It has seemed to me for some time that one of my preoccupations was really only a hobby-horse, in the sense that Laurence Sterne describes that of Uncle Toby in Tristram Shandy, for it has seemed to be of ‘great singularity’ as if I ‘might have travelled from York to Dover, — from Dover to Penzance in Cornwall, and from Penzance to York back again, and not have seen such another upon the road’. I am thinking of my preoccupation with what I identified as the need for a library, or libraries, in Britain, devoted to contemporary art, and open to the public. I aired the idea in Studio International in May 1973, but received no feedback.

Art libraries, guided in part by unquestioned assumptions and market forces, tend to buy the same books while neglecting ‘ephemeral’ primary material which can often be acquired cheaply, which will be vital data for future historians, and which is likely to inspire artists then as it does now. Collections of ephemera invariably attract donations, research, and recognition. Reliance on books to document this material means accepting a selective and perhaps misleading view, at second hand, after a lapse of time. Reassessment of the significance of the images and artefacts thrown-up by our culture by means of printing and other mass-production techniques, might lead to the cooperative, rationalised acquisition, by art libraries, of both books and ephemera, and to the exploitation of the latter by inter-library lending of original material or of slides.

The booklet publications of the Golgonooza Press, which takes its name and sign from the work of William Blake, aim to combat art decadence and the vested interests of mass-art-publishing. One end of the ‘main axis of thought’ on which the Press’s editorial initiative turns, reaches to cultures other than that of the modern West. The other ‘rightfully belongs in the hearts and hands’ of creative artists for whom art remains ‘a channel of Grace’.

Rather than developing its stock as a status symbol, the library at Falmouth School of Art aims to contribute actively to students’ continuing education by supporting and stimulating the whole spectrum of their activities, and by teaching the value of the printed word and ‘how to look things up’.

Growing from modest beginnings in 1898, the collection was reorganised after the Second World War and now totals more than half a million slides. These are listed in a catalogue on site and in printed catalogues and lists which are available to libraries and individuals; slides are retrieved by accession number from electrically-operated storage units. Slides may be borrowed free of charge, in person or by post, by any resident of the United Kingdom.