difficult to discover who the emerging artists are because they are not
yet published. How does the librarian keep up with the field? How does
the librarian deal with the interdiciplinarity of contemporary art? How
are access and preservation challenges of unique or archival material
addressed?
10 - Do you know of any publications about collection development in this
specialized area (i.e. journal articles or bibliographies of core
collections, etc.)? If so, please list the citations below.
Ray Anne Lockard
Head, Frick Fine Arts Library
University Library System
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Voice: 412-648-2410
Fax: 412-648-7568
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
A book should be a ball of light in one's hands.
Ezra Pound
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