ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

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COLLEGE ART ASSOCIATION –ART LIBRARIES SESSION

The Art Libraries session of the College Art Association was held on January 26, 1972, with Judith A. Hoffberg, Brand Art Center Library, Glendale, California as chairman.

Kate Steinitz, honorary curator of the Elmer Belt Library of Vinciana, UCLA, recounted the efforts of Raphael Trichet du Fresne, editor of the first printed edition of Leonardo da Vinci’s Trattato ’della Pittura, 1651, who included a list of authors who wrote on art, thus furnishing the first known art bibliography. Du Fresne later became Keeper of Collections and Librarian to Queen Christina of Sweden. At his death a sale catalog of his personal library was printed, containing 50,000 entries.

Eva Wisbar, of Visual Resources, Inc., discussed the need for the art library to become a multimedia research center, with more emphasis on nonbook material. A good example of this was presented by Claire Duessen, Junior Arts Center, Los Angeles, who showed slides of her students engaged in art technology activities.

Martha Kehde, art librarian, University of Kansas, reported the results of her survey of the book and serial budgets in twelve academic art libraries. The range is between $8,200 and $28,000, with a mean of $14,877, and a median between $10,000 and $14,000. The cost of the average art book published from 1967 through 1969 increased 29.9 percent, with the average cost per book in 1970 being $16.16. 1,169 art books were published in the U.S. alone in 1970. Her survey shows that the academic art library’s book funds are totally inadequate to support the academic department it serves.

At the business meeting, Elizabeth R. Usher, librarian of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was elected chairman of the 1973 CAA Art Libraries session, to be held in New York.

Two possible answers to the need for an international bibliography of art history were presented.

Michael Rinehart, librarian of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, reported on a CAA-sponsored International Conference on the Bibliography of Art History in Washington, D.C., October 1971. At this meeting, an editorial committee was appointed to prepare a trial issue of Repertoire International de I’Art, which will gather the art bibliographies currently being prepared in various countries, regions, and institutes, computerize the information, and publish these combined efforts. The first trial issue should be ready for distribution in 1973, with regular publication beginning in January 1975.

A panel consisting of Roger Bilboul, Eric Boehm, and Alexander Davis of the American Bibliographical Center; Henri Dorra, University of California, and moderated by William Treese, art librarian, University of California, presented the plans of the Arts Reference Library. This will consist of ART Bibliographies Current Titles, which will reproduce contents pages of 250 art journals; ART Bibliographies Modern, an abstracting/indexing of modem art contents of 250 periodicals; ART Bibliographies Historical, an abstracting/indexing of basic art periodicals and books. The first two publications will be ready in 1972, the third in 1974.