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Dear ARLIS-L members Some of you may be interested in a new resource that has just been added to the Royal Academy of Arts, London Collections website. The Royal Academy Winter loan Exhibition catalogues from their inception in 1870 to 1913 have been digitised and are now available online via the RA Collections section of the Royal Academy Website. www.racollection.org.uk <http://www.racollection.org.uk/> For the first 100 years of its existence, the Royal Academy organised just one exhibition each year, the annual, Summer exhibition. It wasn't until 1870, coinciding with its move to Burlington House, that the RA began organising an annual loan exhibition of Old Masters and works by recently deceased British artists, known from its inception and for many years as the Winter Exhibition. The catalogues for the early Winter exhibitions are extremely rare; apart from the RA Library set, there are only a handful of copies in existence, and so we are very excited to be able to make them available electronically to the international research community via the web. How it works: Click on the Collections & Library link on the RA website <http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/> homepage then select Search the Collections. (or click here: www.racollection.org.uk <http://www.racollection.org.uk/> ) Browse On the RA Collections page click on the Exhibition Catalogue <http://www.racollection.org.uk/ixbin/indexplus?_IXACTION_=file&_IXFILE_ =templates/pages/exhibition_list.html> link to view thumbnail images of the title pages of each catalogue. Click on a thumbnail image to display a large image of the title-page. Use the Next & Previous buttons to browse through the catalogue. You can also enter search terms in the Search within the catalogue box to search for artists, titles and lenders within the catalogue. This will display a list of the pages on which your search terms were found. Below the catalogue pages you will also find thumbnail images of some of the works that were exhibited in the exhibitions. Clicking on a thumbnail image will take you to a page displaying a larger image and more information about that work. Searching You can search across all the catalogues in two ways: 1: Enter a search term in the quick search box at the top of the RA Collections homepage. This will search through all the exhibition catalogues as well as the RA's own collections of works of art, historic books and archives. 2: Click on the Search Exhibition Catalogues <http://www.racollection.org.uk/ixbin/indexplus?_IXACTION_=file&_IXFILE_ =templates/search/exhibitions.html> option on the RA Collections homepage. From here you can search by exhibition title, exhibition date, or carry out a free-text search of the entire contents of the catalogues for the names of artists, lenders or titles of works. This is very much seen as a pilot project, and hopefully the beginning of programme to digitise and publish further Royal Academy Winter Exhibition catalogues as well as the catalogues for the Summer Exhibition from its inception in 1768. Any feedback and comments that you have will therefore be gratefully received and will help us to refine and improve this resource in future. We are extremely grateful to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for funding this project. Regards, Adam. Adam Waterton Head of Library Services Royal Academy of Arts Burlington House Piccadilly London W1J OBD T: 020 7300 5740 F: 020 7300 5765 E: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> The Royal Academy of Arts is a registered charity under Registered Charity Number 1125383 and is also registered as a company limited by guarantee in England and Wales under Company Number 6298947. Registered office: Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BD. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mail submissions to [log in to unmask] For information about joining ARLIS/NA see: http://www.arlisna.org/join.html Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc) to [log in to unmask] ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance: http://lsv.arlisna.org Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~