Friends:

                I don’t specialize in this area, and, so, am probably the last to notice this (below), but I’ve just searched the ARLIS-L archives on RDK without coming up with anything obvious in a subject line.  If I only repeat here what the rest of you have known for years, I apologize.  Please fill me in on any information I should have provided, as I have not read through the background information on this site at all closely.

For what little it may be worth,

Friends:

                It isn’t clear to me—from WorldCat Local, at least (I haven’t checked any database pages or Lib Guides, say)—that the existence of a free online version of the RDK (Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte (Specialized encyclopaedia of German art history)) has been widely advertised.  Called RDK-Web it is here, with the option of an initial interface in English, and the German originals themselves in PDF as well as HTML:

                http://rdk.zikg.net/gsdl/cgi-bin/library.exe

                The RDK has been in progress for several decades, and (if the page labelled bisher erscheinen is right up to date) is in the middle of vol. 10 (through Franziskaner, Franziskanerinnen).  The closest RDK-Web gets to Franziskaner, Franziskanerinnen right now may be the article Frack, which, again, is there in PDF as well as HTML, and appears in the very same (i.e. the current) Lieferung in print (so that’s pretty current).  When complete the RDK should extend to approximately 25 volumes.

            A quick glance at WorldCat Local indicates that SUNY Binghamton may be (?) the only North American Library to have entered this into its catalog so far (though I could well have missed the key record).

            For those of you associated with the theological disciplines, I have found the RDK pretty helpful on the history of Christian art.

            If you were already aware of this, please forgive the intrusion.

For what it’s worth,

Steve Perisho

Theology and Philosophy Librarian

Seattle Pacific University

Tel.:  206 281 2417; Fax:  206 281 2396

Email:  [log in to unmask]

Commonplace book:  http://liberlocorumcommunium.blogspot.com/