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Artists in Canada: a national resource1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

Cyndie Campbell*
Affiliation:
Library, National Gallery of Canada, 380 Sussex Drive P.O.Box 427 Station A, Ottawa, Ontario KIN 9N4, Canada
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Abstract

Artists in Canada is a bilingual union list of documentation files on Canadian artists held by the National Gallery of Canada Library, and by 22 libraries and art galleries across the country. More than 42,700 artists are represented, with biographical information as well as locations for files. Originally compiled manually, Artists in Canada has been automated since the late 1970s and, as well as appearing in print format, has been accessible internationally on the World Wide Web since 1995.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 2001

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References

1. Paper given at the Section of Art Libraries Open Session, 17th August 2000, during the 66th IFLA Conference, in Jerusalem.Google Scholar
2. http://www.chin.gc.ca/. For the history of Artists in Canada with bibliography see Campbell, Cyndie. ‘Documenting Canadian artists: the history of Artists in Canada’ in Artists in Canada: a union list of artists’ files/Artistes au Canada. Une liste collective des dossiers d’artistes . Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1999, p.1219.Google Scholar
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8. Artists in Canada, 1999, op. cit., p.20. We include artists who were born in and worked in Canada, artists who were born elsewhere but who have spent their working lives in Canada, and artists who were born in Canada but spent most of their working lives abroad.Google Scholar
9. Check list of Canadian artists’ files in the Library May 1968/Liste des dossiers d’artistes canadiens à la bibliothèque mai 1968. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1969.Google Scholar
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12. A review was published in Art Libraries journal vol. 26, no. 1 2001, p.4647.Google Scholar
13. The Award was established by the Canadian art library community in 1985 to honour the distinguished career and contribution of Melva Dwyer, who for 31 years was Fine Arts Librarian at the University of British Columbia. See also Zimon, Kathy E.. ‘The Melva J. Dwyer Award’ in Art Libraries Journal vol. 24 no. 3 1999, p.58.Google Scholar
14. Information about CHIN, its mission and services is available at the web site http://www.chin.gc.ca. For an historical overview see Thomas, Wendy. ‘Developing a national web site: the Canadian experience’. Museum international no. 204 1999, p.1419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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17. Ibid., p. 1416. The fields in the database include artist/maker, artist’s other names, citizenship, references, authority status, technique, sex, address date, address city, address province, address country, birth date, birth city, birth province, birth country, death date, death city, death province, death country, file location, record creation date, record update date, record number. Place names have been standardized according to the following rationale: National Resources Canada’s Canadian Geographical Names Data Base Google Scholar
(Geonames.NRCan.gc.ca/english/Home.html), which lists place names recognized by the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names, has been used as the authority for Canadian geographical place names. Apart from a few notable exceptions, as in the case of Canadian federal lands (including Indian reserves), the Committee recognizes only one official name – French or English – for inhabited places (villages, towns, and cities) in Canada. All other place names are given in full in English and French.Google Scholar
18. Ibid. A list of biographical sources to be consulted in conjunction with the artist references field (ARRF) is appended to the Data dictionary and available with Artists in Canada at the CHIN web site.Google Scholar