At the Toledo Museum of Art, we serve the University of Toledo Department
of Art as well as the Museum staff and the public. So we have elements of
being an academic art library as well as a museum library and, to some extent, a
public facility.
We have over 20,000 artists' files that contain the usual stuff - postcard
announcements, press releases, dealer brochures, and one-person catalogues under
100 pages (those over that limit go into the monograph collection). The
accumulated files take up about 380 feet.
In the days of a card catalog, we had a card in the files for each artist
represented (indicated by a VF, then the artist's name) and those
were meticulously morphed to a database that was uploaded into our online
catalogue when we automated.
At this point, we are at the beginnings of providing more
in-depth access to the treasures in these files, by downloading records for
items over about ten pages. Granted, this serves not just the university
population, but we know that here is a wealth of information (including images)
that does not appear on the internet. Our files are used quite heavily and
I see no reason to dispose of them.
For the most part, we do not purchase materials for them, do not clip or
photocopy from journals, but simply process those items that come by the bushel
in the mail and from donors (both public and museum staff). By being
essentially a museum library, we are likely to get more of this kind of material
without asking, than would an academic library.
Anne O. Morris
Head Librarian
Toledo Museum of Art
Box
1013
Toledo, OH 43697
Thanks in advance to ARLIS/NA members for your input to the
following
questions!
If you work in an academic art library, do you
currently maintain artists'
files?
If yes, has the advent of the web
impacted maintaining such files? How so?
Has your institution disbanded
or discarded artists' files? What were the
reasons?
Much thanks, and I
look forward to seeing everyone in NYC!
Leslie
Leslie
Abrams
Head, Arts Libraries
University of California, San
Diego
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