I am forwarding the following announcement on behalf of artlibraries.net.

Dear colleagues,

An experimental target “Art libraries in WorldCat” has just been added to the international meta catalogue www.artlibraries.net, thanks to the great commitment of Uwe Dierold and Ernst Rotzinger (KIT Karlsruhe), Bruce Washburn (OCLC) and Mona Siegmann (Janusmedia).

This  experimental “ Art libraries in WorldCat” target, has been realized on basis of the WorldCat Search API, a web service providing access to specific library holdings (http://www.worldcat.org/affiliate/tools?atype=wcapi).

“Art libraries in WorldCat” is integrating the art libraries participating in WorldCat (www.worldcat.org) as one collective target into artlibraries.net. Thus, It is a ‘hybrid’ approach  allowing to test functionalities provided by WorldCat without abandoning the existing artlibraries.net structure.  For the time being, there is an intentional overlap between the “Art libraries in WorldCat” target and existing individual targets.

“Art Iibraries in WordCat” comprises the following library catalogs (catalogs having already an individual artlibraries.net target are marked with an asterisk *):

•Amon Carter Museum, Forth Worth

•Art Institute of Chicago

•Bard Graduate Center, New York

•Brooklyn Museum Libraries & Archives, New York *

•Centre Canadien d'Architecture, Montréal *

•Cleveland Museum of Art

•Frick Art Reference Library, New York *

•Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles *

•Harvard University - Fine Arts Library, Cambridge, MA

•Institut national d'histoire de l'art (INHA), Paris *

•Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

•Kunstbibliothek - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin *

•Kunsthalle Basel

•Kunstmuseum Basel *

•Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York *

•             Musée du quai Branly, Paris

•Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

•Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

•Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York *

•National Art Library, London *

•National Gallery of Art Library, Washington

•National Gallery of Canada Library. Ottawa *

•Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO

•Philadelphia Museum of Art

•Rijksmuseum Research Library, Amsterdam *

•Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO

•Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe

•Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown

•Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg *

•             Winterthur Museum Library, Winterthur, DE

•Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), Karlsruhe

Please note that this is a beta version. Not all the links to the individual library catalogues may yet function properly. OCLC is checking the linking information.

This approach could eventually lead to eliminate individual targets also covered by the WorldCat API and to maintain as individual  artlibraries.net targets only those which cannot be accessed via WorldCat. Organizationally speaking, this would mean to reduce significantly the current number of targets. Technically speaking, less targets means improved reaction time. Financially speaking, the solution could strongly reduce the general maintenance costs.  Relying on the options provided by the WorldCat API would probably confer much more international significance and acceptance to artlibraries.net, especially in North America. For the moment, Uwe Dierolf has implemented this WorldCat target into artlibraries.net to provide a basis for discussion at the next general artlibraries.net meeting (see below and enclosed document). We hope that you will be able to attend this meeting.

Furthermore, as a result of the discussions on the future of art bibliography, started on the initiative of the Getty Research Institute in early 2010, and continued at the General Meeting of the artlibraries.net partners in Lisbon, October 2010, OCLC representatives involved in both the Getty meetings (New York City (April 2010) and Los Angeles (June 2010)) and the Lisbon meeting as well, agreed to realize a more ambitious pilot discovery tool, based on the data pool of the OCLC/WorldCat and a special API taking into account the data of 30 art libraries participating in WorldCat. This search interface, called ‘Art Libraries Discovery Experiment’, so far restricted to libraries participating in WorldCat  is a pilot project for  discipline-specific access to WorldCat, with more functionalities than the experimental artlibraries.net target. It shall be presented and discussed at the next artlibraries.net general meeting in Paris (September 27-29, 2012).  

The program for the next artlibraries.net general meeting in Paris (September 27-29, 2012) is accessible on www.artlibraries.net . Although already published on this list, it is also once more attached to the message.

On behalf of the artlibraries.net committee

Sincerely,

Dr. Rüdiger Hoyer

Bibliotheksdirektor

Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte

Katharina-von-Bora-Str. 10

D-80333 München

+49 (0)89 28927577

Fax +49 (0)89 28927608

Mobile: +49 (0)160 5530377

www.zikg.eu