Bibliographer and Public Services Librarian
Frick
Fine Arts Library
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
15260
Voice-mail: 412-648-2411
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
"A book should be a ball of light in one's hands." Exra Pound
Dear Colleagues,
There hasn’t been much discussion on our list serve about the
end of the Bibliography of the History of Art. There is a perception
(reported from a number of sources, some quite influential) that art historians
no longer use such research tools; in part, this may be why the Getty dropped
BHA.
Is this a common perception of those on our list? If
you publish, are you indifferent to whether or not your publication can be found
through such a search engine as BHA (now IBA)? As an editor of a journal,
I have heard from art historians that it is important to have our articles
indexed by BHA. But perhaps this is not a wide-spread
desire?
Committees who review faculty for promotion and tenure often
take note of the fact that a candidate’s work cannot be found on professional
indexing services. It strikes me that there can be real consequences for
one’s career if our profession loses—or only retains a weak version
of—bibliographic services. I can imagine those in language departments
being up in arms if they were to lose their research database, the MLA
international bibliography of books and articles on the modern languages and
literatures.
Should art historians be protesting?
Vernon
Vernon Hyde Minor
Editor, Memoirs of the American Academy in
Rome
Research Professor, University of Illinois, School of Art and
Design
Professor Emeritus of Art History, The University of Colorado
at Boulder