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----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This message is being posted across several lists, please excuse duplication -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- PRESS RELEASE. PRESS RELEASE. PRESS RELEASE.... THE NATIONAL ART LIBRARY (UK) THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM National Art Library joins the Internet The National Art Library joined the Internet on 17th April 1996. The Library's World Wide Web pages provide information about the NAL and its services, plus images of selected objects from the collections. Users can see examples of fine bindings, manuscripts and artists' books, with accompanying descriptive information. The full texts of selected Library publications are also being made available online. The NAL's WWW address is: http://www.nal.vam.ac.uk/ The Library's Computer Catalogue is accessible from within the WWW pages, and now contains over 200,000 entries for books, exhibition catalogues, auction house sales catalogues, periodicals, manuscripts, and archives. It is also possible to connect direct to the Computer Catalogue, using the telnet address: telnet nal.vam.ac.uk The National Art Library is both the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum and a public reference collection of international importance for the documentation of the fine and decorative arts. Founded in 1837, it has been developed ever since and now contains around a million volumes. It is freely open to anyone undertaking research in relevant subjects and attracts around 30,000 separate reader visits each year. The collections embrace printed books from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, illuminated manuscripts, calligraphy, letters, archives and other documentary manuscripts relating to arts and crafts, exhibition catalogues and auction sale catalogues. The art of the book is a special focus and the Library houses an outstanding collection of livres d'artiste, contemporary book art and artists' books, fine bookbindings and illustrated books. Important bequests in the nineteenth century extended the Library's range and brought, among other things, many of the autograph manuscripts of Charles Dickens's novels as well as three Leonardo da Vinci Notebooks. Union List of Art and Design Serials Some 9,000 periodical titles are now included in the Union List of Art and Design Serials, which is available online via the Computer Catalogue. Information is being solicited from a wide range of academic, public, special and national libraries in the UK and Ireland. The first institutions' holdings have been added to the database, which now contains those titles held by the NAL, the British Architectural Library, Coventry University, Humberside University, Liverpool John Moores University, Nottingham Trent University, Sheffield Hallam University and the Royal College of Art, among others. Additional libraries' holdings will be added in the coming months. The Union List is being created in collaboration with the Art Libraries Society (ARLIS/UK & Ireland). To search the Union List, users should log on to the NAL Computer Catalogue and choose the Periodicals option. Alphabetical and keyword indexes provide access by institutional name, title, subject, etc. An increasing proportion of the records include the National Art Library's subject terms, making it possible to produce a working list of periodicals on textiles, ceramics, or whatever. Many of the records also provide detailed information about publication patterns, publishers, editors, and so on. If the National Art Library has a particular title, the NAL's holdings are displayed first. Other libraries' holdings are displayed by choosing the Other Locations command, displayed at the bottom of some screens. For more information, contact: Douglas Dodds National Art Library Victoria and Albert Museum South Kensington LONDON SW7 2RL Tel: 0171-938-8470 Fax: 0171-938-8461 Email [log in to unmask]