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At the end of April I posted this question:
"I realize many of you are headed off to Denver, but hope you can find time now or later to answer the following question.

If you save auction catalogs for Christie's (post 1998) & Sotheby's (post 1995), why do you keep them?

We are running out of space, and these two houses have the information on their websites from the dates mentioned to the present. The price estimates have been replaced by the actual sale price, but the research and provenance information seems to be there."

Several people requested a summary of the answers (apparently I am not alone with this dilemma); so here they are.  I have placed responses from Art Museums first, University Libraries next, and one from someone who didn't say where she worked.

Here are the answers:

FROM ART MUSEUM LIBRARIES:

1.      "WE have a space problem here and have been keeping Sotheby's and Christie's catalogs for years.  We would love to keep the current year for browsing purposes and deaccession them to the dates mentioned in your post."


2.      "... We keep ours here at the _________Art Museum - and it's a big pain - because the curators prefer to use them over the online resources. I also think (and this has not been said outright) that they feel the print information contains more complete information than what is online - even though that's not the case."


3.      "...I've been asking myself the same question. We currently subscribe to ArtNet, ArtFact, and P4A. Since the images on them are pretty good, our curators are using the auction catalogs less and less. The only ones I see being used are older ones where there may not be images available online. Although, in most cases when we've gone to the old catalogs, there weren't images in the printed version either. They take up way too much space for the use they get and their format makes them difficult to work with."

4.      "...SCIPIO is a special database just for auction catalogs, formerly in RLG, now in OCLC.  It was initiated in the 80s by large research institutions, such as the Met, Art Institute, Cleveland Museum, etc., with significant collections of auction catalogs (form 1599-present) used intensively by their users.  [This museum]Library has over 80,000 and counting."

5.      "We are getting pressure from our administration to get rid of some of our auction catalogues or at least stop getting them - because of the space issue.  I did some testing on the Christie's and Sotheby's websites and they aren't complete in many cases for the information that was in the catalogue - ie provenance, research, etc.  Sotheby's has been reasonably open to discussion of on-line catalogues.  Christie's - well.   Let's just say I was not able to find out via direct question which years and which sales are covered.  I've been doing some spot testing and find that when they have the catalogue, it's complete but it's not consistent in terms of a starting year.  Of course it could be that the search engine just isn't finding it.  I've been finding it not to be very well-designed.  If 'I' am having to do stealth searches to find things, the curators won't find it either.  Anyway, our curators (being collectors) aren't ready to give up the paper catalogues.  We have about 50,000 which are catalogued in SCIPIO and who knows how many more in curatorial departments.  I wouldn't be surprised if it's another 10,000 or more.  If you happen to have any additional information about Christie's actual coverage, I'd love to know."

6.      "The former Head Librarian here at ______ made the decision to retain only the latest two years of auction catalogs (Christies & Sotheby's mainly). We "gave" our catalogs (many going back to the 1920's) to Artfact in return for two years (!) of free access... I think it was necessary to free up space but the coverage of the online auction databases just isn't that great. On a positive note, we rarely are asked for the older catalogs and when we are we can refer patrons to the Getty-they keep all their auction catalogs! "

7.      "...I've been asking myself the same question. We currently subscribe to ArtNet, ArtFact, and P4A. Since the images on them are pretty good, our curators are using the auction catalogs less and less. The only ones I see being used are older ones where there may not be images available online. Although, in most cases when we've gone to the old catalogs, there weren't images in the printed version either. They take up way too much space for the use they get and their format makes them difficult to work with."

8.      "We keep auction catalogs from those houses and several others.  The primary reason is because the curators here said that they need and want them.  I recently searched Christie's website and found the results inconsistent (different search result obtained from one minute to the next)."

9.      "Good question, but you realize that these are for-profit institutions who have made no guarantees about the continuing availability of this information for free online.  Many other auction houses remove information after a period of time. It is a legitimate question, but I would be nervous about discarding primary resource material for provenance research."

10.  "... Last year, a number of us representing small/ medium size ___ art museum libraries held several meetings to see if we could collectively deal with this issue...
We focused primarily on runs of older catalogues, including miscellaneous holdings of non-Sotheby's non-Christie's publications. We all recognized that these catalogues have significant historic value but questioned whether we could afford to continue duplicating holdings or whether some sort of consortium might work. I can't say that any transformative actions have resulted from these meetings.
  
[One of the libraries in the group] has recently undergone a major expansion so they are in the best shape re storage capacity. We and ___  still have some space, but the moment of crisis is fast approaching. My recollection is that [two librarians] representing the smaller institutions, finally decided to deaccession pre-1980 catalogues. The book dealers in this area don't want these items any longer so the only recourse is to put them in a library book sale.

We did raise the question of whether the major auction houses would transition to an electronic format. The belief was that our curators would insist of having the printed catalogues as long as these were still available."

FROM A UNIVERSITY ART LIBRARY:
1.      
"...Have you had any problems with repeated logins to the
websites?  My password access only seems to last for a day after I create an account (for Sothebys, anyhow). And I've been asked for increasing amounts of personal information every time I request a new password.  Have you used these sites successfully for research on a repeated basis?
 
  I'm not sure how the image quality compares between print and
online...but our local visual  resources curator uses auction catalogs
as image  sources for faculty teaching slides/web images.  The print images might be one reason for retaining original catalogs.  I haven't tried downloading images for papers/presentations and wonder if that's possible.
 
Also, as a researcher without an extensive catalogue collection, I'd
be happy to know that there was a  repository of these in case the
commercial houses  stop providing online access.  Are there any known 
instances of misattribution/misstatement that libraries  can
investigate to see whether the houses "edit" their  sites?..."


UNKNOWN(Sender did not say where she works):

1. "We save all catalogues for 5 years.  I have a database for auction catalogues that indexes each catalogue specifically for all artists, media, and special articles and features within the catalogues. 
Keeping the catalogues allows the possibility for patrons to use the database and catalogues for their research, giving them access to more information and to search with more access points than they are have online."


I am so grateful for the input from everyone. The answers tell me there is no simple answer at this point--hmmmmmmmm.  If you missed the original question and would like to weigh in, by all means do.


Heather Brodhead
Librarian
Constance & George Fearing Library
Santa Barbara Museum of Art                www.sbma.net
1130 State Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
(805) 884-6451
 
Library is open to the public Tues., Wed, Thu. 1-5 PM;
  Librarian's hours 10-noon; 2-:530 on those days.

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