The Arts in Education: draft statement

Manitoba. Manitoba Education and Youth. The arts in education : draft statement, October 2003. Winnipeg: Manitoba Education and Youth, 2003. http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/cur/arts/draft_statement.pdf

Accessing information in the performing arts

Working definition of the performing arts
The term performing arts has not become standardized in its usage. It is used to differentiate the arts or skills which, by their nature, require public performance, as opposed to the arts. McLeish states: “In the performing arts … the performer, the intermediary, is a crucial part of the process.” Generally, there are three elements, necessary for consideration as a performing art: the piece or work being performed; the performer or performers; and an audience hearing, viewing, or experiencing the performance. Sometimes the three elements originate in the same individual, as is the case where a songwriter composes the work and performs it for himself or herself in the privacy of the practice room or studio. Most often, however, the entities are different individuals or groups, and we treat the performing arts in that sense for this guide.

Major divisions of the field
As used in this guide, performing arts include music, dance, opera, the theater, film, radio, television, and video. An interesting, though slightly different approach, is taken in the second edition of The Humanities and the Library, edited by Nena Couch and Nancy Allen (American Library Association, 1993). In that update of Asheim’s earlier work, the editors present music and performing arts as separate chapters. Both are useful for the librarian and student; the music chapter is by Elizabeth Rebman pp. 132-69) and Couch and Allen provide the performing arts section (pp. 173-211. Here, however, we maintain the arrangement of previous editions and include music within the performing arts chapter. 

Music is commonly defined as the art of organizing sound. Its principal elements are melody (single sounds in succession), harmony (sounds in combination), and rhythm (sounds in a temporal relationship). The two major divisions are vocal music and instrumental music. Vocal music includes songs, operas, oratorios, and so forth, while instrumental music includes solos, chamber music, and orchestral music. Musical instruments may be classified as stringed (violin, harp, guitar), woodwind (flute, bassoon, oboe, English horn), brass (trumpet, cornet, bugle, trombone), percussion (drums, bells, gongs, chimes), keyboard (piano, organ, electronic keyboard) and others (accordions, harmonicas, bagpipes, concertina). The modern system of musical notation came to be used in about 1700. 

The librarian responsible for a music collection will need to keep in mind three major elements: 1) the music itself, which follows to some degree the divisions outlined above; 2) the literature about music, which is divided more along the conventional lines for all disciplines, but with some special characteristics; and 3) the vast array of recordings on records, discs, tapes, cassettes, and video, which are a part of any modern music library and which pose problems in terms of organizations, preservation, retrieval, and use. 

The dance may be defined as movement of the body to a certain rhythm. There are three major divisions of the field: folk dancing, ballroom dancing, and theater dancing. Folk dancing, which originated in open-air activities, is characterized by great vigour and exuberance of movement. Ballroom dancing had its origin in the European courts of the renaissance and is an indoor participant activity. Theater dancing is a spectator activity that may be traced to religious dances in the ancient world and to performances known as masques in the courts of renaissance Europe. Its most characterized form is the ballet. The dance is usually (though not always) accompanied by music. The subject of dance notation is of ongoing interest, and new material on dance notation can be accessed on the Internet. (A starting point is the Dancewriting site at http://www.dancewriting.org/ [accessed November 26, 2012]; an alternative is The Dance Notation Bureau’s site at http://www.dancenotation.org/ [accessed November 26, 2012].) 

Theater is the art of presenting a performance to a live audience. In modern usage the term is restricted to live performances of plays. A distinction is sometimes drawn between theater and drama; theater is restricted in meaning to those matters having to do with public performance, while drama includes the literary basis for the performance (that is, the text of plays). The texts are often classed with literature in libraries, leading to the seemingly illogical separation of the texts of plays from works about performances of those plays. Topics that are closely related to theatrical performance, and that help differentiate it from drama, are acting, costume, makeup, directing, and theater architectural. 

Film may be divided into two types: feature length (an hour or longer) and shorts. Many feature length films are fictional, often based on books of some popularity. Others, known as documentaries, are prepared for informational purposes. The fictional and documentary form may be combined to make colorful travelogues or the so-called docu-dramas, in which real situations are presented in fictional, or partly fictional, form. Two other forms of film are animated cartoons and puppet features. Recent technology has allowed for the melding of live action and animated cartoons, so that cartoon characters mix with live casts. Shorts are often filmed by independent producers and sold to distributors of feature length films or video to complete an “entertainment package” for viewing in theaters or homes. 

Films are widely used in schools, universities, churches, and other institutions for informational, educational, and training purposes. Films of this type are likely to constitute the bulk of many library collections. 

Video is a relative newcomer to the performing arts field, particularly as a form available to most of the public. Feature length films, educational films, “how-to” instructions in a variety of fields, and music performance are all widely distributed on tape for home consumption. The inclusion of the tapes in public library collections, while attracting some new users to libraries, may pose problems from the standpoint of preservation, censorship, and fees for services. 

Radio, which depends entirely on sound for its effects, and television, relying on sound and pictures, can be presented either “live” or in prerecorded form. For libraries, it is the residual audio and videotapes that may be included in collections. These materials share with the other performing arts some of the problems of organization and preservation. 

Coverage of music, dance, theater, and film is reasonably good in many general encyclopedia’s. The pivotal article on music in encyclopedia Britannica online, “music” (located at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/398918/music[accessed November 26, 2012]) can be followed up by reviewing such topics as musical forms and genres; similarly, the dance article (“dance” at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/150714/dance [accessed November 26, 2012]) can be followed by articles such as the one on “theatrical dance” or any of the many subdivisions, such as “dance notation”. Articles in the same encyclopedia on theatre and motion pictures are also excellent, especially if an historical perspective is wanted. 

The reader can obtain a psychiatrist’s view of music, and the role of audience and listener, in Anthony Storr’s Music and the Mind (Ballantine, 1992). Bibliographical references abound in Linda H. Hamilton’s book on the psychology of performing artists, The Person Behind the Mask: A Guide to Performing Arts Psychology (Ablex, 1997).

For divisions of the field of music and related performing arts, the reader should not overlook the monumental New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie (6th ed., Groves, 1980). Articles are accompanied by highly authorative bibliographies that will lead the reader to additional publications on all aspects of music and related fields. 

Helpful resources for students, librarians, and general readers
There are many helpful resources for students, librarians, and general readers who wish to understand more about materials on the performing arts, how they are selected for libraries, and how they are organized for both preservation and retrieval. Although some of the readings date to the early 1990s, the basic information is still useful if the reader overlooks references to specific bibliographic sources that have been updated or revised. Of course, if an historical perspective is needed, the older sources will serve the reader well. 

Many resources that were previously available only in print form are now accessible in electronic formats. A review of hundreds of World Wide Web sites related to the performing arts reveals the widest array of offerings encountered by this author in any subjects area. The resources range from well-organized and maintained sites to poorly designed and outdated resources that do little but muddy the research waters. An outstanding example of a helpful resource is the comprehensive Indiana University Worldwide Internet Music Resources at http://www.music.indiana.edu/music_resources/ (accessed November 26, 2012). 

Performing arts are addressed in Carolyn A. Sheehy, ed., Managing Performing Arts Collections in Academic and Public Libraries (Greenwood, 1994) and in a title in the Reference Sources in the Humanities Series, Linda Keir Simons’s The Performing Arts: A Guide to the Reference Literature (Libraries Unlimited, 1994). A journal that covers all aspects of the performing arts is Performing Arts Journal, online since 1996 at http://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed November 26, 2012). PAJ began as a print journal in 1976. 

The writing of reviews of the performing arts is taken up in W. U. McCoy’s Performing and Visual Arts Writing and Reviewing (University Press of America, 1992). 

The music chapter in Lester Asheim’s classic The Humanities and the Library (pp. 151-98) remains a good introduction to the basic organization and use of a music collection. It is supplemented and somewhat updated by “Music Libraries and Collections,” by Guy A. Marco, in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science (Dekker, 1976, v. 18, pp. 328-493). A classic in the field is Music Libraries, by Jack Dove (Deutsch, 1967), which was a revision of the 1937 work of the same title by L. R. McColvin and H. Reeves. 

More recent entries in the literature of music librarianship include E. T. Bryant and Guy Marco’s Music Librarianship: A Practical Guide (2d ed., Scarecrow Press, 1985), and American Music Librarianship: A Biographical and Historical Survey, by Carol J. Bradley (Greenwood, 1990). The former title was written for general librarians and students and gives more than an introduction to such topics as administration, reference, cataloging and classification, and recordings. A long bibliography is also a useful feature. Michael Och’s Music Librarianship in America (Harvard University Press, 1991) is a set of papers presented at a symposium in honour of the first music library chair in the United States, the Richard F. French Chair in Librarianship in Harvard. The papers were also published as the Harvard Library Bulletin 2 (Spring 1991). 

Guides to the literature of music are numerous, but among the best is Music Reference and Research Materials: An Annotated Bibliography, by Vincent Duckles, Ida Reed, and Michael A. Keller (5th ed., Schirmer, 1997). The guide, referred to by librarians simply as “Duckles,” consistently received high ratings because of the quality of annotations. Duckles (1913-1985) contributed much more to music librarianship and music scholarship; a bibliography of his publications appeared in Notes, the journal of the Music Library Association, as a memorial tribute from his colleagues in the field. (See “Vincent Duckles: A Bibliography of His Publications,” compiled by Patricia Elliot and Mark S. Roosa, Notes 44 [December 1987]: 252-58.

Other guides that will be helpful to the librarian or student include Elizabeth A. Davis, ed., Basic Music Library: Essential Scores and Sound Recordings (American Library Association, 1997). 

Many special topics in music librarianship and research have been addressed in special reports (Technical Reports Series) issued by the Music Library Association. These have focused largely on cataloguing and processing issues in terms of contents, but some reports have addressed space use in music libraries: Report no. 20 (1992), by James Cassaro, and “Careers in Music Librarianship,” Report no. 18 (1990) by Carol Tatian. 

Besides the special issues published by the Association, the journal literature and recent books have covered the topic of technical services and the organization of the materials. Richard P. Smiraglia, who has written and spoken extensively on the topic, has published Describing Music Materials: A Manual for Descriptive Cataloging of Printed and Recorded Music, Music Videos, and Archival Music Collections: For Use with AACR2 and APPM (Soldier Creek Press, 1997). Specific issues related to organizing twentieth-century music and scores are discussed in “Nailing Jell-o to a Tree: Improving Access to 20th Century Music,” by Michael D. Colby (Cataloging and Classification Quarterly 26 [1998]: 31-39). And Elwood McKee addresses the organization of private collections in “Developing and Selecting Cataloging Systems for Private Collections,” ARSC Journal 27 (Spring 1996): 53-58. An additional work in the cataloging area is Sherry Velluci’s Bibliographic Relationships in Music Catalogs (Scarecrow Press, 1997). 

Articles addressing other technical aspects of handling and organizing music materials include Michelle Koth and Laura Gayle Green, “Workflow Considerations in Retrospective Conversion Projects for Scores,” Cataloging and Classification Quarterly 14 (1992): 75-102; “ARIS Music Thesaurus: Another View of LCSH,” Library Resources and Technical Services 36 (October 1992): 487-503; and “Cataloging Musical Moving Image Material: A Guide to the Bibliographic Control of Videorecordings and Films of Musical Performances and Other Music-related Moving Image Material.” MLA Technical Report No. 25 (1996), was published by the Music Library Association Working Group on Bibliographic Control of Music Video Material. 

“Preservation Policies and Priorities for Recorded Sound Collections,” by Brenda Nelson-Strauss (Notes 48 [December 1991]: 425-36), is one of many works addressing the physical preservation issue. Knowing the Score: Preserving Collections of Music, compiled by Mark Roosa and Jane Gottlieb (MLA, 1994) is another. A specific preservation program is described in Sion M. Honea, “Preservation at the Sibley Music Library of the Eastman School of Music,” Notes 53 (December 1996): 381-402. 

On the technical front, D. Jessop’s “DVD Basics for Libraries and Information Centers,” Computers in Libraries 18 (April 1998): 62-66, will be of interest to the librarian. 

Finally, rounding out the large selection of materials focused on technical aspects of music librarianship are articles on instruction for library users. Recent articles include “Bibliographic and User Instruction within Music Libraries: An Overview of Teaching Methodologies,” by Judith L. Marley, in Music Reference Services Quarterly 6 (1998): 33-34; Mark Germer’s “Whither Bibliographic Instruction for Musicians?” Notes 52 (March 1996): 754-60; and Amanda Maple et al., “Information Literacy for Undergraduate Music Students: A Conceptual Framework,” Notes 52 (March 1996): 744-53. 

A recent work on collection development in music libraries is Collection Assessment in Music Libraries, edited by Jane Gottileb (MLA, 1994). This is number 22 of the MLA Technical Report Series, a series that offers many other useful and practical reports. 

There are many sources that will help to identify reference materials and other items that might be included in collections. Besides the guides and bibliographies discussed in Chapter 10, a good bibliography of the basics is found in Anne Gray’s The Popular Guide to Classical Music (Birch Lane Press, 1993, pp. 337-40). A bibliography focusing on recorded sound is found in The Iconography of Recorded Sound 1886-1986, by Michael G. Corenthal (Yesterday’s Memories, 1986). For scores and sound recordings, the Davis work, published by ALA and cited above, is also an important resource. 

The journal literature is rich with shorter articles describing the current offerings or recommended titles on specific topics. A sampling of articles on diverse topics includes R. A. Leaver’s “Hymnals, Hymnal Companions, and Collection Development,” Notes 47 (December 1990): 331-54; H. J. Diamond’s “The Literature of Musical Analysis: An Approach for Collection Development,” Choice 27 (March 1990): 1097-99; C. A. Pressler’s “Rock and Roll: Dimensions of a Cultural Revolution,” Choice 29 (April 1992): 1192-1201; and P. Garon’s “A Survey of Literature on the Blues,” AB Bookman’s Weekly 89 (February 17, 1992): 619-21. Two more recent entries are R. M. Cleary’s “Rap Music and Its Political Connections: An Annotated Bibliography,” Reference Services Review 21 (1993): 77-90, and Leta Hicks’s “A Review of Rap Sound Recordings in Academic and Public Libraries,” Popular Music and Society 21 (Summer 1997): 91-114.  All of the articles listed here provide bibliographic citations for materials on the focal topics. The journal Collection Management, volume 12 (1990) carried two viewpoints of library collection building: W. E. Studwell presented the music librarian’s perspective (pp. 95-99). 

The journals Notes (published by the Music Library Association) and Fontis Arts Musicae (International Association of Music Libraries) should not be overlooked. The former carries substantive articles and regularly reviews new publications as well as reference materials and recorded music. The latter, which is multilingual and international in scope, covers activities of the association, proceedings of its conferences, and other topics of broad interest to performing arts librarians. A third source to consult for collection building is BBC Music Magazine, which carries a regular reviewing feature entitled “Building a Library.” 

An important special source of leads for materials in the performing arts is the Internet. Articles describing some good sources are J. Stinson’s “Medieval Music on the Web: Music Resources for the 21st Century,” Australian Academic and Research Libraries 28 (March 1997): 65-74; Kellie Shoemaker’s “Net Notes: Music on the World Wide Web,” Voice of Youth Advocates 21 (February 1999): 425ff.; and “Music Library Online,” by K. Sloss and C. Duffy (Brio 35 [Spring/Summer 1998]: 9-12). 

Although the field of music contributes the bulk of material in performing arts librarianship, there are important readings for librarians in the other subfields. For example, the reader may find the following titles helpful on matters related to collection development, Henry Wessells, “Publishing Roundup: Recent Books on Music, Film, and Television,” AB Bookman’s Weekly 102 (December 7, 1998): 108ff. “Webwatch (Resources on Theater),” by Joan R. Stahl (Library Journal 123 [December 1998]: 27ff.), will help locate online resources. “Video Reviews,” Notes 54 (June 1998): 973-77, discusses the video medium, as does R. E. Provine, “Issues in Video Collections and New Technologies,” College and University Media Review 3 (Spring 1997): 47-57. In “Let’s Go to the Videotape,” Diane Ney (American Theatre 16 [April 1999]: 47-48) discusses the importance of videotape to performing arts scholarship. The Society for the Preservation of Film Music has published H. Stephen Wright and Stephen M. Fry, eds., Film Music Collections in the United States: A Guide (1996). 

“Archival Guidelines for the Music Publishing Industry,” by Kent D. Underwood et al. (Notes 52 [June 1996]: 1112-18), outlines a framework for the music industry’s contribution to research needs of the field. 

Also helpful across the performing arts fields is the Greenwood Press series Bio-Bibliographies in the Performing Arts. Its titles have excellent bibliographies, discographies, and filmographies on important individuals in the performing arts. 

Library Journal, Library Quarterly, and other general journals in the librarianship include the performing arts, publishing articles on collection development, technical processes, reference services, nonbook materials, and other topics of general interest. These titles should not be overlooked as sources of information for the librarian, student, or general reader. 

Use and users of performing arts information
Of the performing arts, music has been the most studied in terms of use and users of information. Malcolm Jones’s Music Librarianship (Saur, 1979) introduces, very generally, types of music libraries and their uses in “Music Libraries and Those They Serve” (pp. 13-23). The chapter on music by Elizabeth Rebman in The Humanities and the Library (2d ed., American Library Association, 1993), offers a brief user perspective in the section entitled “The Work of Composers, Performers, and Music Scholars” (pp. 136-37). 

More specific studies of the use of the literature of music can be found largely in the older journal literature. The reader will want to see, for example, R. Griscom, “Periodical Use in a University Music Library: A Citation Study of Theses and Dissertations Submitted to the Indiana University School of Music from 1975—1980,” Serials Librarian 7 (Spring 1983): 35-52; R. Green, “Use of Music and Its Literature Over Time,” Notes 35 (September 1978): 42-56; and David Baker, “Characteristics of the Literature Used by English Musicologists,” Journal of Librarianship 10 (July 1978): 182-200. Miranda Lee Pao investigated the behaviour of authors and publications in computational musicology in “Bibliometrics and Computational Musicology,” Collections Management 3 (Spring 1979): 97-109. A more recent study is S. M. Clegg’s “User Surveys and Statistics for Music Librarians,” Fontis Artis Musicae 32 (January 1985): 69-75. One of the very few recent citation studies in the performing arts is Lois Kuyper-Rushing’s “Identifying Uniform Core Journals for Music Libraries: A Citation Study,” College and Research Libraries 60 (March 1999): 153-63. 

Mary Kay Duggan stressed the music scholar’s need for information in diverse formats in “Electronic Information and Applications in Musicology and Music Theory,” Library Trends 40 (Spring 1992): 756-80. The number of electronic resources now available to musicologists and other scholars of the performing arts would suggest that they are adopting the new information technologies. The next few years will undoubtedly yield new studies of users in the electronic environment. 

Computers in the performing arts
Computers are being used in a variety of ways in the performing arts. As with other aspects of performing arts information, music is the field for which we have the most literature on computer use. In the field, we see computers used in musicological research and analysis, by the creative composer for writing music, and by music educators for the teaching of music. In libraries, information centers, and music archives, computers are used to search and retrieve material via online vendors, the Internet, or CD-ROM databases. And in the 1990s we saw musicians, scholars, music librarians, and music historians using the Internet as a resource for commerce, discussion groups, and electronic mail. Music librarians use computers for the same purposes as other librarians and information specialists. 

An older, though comprehensive, article on electronic information in music is Mary Kay Duggan’s “Electronic Information and Applications in Musicology and Music Theory,” Library Trends 40 (Spring 1992): 756-80. The article covers all aspects of computers in music and music librarianship, and an extensive bibliography accompanies the article. It is a good place to begin reading about electronic resources in music. 

The primary online database for music and related areas is RILM Abstracts. The counterpart to this database in print form is RILM Abstracts of Music Literature (Repertoire Internationale de Litterature Musicale). The database covers all areas of music and some other aspects of performing arts that relate to music; the coverage begins at 1969. A thesaurus is available also. RILM Abstracts is available online through FirstSearch, and the files are available on CD-ROM for the decade between 1981 and 1992. 

An invaluable source for periodical literature is Chadwyck-Healey’s International Index to Music Periodicals Full Text. On the Web at http://iimpft.chadwyck.com/ (accessed December 5, 2012), this database covers over 300 periodicals useful to the music librarian or scholar. 

Other databases of interest to the performing arts scholar are Magazine Index, Books in Print, Dissertation Abstracts Online, and ISI’s Arts and Humanities Search. All have print counterparts. H. W. Wilson’s Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature covers the general periodical literature. 

Database searches in the performing arts fields of dance, theater, television and radio, and film are usually carried out in what we might term “general” or “multidisciplinary” databases. Magill’s Survey of Cinema is the exception. 

The Internet and CD-ROM offer great potential for performing arts materials, and a number of CD-ROM products include sound and textual material together in true multimedia PC products. A good source of information about music, dance, and theater Internet sites is the Library of Congress Performing Arts Reading Room page at http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/perform (accessed December 5, 2012). 

Electronic music applications are well covered in the journal Computer Music Journal at http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/comj (accessed December 5, 2012). The site also offers copious links to organizations, publications, projects, manufacturers, and others important for research into computing in music. 

Even the earliest music forms are accessible through online databases. See, for instance, the CANTUS: A Database for Latin Ecclesiastical Chant site at http://publish.uwo.ca/~cantus/ (accessed December 5, 2012). Another unique site in music is Music in the Public Domain, which can be accessed at http://www.pdinfo.com/ (accessed December 5, 2012). As well as providing lists of music that is in the public domain, there are useful pages on copyright and other issues surrounding the use of music for performance. 

The Computer Music Association (P.O. Box 1634, San Francisco, CA 94101-1634) publishes proceedings of its conferences on the subject of computing in music. Journals to consult on the topic include Music Theory Online, Computing in Musicology, and Computers and the Humanities. Other that are available online are listed on the MIT pages referenced above. 

The Internet is such a rich source of performing arts material that we can only direct the reader to those sources that will lead elsewhere. The more limited Internet resources are especially numerous in the performing arts, and they range from sites on specific artists or particular genres to lists of companies offering hard-to-find sheet music. These resources can be found through the hundreds of music Web sites managed by the associations in the performing arts world or those maintained by garage bands and fans of particular performers. To access these, begin a search in any of the meta-indexes on performing arts and follow the links to the category of information needed. 

Major organizations, information centers, and special collections
The number of national and international organizations in the performing arts is so great that attention can only be given here to those that are most significant to the librarian. Guides to the specific fields in the performing arts will offer additional information in much greater detail, as will the many directories in print. 

The International Association of Music Libraries has branches in most developed countries. It currently sponsors the International Inventory of Music Sources/Reperetoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM), Repertoire International de Litterature Musicale (RILM), and Repertoire International d’iconographie Musicale (RIDIM). Since 1945, it has published Fontis Artis Musicae, the journal cited frequently in this chapter. The U.S. address for the IAML is c/o Lenore Coral, President, Cornell University Music Library, Lincoln Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-4101. The International Music Council (UNESCO House, 1 rue Miollis, Parris F75732, France), one of the first nongovernmental agencies established by UNESCO, studies the development of music and produces many publications. The International Musicological Society (Case Postale 56, CH-4001, Basel, Switzerland) was founded in 1927 to promote research and has published the journal Acta Musicologica since 1928. 

The Music Library Association (P.O. Box 487, Canton, MA 02021) supports a wide range of activities, including the publication of Music Cataloging Bulletin and, since 1943, Notes. Music Library Association activites may be followed on the Web at http://www.musiclibraryassoc.org (accessed December 6, 2012).  

The Association for Recorded Sound Collections (P.O. Box 75082, Washington, DC 20013) was founded in 1966 and includes in its membership people in the recording and broadcasting industries as well as librarians in the performing arts. It publishes ARSC Journal and ARSC Bulletin. The Music Educators National Conference (1902 Association Dr., Reston, VA 20091) was founded in 1902 and has over 65,000 members. It publishes Music Educators’ Journal and the quarterly Journal of Research in Music Education. The American Musicological Society (201 S. 34th St., Philadelphia, PA 19140) publishes Journal of the American Musicological Society and periodic lists of theses and dissertations in the field. An index to the dissertations is available on the Web at http://www.chmtl.indiana.edu/research/e-projects.shtml (accessed August 19, 2013). The American Symphony Orchestra League (777 14th St. NW, Ste. 500, Washington, DC 20005) was founded in 1942 and has a library pertaining to all aspects of the symphony orchestra. The American Guild of Organists (475 Riverside Dr., #1260, New York, NY 10115) is one of the many specialized groups. Like many others, it publishes a monthly journal, Music/AGORCCO, as well as a journal, The American Organist. 

Music industry statistics are published annually by the American Music Conference (5790 Armada Dr., Carlsbad, CA 92008). The Conference has a Web site at http://www.nammfoundation.org/ (accessed December 6, 2012) that provides links to pages on topics such as musical equipment, hardware and software for music applications, publications, and the like. 

By contrast, the number of organizations devoted to dance is small; those that do exist seem to be largely concentrated in the areas of ballet and the teaching of dance. The Ballet Theatre Foundation (890 Broadway, New York, NY 10003) appeals to a broad audience for support and publishes Ballet Theatre Newsletter. The Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (Imperial House, 22-26 Paul St., London, UK EC2A 4QE) has a branch in the United States (4338 Battery Lane, Bethesda, MD 20814). The Society publishes a bimonthly, Imperial Dance Letter. The Dance Educators of America and Dance Masters of America both consist of dance teachers and have regional groups that supplement the activities of the national groups. The Dance Educators can be reached at P.O. Box 607, Pelham, NY 10803, and the Dance Masters at 12 Lucille Dr., Shelton, CT 06484. 

The International Foundation for Theatre Research (Department of French, University of Lancaster, Lancaster, UK) disseminates scholarly information through Theatre Research International. The American Society for Theatre Research http://www.astr.org/ (accessed December 10, 2012) issues a newsletter and the semiannual publication Theatre Survey. The International Theatre Institute, established in 1948, has a branch in the United States (47 Great Jones St., New York, NY 10012) and publishes Theatre Notes and International Theatre Information. 

The Theatre Library Association (TLA) includes not only librarians but also actors, booksellers, writers, and researchers in its membership. Located in New York (Shubert Archive, 149 W. 45th St., New York, NY 10036), the Association publishes Broadside, a newsletter focusing on performing arts collections, and an annual, Performing Arts Resources. TLA also has undertaken other publishing projects, especially notable ones in the preservation and historical areas. 

The University Film and Video Association (Chapman University, School of Film and Television, 333 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866), publisher of a journal and digest, was formerly the University Film Association. Film Society Bulletin and Film Critic are published by the American Federation of Film Societies (3 Washington Square Village, New York, NY 10012). The American Film Institute (John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC 20566) supports a wide range of archival, research, and production activities. Publications have included American Film and Guide to College Courses in Film and Television. The Federation of Motion Picture Councils publishes Motion Picture Rating Preview Reports. The American Film and Video Association (920 Barnsdale Rd., #152, LaGrange, IL 60525) evaluates books and films and publishes AFVA Evaluations, Sightlines, and AFVA Bulletin. 

Because music publishing often occurs outside the usual trade channels, two associations offer information about publishers of music. The National Music Publishers’ Association, founded in 1917, was originally established as the Music Publishers Protective Association. Its focus is the publishing of popular music. The address is 40 Wall St, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10005-1344. The Music Publishers’ Association of the United States, also located in New York, is concerned with serious and educational music publishing. Its communication vehicle is MPA Press. The Association maintains a Web page that has many helpful links, including copyright information resources, important for performing artists, composers, and others in the creative fields, at http://www.mpa.org (accessed December 10, 2012).  

The American Composers’ Alliance (802 W. 190th St. Suite 1B, New York, NY 10040) was founded in 1937. It publishes its Catalogues of new music and works for the protection of the rights of its members. 

The Committee on Research in Dance (New York University, Dept. of Dance Education, 35 W. 4th St., New York, NY 10003) serves as a clearinghouse for research information in the field. 

The Wisconsin Center for Theater Research (University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706) concentrates on the performing arts in America. The Institute of Outdoor Drama (East Carolina University, College of Fine Arts and Communication, 201 Erwin Building, Mail Stop 528, Greenville, NC 27858-4353) provides an advisory and consultation services as well as bibliographic information on the specialty and a newsletter.

The most outstanding music collection in the United States is at the Library of Congress, which benefits from copyright deposit. The Music Division, established in 1897, has issued numerous catalogs, several of which are listed elsewhere in this book. Another notable collection is found in the Music Division of the Research Library of the Performing Arts in Lincoln Center (part of the New York Public Library). Music from the twelfth to eighteenth centuries is a speciality of the Isham Memorial Library of Harvard University, while primary sources in early opera scores and librettos are a strength of the University of California Music Library in Berkeley. The Center for Research Libraries has several microform collections of research materials. In Europe, the Austrian National Library (Vienna), the Royal Library of Belgium (Brussels), the Biblioteque Nationale (Paris), the Deutsche Staatsbibliolthek (Berlin), the British Museum (London), the Bibliotecha Nazionale Centrale (Florence), and the Vatican Library (Rome) all have outstanding collections.

The Dance Collection in the Research Library of the Performing Arts (New York Public Library) includes photographs, scores, programs, prints, posters, and playbills, as well as instruction manuals and other literature on the dance. The Archives of Dance, Music and Theatre (University of Florida Libraries) contains about 20,000 similar memorabilia related to the performing arts in the twentieth century.

The Theater Arts Library (University of California at Los Angeles) has screenplays and pictures in addition to the general collection of English- and foreign-language books on film. The Harvard Theatre Collection (Houghton Library) has rare letters, account books, diaries, drawings, promptbooks and playbills from the United States, Great Britain, and continental Europe. Similar materials relating to British and American theater from 1875 to 1935 (especially the Chicago Little Theatre Movement, 1912-1917) are found in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Michigan. The Theatre Collection in the Research Library of the Performing Arts (New York Public Library) is one of the most notable anywhere. Bibliographic access is provided through its published catalog. The Library of Philadelphia has over 1.2 million items relating to the theater, early circuses, and minstrel and vaudeville shows.

The Library of Congress has several notable film collections, including those received on copyright deposit. The Dell Publishing Company has a collection of over 3.5 million pictures dealing with movie and television personalities.

This is only a small sampling of the performing arts collection in the United States and Europe that contain specialized information in a rich diversity of formats. Ash’s directory and specialized guides to the different areas of performing arts will lead the reader to ample numbers of other libraries, information centers, and archives.

The World Wide Web offers a wealth of information on the performing arts. This should not be overlooked by the researcher beginning a search on associations, special collections, or art societies. The sources listed below provide links to other resources and are worth the reader’s perusal. (All were accessed on December 10, 2012.) For musicology societies and organizations, and music related links, see http://web.archive.org/web/20021128030227/http://www.bishops.ntc.nf.ca/music/links.htm For community theater links, see the American Association of Community Theater site at http://www.aact.org/ For Motion Picture Association resources, check http://www.mpaa.org/ The Association has information about copyright, rating, and other issues important to the industry.

From: Blazek, Ron and Aversa, Elizabeth. Humanities: A Selective Guide to Information Sources, 5th ed. Englewood, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 2000. pp. 249-58.

Accessing information in the visual arts

Working definition of the visual arts
The term art is derived from the Latin word ars, which means skill or ability. At the time of the Italian Renaissance, the craft guilds were known as “arti” and the word “arte” denoted craftsmanship, skill, mastery of form, or inventiveness. The phrase “visual arts” serves to differentiate a group of arts that are generally nonverbal in character and that communicate by means of symbols and the juxtaposition of formal elements. Michael Greenhalgh and Paul Duro suggest a definition of visual arts: “the practice of shaping material, such as wood or stone, or applying pigment to a flat or other surface, with the intention of representing an idea, experience, or emotion.” (Kenneth McLeish, ed., Key Ideas in Human Thought (New York: Facts on File, 1993), pp. 47-49) 

The representation is communicated by the creation of emotional moods and through expansion of the range of the aesthetic experience. “Beauty,” as such, is not an integral part of art, but more a matter of subjective judgement. The difficulty here is that aesthetics deals with individual taste – a subjective issue from the outset. Nevertheless, certain concepts of balance, harmony, and contrast have become a part of our way of thinking about art as a result of Greek speculation about the nature of beauty. 

Style normally refers to the whole body of work produced at a given time in history; however, there may be regional and national styles as well as one basic style for a period. In modern times, attention has even been given to the “styles” of individual artists. Style, like taste, is a subjective phenomenon. 

Iconography is the use of symbols by artists to express universal ideas; the Gothic style of architecture, for example, symbolized humanity’s reaching out toward God. On a more recent note, designers of graphical software have used “icons” to denote certain functions and messages; an example is the use of a timepiece (clock, hourglass, or wristwatch) to communicate that the user should wait and that processing is taking place. 

Major divisions of the field
The visual arts may be conveniently divided into four main groups: 1) pictorial arts, 2) plastic arts, 3) building arts, and 4) minor arts. 

The pictorial arts employ flat, two-dimensional surfaces. The term is most often applied to painting, but it can also include drawing, graphic arts, photography (including moving pictures and video), and mosaics. Painting may be done with a variety of materials: oil, tempera, water color or other media. Drawing is done most often with pencil, pen and ink, wash, crayon, pastel, or charcoal. 

The graphic arts are produced by the printing process, with three basic methods employed. Intaglio, in which the design is hollowed out of a flat surface and the ink is gathered in the hollows for transmission to the paper, is exemplified by etching or engraving. Cameo, or relief, in which the design is on a raised surface (as in woodcut, mezzotint, aquatint, or drypoint) and only the raised surface is inked, is the second method. Last is the planographic method, in which a completely flat surface is used and the design is created by using substances that will either attract or repel ink. Lithography is the term often used for this method because the flat surface was frequently made of stone. 

The pictorial arts employ one or more of three basic forms: murals, panels, or pages. Murals involve pictures directly applied to walls of buildings or painted on canvases and permanently attached to the walls. Panels are generally painted on wood or canvas; these are sometimes known as easel paintings. Pages may be illuminated manuscripts, or, more often, produced as a result of the printing process. The basic problems of the pictorial artists, regardless of the form used, include surface, design, movement, space, and form. These are commonly solved by the use of line, color, values (light and dark), and perspective. 

In the plastic arts, of which sculpture is the most obvious example, ideas are expressed by means of three-dimensional objects. This type of art is perhaps the oldest form, predating even cave painting. The materials used include stone, metal, wood, plaster, clay, or synthetics (such as plastic). Tools of the artist may include chisels, mallets, natural and chemical abstracts, and punches. The techniques used are determined primarily by the materials and tools available, and include carving, casting, modeling, or welding. The finished product may be free standing or bas-relief (part of a wall or planar surface). In sculpture, the human figure has traditionally provided the most common subject matter, although the twentieth century has seen increased use of abstraction. 

In the building arts (architecture), spaces are enclosed in such a way as to meet certain practical needs (as in schools, homes, offices, or factories) and to make some kind of symbolic statement of basic values. These values may be utilitarian and the symbolic statement very pedestrian, or they may be related to the highest aspirations of the human spirit. Factories and gasoline stations are frequently examples of the former, while Gothic cathedrals are often cited as examples of the latter. Architects design buildings of three basic types: trabeated, in which a lintel is supported by two posts; arcuated, in which arches support rounded vaults and domes; and cantilevered, in which only one post is required to support a lintel or beam. The materials used in construction will determine the type of design used. Wood is useful for trabeated construction, but brick and stone can be better adapted to the requirements of arcuated building. Structural steel and reinforced concrete make possible large scale cantilevered construction. 

The minor arts are a special group, often classified on the basis of the materials used: ceramics, glass, metals, textiles, ivory, precious gems, wood, reeds, synthetics, and the like. Ordinarily, they follow the same styles as the major art forms. The end products may be useful everyday objects such as coins, clothing, baskets, utensils, and furniture, or they may be ornamental items such as jewelry, stained glass, and many items of interior decoration. The minor arts are often referred to as “crafts,” “decorative arts,” or “collectibles,” or some combination of these terms. 

The topic of technology must be addressed as part of any discussion of the visual arts. The application of science to problem solving in all four divisions of the arts is obvious. In the discussion of the major divisions of the field, we have addressed aspects of the more traditional technologies: materials and tools. Just as the areas of sculpture and architecture have changed as new tools and materials have evolved, so too do all the visual arts change. Two good examples of where technology and art are melded are photography and computer art. The former has been around for over 100 years, while the latter is a creation of recent decades. Nonetheless, both depend heavily on technology – so much so, in fact, that it is hard to distinguish between the technology and the art, except in the final product. 

More information on the divisions of the visual arts can be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica Online article “Art” at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/630806/art (accessed November 12, 2012). This and the related articles are intended for the general reader, although they are more advanced treatments than one finds in many other encyclopedias. For briefer articles and shorter histories of various divisions of the arts, see McLeish’s Key Ideas in Human Thought (Facts on File, 1993). Entries on “Art(s), Visual” (pp. 47-49) and on Christian art (pp. 119-20), computer art (p. 149), architecture (pp. 44-45), and aesthetics (pp. 13-14) provide both introductions to the topics and suggestions for further reading. The Encyclopedia of World Art (Publishers Guild, 1959-1988) contains signed articles by experts on the various topics, and it should be consulted by the student or librarian looking for more technical, detailed encyclopedic coverage of art, its subfields, and related subjects. Finally, for histories of the visual arts, a recommended source is the Encyclopedia of Visual Art (Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation, 1989). A ten-volume set, the Encyclopedia covers the area fully, includes illustrations as well as text, and points the user to other material. An overview of the field of art history is found in Research Guide to the History of Western Art, by W. Eugene Kleinbauer and Thomas P. Slavens (American Library Association, 1982). A highly regarded guide to research methods is the recently revised Art Research Methods and Resources: A Guide to Finding Art Information, by Lois S. Jones (3d ed., Kendall/Hunt, 1990). Besides providing background material on different aspects of visual arts, both guides are also intended to help the reader find published information on the arts. The reader should access these titles in libraries because unfortunately they are now out-of-print. 

Helpful resources for students, librarians, and general readers
Unlike philosophy and religion, where conventional techniques of librarianship and library research will cover most situations, the visual arts pose several distinct problems. As a result, art, or visual art, librarianship has emerged as a specialized branch of the field. The chapter “Fine Arts” in Lester Asheim’s now-classic text, The Humanities and the Library (pp. 100-150), suggests some basic tenants that still hold. First, different types of art libraries serve differing purposes, although the subject matter in them may be similar. Museum, art school, and departmental public and university libraries serve diverse, though sometime overlapping, clienteles, and hence the institutions will have varying policies and practices in terms of management, collection development, user education, public services, and organizations. Not only librarians, but also users of the libraries will benefit from awareness of the differences and similarities. 

An article on art libraries appeared in each annual ALA Yearbook of Library and Information Services (American Library Association, 1975-1995), and each one- or two-page entry summarized the year’s developments in the field. An old, but still helpful encyclopedic treatment of art libraries and special collections is Wolfgang Freitag’s article in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science (v. 1, pp. 571-621). Philip Pacey’s A Reader in Art Librarianship (Saur, 1985) is a standard source.  

An important consideration is the different types of materials found in an art library collection. In “How to Research a Work of Art,” in Guide to Basic Information Sources in the Visual Arts (ABC-Clio, 1978; repr. 1980). Gerd Muehsam outlined several distinctive types of art catalog publications. The catalogue raisonné is defined as

a systematic, descriptive, and critical listing or catalog of all known, or documented, authentic works in one medium. Each entry aims at providing all ascertainable data on the work in question: (1) title, date, and signature, if any, as well as size and medium; (2) present location or owner or provenance (previously recorded owners and history of the work); (3) description, comments, analysis, or literary documentation; (4) bibliographical references to books and periodicals; (5) listings of exhibitions and reproductions. Usually there is also an illustration. The entries are numbered consecutively. These catalog numbers are often referred to in scholarly literature about the artist and permanently identify a particular work.

(Gerd Muehsam, Guide to Information Sources in the Visual Arts (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 1978) p. 12) 

The oeuvre catalog is similar but may omit documentation and provenance. Museum catalogs are defined as catalogs of a museum’s permanent collection; exhibition catalogs, on the other hand, include works from many museums or owner’s private collections that are brought together for a particular exhibition. Corpus catalogs attempt to do for an entire category of art what the catalogue raisonné does for an individual artist. Because of their scope, these often depend on international collaboration. 

Catalogs are first-rate sources of art information, but the researcher must understand the difficulties of bibliographic control prior to publication of the ongoing Worldwide Art Catalogue Bulletin (1963/1964- ). The subject of catalog collecting is addressed in B. Houghton and G. Varley, “A Local Approach to National Collecting: A UK Feasibility Study for the Cooperative Collection of Exhibition Catalogues,” Art Libraries Journal 14 (1989): 32-36, also addresses this special research resource. The chapter by Susan Wyngaard, “Fine Arts,” in the second edition of Humanities and the Library, edited by Nena Couch and Nancy Allen (American Library Association, 1993), covers exhibition and sales catalogs in considerable depth. Artists’ books and ephemera are also discussed in the same chapter. Finally, another approach to the use of exhibition catalogs is presented in Olivia Fitzpatrick, “Art Exhibition Catalogues: A Resource for Art Documentation,” An Leabharlaan 12 (1996): 117-20. 

Another special type of document for the art library is the so-called art book. Elizabeth Esteve-Coll discusses the medium in her provocative keynote paper, presented at the European Conference of the IFLA Art Libraries Section and published as “The Art Book: The Idea and the Reality,” Art Libraries Journal 17 (1992): 4-6. Nikos Stangos’ article addresses the issues in art book publishing in the same issue (“Art Book Publishing: Minority Issue, Popular Entertainment, or Kudos?,” pp. 31-33). 

Planning and developing visual art collections are covered from a management orientation in Nancy Shelby Schuller’s Management for Visual Resource Collections (2d ed., Libraries Unlimited, 1990). 

For the librarian, there are many sources in the journal literature on selecting and acquiring materials. The journals Art Documentation and Art Libraries Journal are the most specific to art library collection development, but Library Journal also covers art books on a regular basis. AB Bookman’s Weekly is also a good resource. 

An excellent annual source is “Annual Bibliography of Art Librarianship,” in Art Libraries Journal; it covers all aspects of practice, including collection development. 

Special materials are discussed in the following articles. Sales at auction sources are covered in C. H. Backlund, “The Cutting Edge: New Auction Sources and Computer Projects,” Art Documentation 9 (Winter 1990): 175-78; special problems with Eastern European materials are discussed in E. Kasinec and R. H. Davis, “Materials for the Study of Russian/Soviet Art and Architecture: Problems of Selection, Acquisition, and Collection Development for Research Libraries,” Art Documentation 10 (Spring 1991): 19-22; Native American art is discussed in “Balance and Harmony: Books on American Indian Art,” by D. Seaman (Booklist 90 [October 1, 1993]: 238-39); and other special items are covered in M. R. Hughston’s “Preserving the Ephemeral: New Access to Artists Files, Vertical Files, and Scrapbooks” (Art Documentation 9 [Winter 1990]: 179-81.) Archives are the subjects of Serena Kelly’s “Collecting Archives: Changes and Consequences” Art Libraries Journal 21 (1996): 30-34. Daniel Lombardo’s “Focus on Art Instruction Books,” Library Journal 116 (August 1991): 65-68, adds to the librarian’s knowledge in the area of collection development. Carla Conrad Freeman and Barbara Stevenson, eds., provide The Visual Resources Directory: Art Slide and Photograph Collections in the US and Canada (Libraries Unlimited, 1995). The topic is also addressed in various Occasional Papers issued by ARLIS/NA; see, for example “Current Issues in Fine Arts Collection Development: Occasional Paper #3.” See also “Slide Collection Management in Libraries and Information Units,” by Elizabeth O’Donnell and Maryly Snow (Visual Resources 13 [1997]: 199-203). 

Other aspects of art libraries and librarianship that are especially important include the special security problems presented by art materials, the development of art librarian and information specialists, and art library facilities. The first of these areas is discussed in Elizabeth H. Smith and Lydia P. Olszak, “Treatment of Mutilated Art Books: A Survey of Academic ARL Institutions,” Library Resources and Technical Services 41 (January 1997): 7-16. The “Profile of Fine Arts Librarianship,” in the chapter by Wyngaard referenced above, provides advice regarding qualifications and training for the field. Other articles on the visual arts library profession include Carla Conrad Freeman, “Visualizing Art: An Overview of the Visual Resources Profession in the U.S.,” Art Documentation 16 (Fall 1997): 31-34; Clive Phillpot, “The Social Role of the Art Library,” Art Documentation (Fall 1997): 25-26; and “What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Professional’ Art Librarian,” by Max Podstolski (Art Libraries Journal 21 [1996]: 4-8). Two additional works that address staffing of art libraries are “Staffing Standards for Art Libraries and Visual Resources Collections,” Art Documentation 14 (Winter 1995): 27-32, and “Criteria for the Hiring and Retention of Visual Resources Professionals,” in the same issue of Art Documentation (pp. 35-37). 

Regarding facilities, Betty Jo Irvine edited Facilities Standards for Art Libraries and Visual Resources Collections, published by Libraries Unlimited (1991) for ARLIS, the Art Libraries Society of North America. The latter includes an excellent bibliography on the subject of art and architecture library facilities (pp. 105-8). “Space Planning for the Art Library” was also the topic of ARLIS/NA Occasional Paper no. 9, published by the Society in 1991. 

In the technical areas of librarianship, two older titles dealing with the organization of materials deserve mention. The first is Carolyn Frost’s Media Access and Organization: A Cataloging and Reference Sources Guide for Nonbook Materials (Libraries Unlimited, 1989). The second is Nonprint Cataloging for Multimedia Collections, by JoAnn V. Rogers and Jerry D. Saye (2d ed., Libraries Unlimited, 1987). 

Cooperative cataloging is addressed in “The Research Libraries Group: New Initiatives to Improve Access to Art and Architecture Information,” INSPEL 32 (1998): 8-22. 

Linda McRae and Lynda S. White edited the ArtMARC Sourcebook : Cataloging Art, Architecture and Their Visual Images (ALA, 1998), and Janet Stanley also addresses the organization of art materials in “Reference Librarian As Cataloger: Analytical Indexing As Front-End Reference,” Art Documentation 14 (Winter 1995): 7-9. 

Use and users of art information
Users of visual arts information can be categorized as art professionals (art historians, artists, art educators, critics, curators, and architects); students of the visual arts who are enrolled in art schools, colleges and universities, and secondary schools; and the interested public (museum goers, collectors, and others for whom art is a hobby or avocation). The article “Art Libraries and Collections,” in the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, cited above, covers the myriad needs of visual art information users. 

Interest in use and users of art materials is not a new phenomenon: An early article on use of art materials was “The Use of Art Books,” by Katherine Patten (Bulletin of the American Library Association 1 [July 1907]: 183). More recent works include Philip Pacey’s enduring contribution, “How Art Students Use Libraries—If They Do,” Art Libraries Journal 7 (Spring 1982): 33-38, and Deidre Corcoran Stam’s “How Art Historians Look for Information,” Art Documentation 3 (Winter 1984): 117-19 (reprinted in 16 [Fall 1997]: 27-30). Stam’s contributions in this area have continued with “Tracking Art Historians: Information Needs and Information Seeking Behavior,” Art Libraries Journal 14 (Fall 1989): 13-16. The latter article describes three prevalent methods for generating data on information needs: bibliometric tracking, autobiographical methods or participant observation, and user studies. Stam more recently presented “Artists and Art Libraries,” Art Libraries Journal 20 (1995): 21-24. 

Several chapters in Kusnerz’s The Architecture Library of the Future address user needs. See especially Kurt Brandle, “What Do Researches Want from the Architecture Library?” (pp. 21-26) and Hemalata Dandekar, “What Do Planners Want? What Do Planners Need?” (pp. 27-34). 

The Getty Art History Information Project investigated information-seeking practices of art historians and published several reports between 1988 and the mid-1980s. See Chapter 1 of this guide for citations to articles based on the reports. 

J. Cullars has investigated citation practices in the arts and has published “Citation Characteristics of Monographs in the Fine Arts,” Library Quarterly 62 (July 1992): 325-42. Cullars is referenced elsewhere in this volume for other citation studies in the humanities. A more recent study on users is Susie Cobbledick’s “The Information-Seeking-Seeking Behavior of Artists: Exploratory Interviews,” The Library Quarterly 66 (October 1996): 343-72. 

Despite the increase in use and user studies over the past decade, more information is needed, especially about users other than art historians and users of other than traditional print materials. The next decade may see expansion of our present definition of use and user studies, and the use of electronic resources will likely be the focus of such studies. 

Computers in the visual arts
The literature of computer applications in the visual arts is large and continues to expand rapidly. The computer is used in a wide variety of ways, from computer assisted design in architecture to computer graphics and computerized information retrieval in museums and libraries. As with all disciplines in the humanities, the visual arts area has been changed by the advent of the World Wide Web. A perfect medium for visual arts information, especially graphical in nature, the Web opens the door to new and expanded research possibilities for the future visual arts scholar. 

The historical development of computer applications in art can be traced by referring to several review sources. The Annual Review of Information Science and Technology is a good starting point. “Information Systems and Services in the Humanities,” by Joseph Raben and Sarah K. Burton, covers arts information systems through 1980 (ASIS, 1981, v. 16, pp. 254-56), and the review entitled “Visual Arts Resources and Computers,” by Karen Markey, (ASIS, 1984, v. 19, pp. 271-309) is specifically directed at the visual arts and brings the reader up to the middle of the 1980s. Jasia Rerichardt’s The Computer In Art (Van Norstand, 1971) is of historical interest. 

R. Skinner’s “Networking from the Ground Up: Implementing Macintosh Networks in a Newly Constructed Arts Library,” in Library LANs, describes a system at Southern Methodist University (Mecker, 1992, pp. 50-62).  

Information technology and its applications in architecture libraries are discussed in Part 2, “Information Resources in the Architecture Library,” in Kusnerz’s The Architecture Library of the Future, referenced above. 

“Bringing Art Museum Images to the Classroom and Desktop,” in RLG News 46 (Spring 1998): 3-6, is just one article on accessing images in the arts. 

The number of online and CD-ROM resources in the visual arts continues to grow, but, as noted above, the literature in this areas has recently focused on Internet resources and access rather than on the “how to search” articles that were typical some years ago. 

Among the most important bibliographic databases is Art Literature International (International Repertory of the Literature of Art), which includes all entries in the print RILA database since 1975. Art Literature International covers all aspects of Western art from late antiquity to the present. RILA’s contents were merged with that of Repertoire d’Art et d’Archeologie to form the newly titled Bibliography of the History of Art (J. Paul Getty Trust, 1991-- ). The Repertoire d’Art et d’Archeologie was produced from 1910 through 1990 in Paris by the Centre de Documentation Sciences Humaines. 

ARTbibliographies Modern (entry 327), another online bibliographic file, covers nineteenth- and twentieth-century art and design, as well as nineteenth-century themes begun in the eighteenth century. Updated semiannually, the database covers the literature from 1974 on. It is produced by ABC-Clio. 

Two online files in architecture are available on DIALOG Information Services: Architecture Database and the Avery Architecture Index. The former is provided by the British Architectural Library at the Royal Institute of British Architects and comprises records from the Architectural Periodicals Index (from 1978 on) and the Architectural Book Catalog (1984 to the present). The Avery Architecture Index is produced at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library of Columbia University. It is part of the Getty Art History Information Program, and utilizes terms from the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, also sponsored by the Getty. All areas of architecture, including technical aspects, are included in the database, which covers from 1979 to the present. 

Sales catalogs are indexed in the SCIPIO (Sales Catalog Index Project Input Online), a tool that leads the user to libraries holding particular sales catalogs. Like the Avery Index, this tool has been sponsored by the Getty Art Information Project. 

H. W. Wilson’s Art Index (available in print, online, and on CD-ROM) continues to be one of the most used databases in fine arts. Available in machine readable form from 1984, Art Index serves as a good starting point for searching art periodicals and museum publications. Although it does include foreign-language materials, its scope and coverage will seem limited to the most scholarly art historian because of the omission of valuable art history materials such as books, theses, and dissertations. 

There are many articles that will lead the reader to additional online, CD-ROM, and Internet resources in the visual arts. 

The growth in the field of visual arts is rapid even when compared to the explosive growth of the Internet as a whole. Not only do we have text and resource-finding tools available, but a variety of image files are now accessible through the Internet. 

Print materials to help the reader access Internet resources abound in the literature, so only a few are cited here. The following should get the reader started: 

1. Jeanne M. Brown, “Architecture Reference Sites on the Internet,” Reference Librarian 57 (1997): 147-51.
2. Barbara Q. Prior, “Art and Architecture Databases on the Internet,” Reference Services Review 24 (Fall 1996): 81-96.
3. Jennifer Trant, “Images on the Internet: Issues and Opportunities,” ACLS Newsletter 4 (February 1997): 6-8.
4. J. Griffin, “Fine Art on Multimedia CD-ROM and the Web,” Computers in Libraries 17 (April 1997): 63-67.
5. Martin Kalfatovic, “Internet Resources in the Visual Arts,” College and Research Libraries News 57 (May 1996): 289-93.
6. Lois Swan Jones, Art Information on the Internet: How to Find It, How to Use It (Oryx Press, 1998). 

Finally, for the art librarian, “Content Guidelines for Art Museum Library Web Pages,” Art Documentation 16 (Fall 1997): 44-50, by Polly Trump, is an excellent feature with a bibliography. 

Major art organizations and special collections in visual arts
At the international level, much of the impetus for the collection and dissemination of art information has come from projects aided by UNESCO. For example, since 1949 UNESCO and its national commissions have worked with art publishers to establish a central archives service of art reproductions. In this undertaking, UNESCO had the assistance of International Council of Museums. Other organizations that have been active on the international scene include the Artists International Association, International Association of Art Critics, and the International Union of Artitects (33, avenue du Maine 75755 PARIS Cedex 15 – France). 

Another major influence in the area of art information is the Getty Trust, of which the Art History Information Program, the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, and of course, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California, are part. The main address is The Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90049. Projects are as diverse as Art and Architecture Thesaurus, the Census of Antique Art and Architecture Known to the Renaissance, and others based at various locations in the United States and abroad, are all supported by the Getty organizations. The J. Paul Getty Trust public affairs office is located at 1875 Century Park East, Ste. 2300, Los Angeles, CA 90067. The research institute is properly cited as The Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, and its URL is http://www.getty.edu/gri/ (accessed November 19, 2012). 

Within the United States, the variety of national, regional, and state organizations concerned with art information is too large for an exhaustive listing, but several national organizations should be mentioned. The American Federation of Art (305 E 47th St # 10, New York, NY 10017) was founded in 1909 to broaden public art appreciation, especially in areas of the country not served by large museums. Its membership includes 500 art institutions and 3,000 individuals. The program of the organization includes circulating museum collections and preparing curricula on visual arts education. The Federation advises on the publication of the American Art Directory, Sources of Films on Art, and Who’s Who in American Art. 

The National Art Education Association (1806 Robert Fulton Drive, Suite 300, Reston, VA 20191) was founded in 1947 to promote the study of the problems of teaching art as well as to encourage research and experimentation in the visual arts. Affiliated with the National Education Association, the National Art Education Association has 8,000 art teachers, supervisors, and students as members. It publishes NAEA News and the journal Art Education. 

Other national organizations include the American Association of Museums (1575 I Street NW, Washington, DC 20005), the College Art Association (50 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004), and the American Arts Alliance (805 15th St. N.W., Ste. 500, Washington, DC 20004). There is also the American Arts Association. The first two associations publish, respectively, Museum News and Advisory CAA Reviews, The Art Bulletin, and Art Journal. 

Of special interest to librarians and information specialists are The Arts Library Society, with headquarters in Bromsgrove, United Kingdom, which publishes Art Libraries Journal, and its American counterpart, Art Libraries Society/North America (401 Lake Boone Trail, Ste. 201, Raleigh, NC 27607), publisher of Art Documentation. ARLIS/NA celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1997; its history is chronicled by notable author Wolfgang M. Freitag in “ARLIS/NA at Twenty-five—A Reminiscence,” Art Documentation 16 (Fall 1997): 15-19. 

The Museums, Arts, and Humanities division of Special Libraries Association (SLA) was established in 1929 (as the Museum Group) and is now the fifth-largest SLA division, with over 1,000 members. SLA is located at 331 South Patrick Street Alexandria, VA 22314-3501. The American Society for Information Science (ASIS) (8720 Georgia Ave., Ste. 501, Silver Spring, MD 20910) also has a special interest group (SIG) on Arts and Humanities. According to the 1994 directory of ASIS, members of the SIG are “interested in retrieval of text, images, sound and humanistic implications of information technology.” There is also the Association of Architectural Librarians (1735 New York Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20006), which publishes a newsletter for the membership. 

There are also many special associations that will have information for the interested librarian or information specialist. General directories will give the particulars on organizations like the Glass Art Society, the Handweavers Guild of America, the National Sculpture Society, the National Watercolor Society, the American Pewter Guild, and the Art Dealers Association of America, to name just a few. Most also now maintain Web pages. 

Collections in the fine arts are numerous and can be found in public, academic, and special libraries. Examples of public library collections of note include the Art and Architecture Division of the New York Public Library and the Fine Arts Library of the Westminster City Libraries (United Kingdom). Among university libraries we have the Avery Architectural Library at Columbia University (New York), the Fine Arts Library of Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts), and the Marquand Library of Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey). 

Other notable U.S. library collections include the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library in Washington, D.C., The Frick Art Reference Library in New York, the libraries of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C. Of course, the Smithsonian Institutions in Washington, D.C., of which the Archive of American Art is a part, offer extensive resources on site and on the Web. 

Art Information: Research Methods and Resources, by Lois Swan Jones (Kendall/Hunt, 1990) has a section on research centers that should be consulted for other library and research collections. Subject Collections, by Lee Ash (7th ed., R. R. Bowker, 1993), is also a valuable source of information on special resources.

Visual arts selected resources

Supplementary reading
“Art” Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2004. http://go.grolier.com

Print titles
History of Art (print-only)
http://web.archive.org/web/20040629034656/http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/find/guides/guideDisplay.cfm?guideID=83
University of Winnipeg guide.

Online guides
History of Art http://web.archive.org/web/20070408194610/http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/find/guides/guideDisplay.cfm?guideID=173
U of W guide.

James A. Gibson Library, Brock University. Research a Topic in Visual Arts on the Web. http://web.archive.org/web/20050909111027/http://www.brocku.ca/library/subres/guide.php?id=103

Saskatoon Public Library. Fine & Performing Arts http://web.archive.org/web/20041019072923/http://publib.saskatoon.sk.ca/finearts.html

Winnipeg Public Library. Visual Arts Links http://wpl.winnipeg.ca/library/onlineresources/internet/arts.asp

Selected reference sources: performing arts
Supplementary reading
“Dance.” Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 2012. Encyclopedia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/150714/dance

“Music.” Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 2012. Encyclopedia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/398918/music

“Opera.” Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 2012. Encyclopedia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/429776/opera

“Theatre.” Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 2012. Encyclopedia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/590186/theatre

Print titles in RRC library reference
Halliwell’s Who’s Who in the Movies. 15th ed. rev. and updated. New York: Harper, 2003. PN 1993.45 .H3 2003

Sterling, Christopher H., ed. The Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Radio. 3 vols. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004. TK 6544 .M84 2004

Online guides
Indiana University William and Gayle Cook Music Library Worldwide Internet Music Resources http://www.music.indiana.edu/music_resources/

Ingalls, Nell and Cris Sakalas. Music on & off the Web: A Suite of Handouts http://web.archive.org/web/20070210220919/http://www.sls.lib.il.us/reference/workshop/suite1.html

Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators: Performing Arts: Dance, Music and Drama http://web.archive.org/web/20030608192441/http://www.school.discovery.com/schrockguide/arts/artp.html

King, Valerie. The Internet as a Music Research and Reference Tool http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/projects/OLA2003/music-ref/musicpresentation_files/frame.htm
PowerPoints of presentation given at Oregon Library Association Conference, 2003.

Louisiana State University Library Music Resources: Music Webiolography http://www.lib.lsu.edu/hum/music/musiccontents.html

UCLA. Library. Selected Internet Resources in Television. http://guides.library.ucla.edu/content.php?pid=22853&sid=1073141

U of BC Library. Subject Resources for Film. http://toby.library.ubc.ca/subjects/subjpage1.cfm?id=542

U of Winnipeg Library. Theatre and Drama. http://web.archive.org/web/20060519203342/http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/find/guides/guideDisplay.cfm?guideID=74

Winnipeg Public Library. Film, Television & Theatre Links. http://wpl.winnipeg.ca/library/onlineresources/internet/filmtv.asp

Winnipeg Public Library. Music Links. http://wpl.winnipeg.ca/library/onlineresources/internet/music.asp

York University Library. Pathfinder for Resources in Dance http://researchguides.library.yorku.ca/dance?hs=a