Due not least to its inter-disciplinary breadth of scope, design history has not developed an adequate methodology for identifying (or cataloguing) artefacts or for placing them in their context (classification). Yet design history is essential to design scholarship and to design itself because these are its tasks. (A paper presented to the ARLIS Annual General Meeting on April 1st, from A Framework for Design Scholarship by Bruce Archer, to be published in 1978).

In an era of economic stringency it is necessary to ‘sell’ the art library, in order to win support as an investment for survival. To do this a new style of reference librarianship has been implemented in the Fine Arts Department of Birmingham Public Libraries, including the provision of services to branch libraries and to art teachers; the creation of publications, exhibitions, and the Art Pack; and the involvement of staff in appropriate committees. (The text of a paper presented to the course on ‘Managing the Arts’ organised by ARLIS and the Polytechnic of North London in December, 1976).

A new course in Art and Design in Social Contexts, offered by Dartington College of Arts, is founded on the premise that the creative process is the right of everyone, and that this process is important in its own right and need not be justified by the end product. The multi-media course will relate the art and design area to social situations, such as industry and schools, and to the performing arts. The demands of the course will require students to be able to make full use of a wide-ranging library and of inter-library facilities. The library’s attempts to acquire relevant material have been made difficult by the ‘alternative’ nature of the literature, and by deficiencies in its bibliographical control and in the literature itself.

Access to original works of art is a human right which cannot be adequately provided for by art galleries. Loan collections of original works of art should be thought of as a logical extension of the lending, by libraries, of books and media. In Sweden over sixty libraries include collections of this kind. (A translation of an article which first appeared in Biblioteksbladet 1976, volume 61 no.4 pp. 56-60).

Founded on the collection of the fashion magazine publisher Franz Lipperheide, the Costume Library is a reference library open to the public, comprising material in many forms documenting dress in all times and places together with such related subjects as personal appearance, textiles, and social behaviour. The collection continues to grow through the purchase of newly-published and historic items.