Recently I was quite excited to run across a book illustrating Edward Gordon Craig’s “Black Figures”, a series of woodblock prints which this artist produced between 1907 and 1919. Because the book is somewhat rare I know that I never would have found Gordon Craig’s prints had I not been an art librarian. The unexpected discovery of an artist’s work or a new technique is, for me, one of the benefits of being a librarian/artist.

During the 20th century, and particularly since its adoption of easel painting, the continuing development of American Indian art has resisted attempts to contain and circumscribe it within definitions and categories imposed by outsiders — art critics, art historians, and the authors of many of the most readily available books on the subject. Native Americans are determined not only to remain in control of their art but also to have a say in how it is interpreted. A bibliography of sources follows an introductory survey of Native American statements about Native American art.

A selected, annotated list of books on Byelorussian art and architecture is preceded by a brief introduction to the history of the Byelorussian people and Byelorussian culture from the medieval Principality of Polatsk to present day independence. Byelorussian culture survives in spite of oppression from both Tsarist Russia and from the USSR which permitted cultural expression but only on its own somewhat unpredictable terms. A number of books on Byelorussian art were published during the Soviet era, and especially in the post-Stalinist period, but generally in Russian as distinct from Byelorussian. Some material on Byelorussian topics has also been published in the USA and the United Kingdom.

Concurrently with developments in art history which have challenged the simple notion of “the art book” as artist’s monograph, the library profession has been obliged to look beyond both the traditional book format and related methodologies. Art librarians have led the way in adopting new technology, not for its own sake but in response to the nature of art information and the needs of their clients; they are aware that “there is no such thing” as “the art book”, and that in reality this term embraces a plurality of formats among which the codex book continues to flourish not only as a vehicle of information but also, for example, as a medium exploited by artists. In all its manifestations, but not least in those which are novel, innovative, and unfamiliar, art information challenges art librarians to adopt a dynamic and proactive role in making it available and promoting and facilitating its use.

Architectural books in use in England – and specifically in the Royal Academy Library – in the second half of the 18th century included translations of the major Italian treatises; Sir William Chambers’ Treatise on civil architecture (the first work of its kind by an English author); volumes recording actual buildings by English architects; archaeological works documenting the remains of ancient buildings; and works by Fréart and Perrault on the classical orders. The latter were complemented by Henry Emlyn’s eccentric Proposition for a new order of architecture published in 1781. The contents of Sir John Soane’s private library included a number of works not available at the Royal Academy, which he criticised for providing only a “very limited collection of Works on Architecture”. Soane’s library can be seen to have anticipated the professional architectural library, including more practical books (intended in many cases for the use of builders and carpenters), which was founded at the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1834 — today’s British Architectural Library.

In 1956 the American University in Cairo (AUC) committed itself to the formidable task of transforming a purchased personal library into a specialized university library supporting research and teaching in a new curriculum in Islamic art and architecture. The library’s original owner, K. A. C. Creswell, the eminent British historian of Islamic architecture, became at age 77 the university’s first professor in the discipline. An agreement that he would have exclusive use of the library during a three-year teaching period set the pattern for later years. Until 1973, while Creswell remained in Cairo, the uncatalogued library, though used by Islamic art faculty and their thesis-writing students, was barely accessible to other Islamic art students and faculty in related fields. Secrecy surrounding the library’s purchase hindered the university’s dealings with Creswell. When the Suez War interrupted final arrangements, Creswell’s exemption from the government-ordered expulsion of British nationals, and permission to move the books to the university, were secured by telling the government of Egypt that the library was Creswell’s gift to AUC.

In spite of the absence of specialised art libraries, some significant collections of publications on Byelorussian art exist in the State Library, and in some other libraries in Minsk. Other collections of material on Byelorussian art can be found outside Byelorussia, in England (in the Francisk Skaryna Byelorussian Library in London), and in several libraries in the USA.

Working in an art library is a natural extension of my interests since I am an artist creating primarily in book form. I’m attracted to the intimacy of books as art: holding, opening, handling a book is very appealing. My box-books use a lot of found paper, including scraps of discarded books. War and Peace Fragments was made in reaction to the Gulf War and reading Tolstoy. My books are often a mix of personal and political concerns.

Although ‘art books’ of various kinds existed before 1800, art publishing grew significantly and with increasing speed through the 19th century. Two key factors, each encouraging the other, were the growth of interest in art among a heterogeneous public, and developments in printing technology, especially in methods of reproducing illustrations. Increasing numbers of illustrated art books contributed to the dissemination of awareness of an ever-broader spectrum of works of art, and of the decorative arts, throughout society, and nourished the historicism and eclecticism practised by contemporary artists and designers. The Romantic Movement’s cult of the individual artist prepared the way for the emergence of the artist’s monograph as a significant category of art book, made possible by the capacity to reproduce an artist’s works. The growth of art historical scholarship, informed by a new rigour, brought about the publishing of scholarly works incorporating documentary research, and of previously unpublished or newly-edited source material; art reference works, of several kinds, also multiplied. By 1900 art publishing had set all the precedents it would need until well into the second half of the 20th century.

Before becoming an independent state, the Republic of Byelorussia had initiated an extensive programme of aesthetic education which complemented activities elsewhere in the former USSR while stimulating a revival of interest in Byelorussian cultural traditions. Libraries, led by the National Library (now the State Library) at Minsk, contribute to this programme through the provision of publications, by organising or hosting activities, and by working closely with schools. Particular efforts are being made, in association with Melodiya, to improve acquisition of gramophone records. The acquisition of books benefits from a developing programme of international exchange.

As a result of the momentous changes taking place in Russia, people and institutions have acquired a new freedom which they have not been prepared for. Art libraries can offer opportunities for people to use their freedom well, but their collections are inadequate and they are desperately short of money. At the same time, prices of books have risen sharply, and the introduction of charges for inter-library lending is inhibiting smaller libraries from borrowing material for their users. Library collections are being depleted by theft, sometimes perpetrated by hard-up librarians. Cooperation between art libraries could help, but libraries accustomed to a rigid centralized system scarcely know how to begin to cooperate voluntarily; nonetheless, some first steps have been taken by a number of Moscow’s art libraries. Russian art libraries are of several kinds, notably museum libraries, serving their own institutions in the first instance, and art departments of large public libraries, but there is no national art library to serve as the focal point of a network; in the absence of cooperation and networking, collection development and stock-editing are guided only by the immediate needs of particular libraries. Russian libraries, not least the Library of Foreign Literature, desperately need not only to develop networking at home, but also to establish links with libraries abroad.

In my painting, I use interiors and exterior settings to look at the concept of singularness. Images expressing the idea of being alone are at one end on a continuum, images of loneliness, at another. A disquieting stillness hangs on at each end of the continuum, an absence of things implied.

The Library of The Hermitage at St Petersburg traces its origins to the library which Catherine II brought to the Winter Palace in 1762, and which took its place alongside her collections of fine and decorative arts. It was only later, under Alexander I, that the Library began to be conceived less as a collection in its own right and more as a study collection serving the needs of the other collections. From the 1850s, the Library was located in “The Hermitage”, purpose-built to house the Imperial collections. After a number of setbacks, the Library recommenced its development in 1919, gaining a separate building and acquiring some noteworthy collections from private hands and other sources. Currently the Library possesses some 570,000 volumes, accommodated in a central collection and in seven departmental libraries; it was perhaps the leading art library in the former USSR. Its activities include the lending of books to other libraries, and the provision of training opportunities to students of librarianship.

Reviving the spirit of an earlier phase of cooperation, art librarians in the Netherlands joined together informally at the end of 1982 under the title ‘Overleg Kunsthistorische Bibliotheken’ (OKB); although this title remains in force, for international purposes the acronym ARLIS/NL was adopted in 1992. Meetings are held at least four times each year. The group helped to organise the 2nd European Conference of the IFLA Section of Art Libraries, at Amsterdam, in 1986, and prepared the contents of a special issue of Art Libraries Journal devoted to art libraries in the Netherlands, which appeared the following year. ARLIS/NL has also concerned itself with shared cataloguing, favouring TINLIB, and with coordinated collection policies, in association with Dutch university libraries and the Royal Library, while as a result of an ARLIS/NL initiative all member libraries are to submit periodicals holdings data to the Central Catalogue of Periodicals.

My inter-relationship with visual resources coordination and my artwork is one of symbiosis. An encyclopedic array of images repeatedly brought to attention influences my imaging. Since my ideas are constantly growing and altering, forgotten images are brought to the forefront and become useful historical references as well as new learning material.

Major contributions to the publication of art books in the 20th century have been made by publishing houses in Great Britain. These include The Studio magazine and its associated publications, founded by Charles Holme late in the 19th century, a widely influential enterprise which was eventually to become the publishing house Studio Vista. Three other ventures resulted from initiatives by European émigrés. Anton Zwemmer arrived in England and commenced his activities as bookseller and publisher in the 1920s. Bela Horovitz’s Phaidon Press, founded in Vienna in 1923, was safeguarded from the Nazis by Sir Stanley Unwin and recommenced operations under its own name, in London, in 1946. And in 1949 Thames and Hudson was founded by Walter Neurath, who had fled Nazi Germany in 1938. The activities of these publishing houses were complemented by those of Albert Skira in Switzerland, who developed the production of art books illustrated with colour plates. After the Second World War, art publishing flourished as never before, with these and other publishers contributing to an expansion of art publishing on an international front which saw the emergence of the ‘coffee table’ book and of popular art books for a wide readership, the publication of international co-editions, and the multiplication of series. However, more art books has not always meant better art books.