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Archival resources in the Victoria and Albert Museum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

J. F. van der Wateren
J. F. van der Wateren*
Affiliation:
National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
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Abstract

The Victoria and Albert Museum, itself an archive of material culture, houses several collections of archival records. The Museum’s Registered Papers are divided between the Museum itself, which holds those papers relating to objects in the Museum, and the Public Record Office, where papers relating to Museum buildings and administration can be found; all papers produced since 1984 are to be housed together in a newly established V & A Archive. The quality of the archive of Registered Papers is uneven due to the lack of a controlling and unifying policy; this, and questions of conservation and administration, are being addressed as part of the current restructuring of the Museum. For the same reason the archives of the different Departments, though important, vary considerably not only in content but also in their organisation. The National Art Library, part of the V & A, includes archival collections of ephemera, comprising examples of printing and graphic design, and of manuscripts, including artists’ papers; it also includes the Archive of Art and Design, founded in 1978 to avoid the splitting up of significant archives between the Museum’s Departments.

Type
Research Article
Information
Art Libraries Journal , Volume 14 , Special Issue 2: Art archives: special issue , 1989 , pp. 16 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 1989

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References

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