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KU recently ran a trial of the International Bibliography of Art (IBA) available through ProQuest. The IBA promotes itself as successor to the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) which was sponsored by the Getty Research Institute until it ceased in 2007. The International Bibliography of Art coverage begins in 2008 and includes the literature documenting European art from late antiquity to the present, American art from the colonial era to the present, and global art since 1945. KU's one month trial was from Feb. 24-March 27, 2014 and they offered us the database for a first year only discounted price of $1836 (current reg. cost is $2296.) I promoted the trial by sending a special note asking for input on Feb. 26 to all faculty in the History of Art dept., the Visual Art dept., additional KU faculty whom I know use art resources, and the History of Art Graduate Students. I re-sent the note to the same audience on March 11. The trial was also listed on the KU Libraries "New Database Trials" page. On March 18, I sent a note to the ARLIS-L listserv asking my art librarian colleagues for their experience with IBA. I received comments from 20 individual (7 History of Art faculty, 1 KU librarian, 2 History of Art graduate students, 2 Visual Art faculty, 1 other KU faculty member, and 7 ARLIS/NA colleagues.) the comments ran the gauntlet from not-supporting to supporting a subscription. Here's what I heard: Negative "satisfied though not overwhelmed by what I found... Funds might better be directed toward exhibition-related publications and catalogues raisonnes" "I have to admit I'm disappointed by it--it turns up fewer citations than other databases such as BHA or Kubikat, and in some cases, no search results at all" "while I found a few interesting pieces I didn't know about, most were not really helpful (i.e., they were "thin" on substance)." "[after reporting on a comparison of searches in Art Bibliographies Modern and IBA] Based on this experiment, I don't see myself using the IBA." "[my library] does not subscribe to IBA because of the expense" "When BHA now IBA disappeared I chose not to subscribe to the Proquest offering. Even when BHA was available in full force over many years it was rarely used or produced positive results in searches in my experience" "we get it at [my library]but am not sure how useful it is. It only goes back to 2010 and no retrospective coverage so for some artists there is practically nothing" Positive "strongly encourage the library to subscribe to it. It fills the gap left by the discontinuance of BHA. I very much hope the library subscribes" "[after some discussion about various trial searches] Depending on the price I would still say that this is a useful database" "my impression of the database is a very positive one" "Seems this is a basic/standard reference source that we should have for our own use and for training our undergrad and grad students. That said, I more often use Google and Google scholar for my own research" "I imagine that most of the journal articles that came up with would come up in a JSTOR search, but not the book chapters. That strikes me as the biggest advantage of this database" "I found it quite useful in conducting searches on my current research" "I think it looks good. I certainly miss BHA!" "Because we don't have such a rich array of e-reference sources, we have kept IBA and added ArtSource (for the architecture coverage)" "[my library] has a license and I've found it to be extremely useful (just showed it to a class for Latin American art topics)" Conclusion: Based on the positive responses that I received, I have decided to initiate a subscription to IBA. Keeping in mind the negative comments, I will review the usage stats on a regular basis and plan to cancel the subscription if the use doesn't justify the cost. Susan Craig Art & Architecture Librarian Univ. of Kansas [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~