Technology and Arts Libraries

A recent Princeton panel discussion summary sheds some light on current topics in arts libraries, including the ways access and preservation change in the digital world. Of note: an exploration of how new media artworks are captured and collected; a reflection on the myriad ways architects digitally design buildings (and the loss of information that sometimes results); and the copyright complexities of licensed, streaming musical performances.

Via IT’s Academic.

Take a Virtual Tour of Donald Judd’s Library

Donald Judd’s library houses 13,000 books spanning a range of subjects as broad as the artist’s thinking. Judd’s arrangement of the library reflects his sensitivity to geography and understanding of the development of the arts, languages and sciences across different cultures.

The Donald Judd Foundation provides a unique virtual tour through the artist’s personal library. It includes an interactive map of the space, which visitors can click to browse by shelf. A hyperlinked photograph of each shelf appears; next, visitors may click on individual books to see a brief description. Book-level records also supply links to a WorldCat database search for the material so that interested parties can find the nearest lending library for each book.

NYARC: The New York Art Resources Consortium

In 2006, the Met, MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Frick Collection teamed up to create NYARC: the New York Art Resources Consortium, a system which unites the resources and libraries of these institutions and makes them more accessible to both scholars and the general public. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, NYARC seeks to extend library and archive resources, services, and programming to a wider audience, and to facilitate collaboration between leading art research institutions.

Through NYARC’s website you can access the 800,000-record ARCADE database, which serves as a cohesive online source for the combined holdings of the Frick, MoMA, and the Brooklyn Museum. There is also a portal for WATSONLINE, the online catalog for the Museum of Modern Art. Finally, links to news posts alert you to current projects like the JSTOR Auction Catalog Pilot Project and new holdings in the NYARC museums.

To view the New York Times’ profile of NYARC, refer to this article from March 14th, 2010.

This blog post was contributed by student staff member Emilia Mickevicius.