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----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I inherited a local "classification" scheme here at MoMA where artists are arranged in A-Z sequence. I have never understood how this facilitates browsing, as I've never encountered a question such as, "I'd like to see all of your books on artists whose last name begins with G." If I ever did encounter this question, I'd suggest the alphabetical arrangement of the on-line catalog would provide the information easily enough. On the other hand, I have been asked if we can provide information about our holdings on contemporary artists, and that suggests that there is merit in Barbara's proposal. But first, since a book can only be in one spot on the shelf, we have to ask whether this proposed arrangement is more useful than the traditional classification by medium or by country. As artists become more international and tend to work in more media, or more mixed-media, perhaps some chronological arrangement would be more useful, but whichever one we choose, we still won't really have the information we need. We need to be able to have access to many chronological periods: post-war artists, artists working in the 1970s, artists of the 21st century, etc. Rather than trying to make the classification do what it can never do well, why don't we assign subject headings that will allow for an approach to the chronological coverage of the work, something that currently we do imprecisely (as in the subdivision 20th century) or not at all, depending on the heading. Why not use decades, or specific date ranges: Art, American--1980-1989 or Art, American--1972-1986? Or better yet, use an existing field in MARC for "time period of content" (045) that would make it easy to code this information. The problem is to get library system vendors to provide a searching mechanism that would make these headings or codes useful. For example, we can code the cataloging for a book that discusses art produced from 1976 to 1998, no matter whether it is a general survey or a work about one artist, but this information isn't useful if the search engine won't retrieve this record when someone is searching for work done in the 1980s or specifically in 1984. And I don't have a solution to that ... Daniel Starr - The Museum of Modern Art > -----Original Message----- > From: Sherman Clarke [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Monday, April 03, 2000 6:24 PM > To: > Subject: Re: Need Help Arranging Artist Monographs > > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Barbara Reed suggested that all 21st-century artists might be nicely > classified together, especially since many are mixed-media and don't > fit into any category comfortably so you might as well arrange them > by name. If your stacks are closed, that's probably fine. > > On the other hand, the artist's name is the easy access point in the > catalog. If a user is looking for all the stuff on a particular > artist, they might wonder why you'd classified her or him in various > numbers by format or nationality, etc., leaving the user to chase > around the stacks fetching the books. But if they wanted to see a > bunch of recent German or American or video or print or collage work, > they'd probably be pretty happy that a browse of the shelves gave > them a bunch of artists, including one-person exhibition catalogs. > > I am of at least two minds when it comes to classing solely by > artist. When we were debating this at the Amon Carter in the early > 1990s, the print curator said she wanted the engravings, > lithographs, etc. together rather than putting all printmakers in > one sequence (to say nothing of putting the printmakers, painters, > sculptors, photographers together). The photography curators however > said put the photographers together (the TR schedule is quite > horrible for classifying by artist and we used TR140 which is not in > the art photography section of TR). > > I'm not sure the change of century has any strong effect on my > feelings about this topic. > > Sherman Clarke - NYU - [log in to unmask] > > __________________________________________________________________ > 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 at: [log in to unmask] __________________________________________________________________ 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 at: [log in to unmask]