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Hello all,
I have had many discussions over the past year or so about the housing of auction catalogs (sound familiar)? Obviously there is a lot of auction result information out there in a number of sources and Artnet happily provides photographs. I have also run across upcoming auction information on various websites including full “on-line” catalogues. As you all know, however, the printed catalogues contain much more information than the published results do. Our curators consult them frequently (as well as dealer’s catalogues) for provenance information or research on a particular piece.
I was asked recently by my deputy director if I knew exactly what was available electronically from these publications. Specifically are they any projects going on to gather the information in the catalogues themselves and provide electronic access to this information? I don’t know about you, but these catalogues are one of our biggest nightmares in terms of storage and access. Fortunately as an RLG Library, we can add our holdings to SCIPIO but rely on libraries with larger staffs to create original records for them.
I had planned on starting to research this topic but thought that someone out there must be thinking along the same lines and have already looked into this.
Thanks,
Debbie
Deborah Barlow Smedstad
Head Librarian
William Morris Hunt Memorial Library
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
465 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
(617)369-3107