The IFLA Art Libraries Section was formed 25 years ago to fill a clear need for international co-operation in this most international of professions. The Section has been responsible for the publication of a range of materials including basic tools such as the International directory of art libraries and An art librarian’s glossary. It is also an active participant in the conference programmes of IFLA, frequently offering additional satellite programmes or workshops for art librarians. Representation in the Section has covered many countries, although there are still gaps that need to be filled.

The papers of the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust are one result of the passion of Harvard University Professor Emeritus Eduard F. Sekler. In the 1960s he witnessed the encroachments of progress and the associated threat to buildings in the royal and religious centers of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, and co-founded the Trust in 1990 with others interested in documenting the sites and restoring the buildings. The Trust has restored numerous temples, guesthouses, townhouses and shrines in Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur, and in the process has generated vital documentation including measured drawings, photographs, contextual materials, planning reports and feasibility studies. Threats to this material from the natural environment and political turmoil, as well as longstanding ties to Harvard of several of its members, led the Trust to approach the Frances Loeb Library at the University’s Graduate School of Design, where as a result the archive will be housed. The infrastructure developed by Harvard University Library will be used to create a virtual archive available worldwide on the web, as well as a parallel paper archive to be maintained by the Trust in Nepal.

The history of the Institute of Fine Arts library collections cannot be disentangled from the intellectual and physical history of the Institute itself. Housed in various locations since 1938, the collections have grown parallel to the interests of the IFA’s faculty, many of whom, in its early years, were exiles from Europe and brought different approaches to the study of art. Amidst New York’s array of outstanding art research libraries, the IFA’s once extremely modest collection now comprises some 175,000 volumes, divided between two libraries: the Chan Library (for art history and archaeology) and the Conservation Center Library.

Early users of the internet and the World Wide Web soon realised that there was a need to gather together links to sites of interest to art and design researchers. The Art, Design, Architecture and Media (ADAM) information gateway attempted to satisfy this demand, whilst also helping to develop appropriate methodologies and standards. One of ADAM’s successors, Artifact, adopted an expanded role and provided additional services. Artifact subsequently became part of Intute: Arts and Humanities, which covers a broader range of subjects. Surveys, usage figures and social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us suggest that some – but not all – users and potential users appreciate the services that gateways, portals and hubs can provide.

Liberty’s textile archive is probably unique in the way it is set up, both through its ownership and in its make-up. It shows only one aspect of the firm’s history, although arguably its most important one. It is of interest not only because of the Liberty fabrics, but for 19th-century textiles in general, as it includes material from most of that century. The main purpose of the archive is to act as a reference library for the in-house studios; however, limited access is offered to specialist users from outside the company.

The Carpet Archives Centre was established in Kidderminster in late 2001 by The Carpet Museum Trust, in response to offers of archive collections by local companies in the town as the carpet industry in the United Kingdom contracted. These collections are about carpets but not just about carpets for they illustrate design, technology, social history and the close links between the industry and the town. A grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2004 enabled the Trust to advance public access to these collections.

The town of High Wycombe is internationally renowned for furniture-making, and Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College holds important photographic material relating to the industry during the 20th century. Funding from the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council is now going to enable the archive collections to be digitised and made accessible via an interactive website. The team undertaking this initiative describes below both the process of the project and the content of the archive, discussing some of the challenges it faces and some of its aspirations for the future.