----------------------------Original message----------------------------
This message is being posted across several lists,
please excuse duplication
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
PRESS RELEASE. PRESS RELEASE. PRESS RELEASE....
THE NATIONAL ART LIBRARY (UK)
THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM
National Art Library joins the Internet
The National Art Library joined the Internet on 17th April
1996. The Library's World Wide Web pages provide information
about the NAL and its services, plus images of selected objects
from the collections. Users can see examples of fine bindings,
manuscripts and artists' books, with accompanying descriptive
information. The full texts of selected Library publications are
also being made available online. The NAL's WWW address is:
http://www.nal.vam.ac.uk/
The Library's Computer Catalogue is accessible from within the
WWW pages, and now contains over 200,000 entries for books,
exhibition catalogues, auction house sales catalogues,
periodicals, manuscripts, and archives. It is also possible to
connect direct to the Computer Catalogue, using the telnet address:
telnet nal.vam.ac.uk
The National Art Library is both the library of the Victoria and Albert
Museum and a public reference collection of international
importance for the documentation of the fine and decorative arts.
Founded in 1837, it has been developed ever since and now
contains around a million volumes. It is freely open to anyone
undertaking research in relevant subjects and attracts around
30,000 separate reader visits each year.
The collections embrace printed books from the fifteenth to the
twentieth centuries, illuminated manuscripts, calligraphy, letters,
archives and other documentary manuscripts relating to arts and
crafts, exhibition catalogues and auction sale catalogues. The
art of the book is a special focus and the Library houses an
outstanding collection of livres d'artiste, contemporary book art
and artists' books, fine bookbindings and illustrated books.
Important bequests in the nineteenth century extended the
Library's range and brought, among other things, many of the
autograph manuscripts of Charles Dickens's novels as well as
three Leonardo da Vinci Notebooks.
Union List of Art and Design Serials
Some 9,000 periodical titles are now included in the Union List
of Art and Design Serials, which is available online via the
Computer Catalogue. Information is being solicited from a wide
range of academic, public, special and national libraries in the
UK and Ireland. The first institutions' holdings have been added
to the database, which now contains those titles held by the NAL,
the British Architectural Library, Coventry University, Humberside
University, Liverpool John Moores University, Nottingham Trent
University, Sheffield Hallam University and the Royal College of
Art, among others. Additional libraries' holdings will be added in
the coming months. The Union List is being created in
collaboration with the Art Libraries Society (ARLIS/UK & Ireland).
To search the Union List, users should log on to the NAL Computer
Catalogue and choose the Periodicals option. Alphabetical and
keyword indexes provide access by institutional name, title,
subject, etc. An increasing proportion of the records include the
National Art Library's subject terms, making it possible to produce
a working list of periodicals on textiles, ceramics, or whatever.
Many of the records also provide detailed information about
publication patterns, publishers, editors, and so on. If the National
Art Library has a particular title, the NAL's holdings are displayed
first. Other libraries' holdings are displayed by choosing the Other
Locations command, displayed at the bottom of some screens.
For more information, contact:
Douglas Dodds
National Art Library
Victoria and Albert Museum
South Kensington
LONDON SW7 2RL
Tel: 0171-938-8470
Fax: 0171-938-8461
Email [log in to unmask]
|
