Art & Architecture Library

It's always gratifying to see a new monograph published about an item(s) that we've acquired for our Locked Stacks. The new MIT Press book Utopie: Texts and Projects, 1967-1978, for example, discusses the Parisian architectural group Utopie, whose main journal we purchased a few years ago. As is the way of a good research library, primary and secondary sources mingle together in the collection, offering different, and complementary, research experiences.

The Image Permanence Institute at the Rochester Institute of Technology has recently created an online print study collection that allows visitors to learn about and compare print processes ranging from intaglio lithography to ink jet. Print identification can be a tricky task, and the only way to truly gain proficiency is to spend lots of time with lots of prints. This study set is a way of approximating some of that experience by allowing for side-by-side comparisons, inspection at different light angles, and zoom to almost microscopic levels. The "Take a Guided Tour of this Print" tool includes annotations that point out identifying characteristics of the process as well as idiosyncrasies specific to that print.

The Art & Architecture Library holds two print study collections in its Locked Stacks that allow for physical, rather than computer-based, inspection: the Photographic Print Sample Set. No. 1 from the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works and Contemporary Photography: Digital Prints: Sample Set from the Collaborative Workshop in Photograph Conservation at the University of Delaware.

Staff at the Art & Architecture Library are very used to seeing the twenty-one volumes of the Napoleonic work Description de l'Égypte, as their immense red slipcases populate numerous shelves of the Locked Stacks. However, it has been quite awhile since a patron has requested to see these volumes--so it was a treat when a visiting scholar wanted to look at all of the plate volumes earlier this week. Here are the books awaiting use in our reading room:

The International School of Information Science, an institute at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, maintains a Web site that describes the work and presents it in a digitized format. It's no replacement for the real thing, but it does weigh less!

If you'd like to get notified of new additions to the Art Library's (or any library at Stanford, for that matter) collections on a topic of interest to you, one easy way is to set up an RSS feed for a specific SearchWorks search. You'll need: (1) some search terms; (2) a feed reader (I used Google Reader).

For example, to be notified when new artists' books are added to our collection (provided they're given the subject term "Artists' books"), follow these steps:

Search for "artists' books" in the Subject field, and then limit your location to the Art Library.

Copy the URL of the search results. Make sure that there is an "http://" at the beginning of the address; if there isn't, add one.

Go to your reader and click the "subscribe" button. Paste the SearchWorks link in the address line.

The feed will now appear in your RSS list. You may want to create several SearchWorks search feeds, so the generic name of "SearchWorks (SULAIR) Search Results" won't do. To rename your subscription, go to Feed Settings.

Finally, rename the feed with a more descriptive title.

Thanks to Ray Heigemeir and his inspirational Music Library blog post!

An article in The Guardian from September asks some intriguing questions about how photographs (particularly the snapshot or news-photo sort) can gain meaning beyond their original contexts, and how they, every so often, make the transition from document to art. And what an interesting reference to Pieter Breugel's Fall of Icarus.

Photograph: Thomas Hoepker/Magnum

This slide show on The Atlantic's website is a treat! For more about transit maps, see Transit Maps of the World, by Mark Ovenden (who also wrote a book about the Paris Metro). And to learn more about the most iconic transit map of them all, the London Tube map, see Underground Maps after Beck.

Some time ago I wrote about our project to reevaluate the reference section in our reading room. It is still a work in progress, but here are some highlights of the process:

(1) We're adding more and more introductory surveys to the reference collection in order to make it, at least to some degree, a browseable starting point for research.
(2) We're adding compilations of source texts, such as the Art in Theory anthologies--again, for useful browseability.
(3) We're removing (i.e., sending to the stacks) outdated titles and sources that are arcane enough not to be needed for quick reference (with apologies to the Royal Scottish Academy!).
(4) We're removing most bibliographies devoted to specific artists or subjects.

And here is a rather satisfying before and after shot....

More images to come!

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/pollock-physics/
http://physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v64/i6/p31_s1

While it's fairly likely that the record for the world's largest indoor photo is not something any of us wonders about very often, it is nice to know that the record-breaking photo is of a library--namely, the Philosophical Library at Strahov Monastery, Prague. The image's resolution is 40 gigapixels (40 billion pixels); according to 360 Cities, the organization that created the image, it would measure 23 meters x 12 meters if printed at a "normal photographic resolution" (ed: rather a vague phrase, but still a fun fact). Composed of 2,947 separate photos, the stitched-together image allows for remarkable zoom-in--for inspection of individual books' spines--and panorama--for a single view of the entire ceiling.

See the photo here: http://www.360cities.net/gigapixel/strahov-library.html.

The Berg Fashion Library, a searchable database of Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion entries, ebooks, and images is now available to Stanford-affiliated users! Images from the Victoria and Albert's Fashion Collection are included. Soon to be added: Classic and Modern Writings on Fashion.

You may have noticed that our reference collection has become a bit overstuffed in spots:

It is for this reason and others that we are currently reevaluating the reference section, book by book, to try and make it leaner and more relevant to our patrons. We started with the architecture section:

We used slips to track our impressions of the books: Okay to move to the stacks? Better source available? New edition available? Send to SAL3? We left the keepers slip-less.

Stay tuned for the result!

Here is an amusing set of images, reblogged from an ambitious project collapsing: the back covers of three Ed Ruscha books.

Thirty Four Parking Lots in Los Angeles

Every Building on the Sunset Strip

Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass

[Image © Bedford Gallery]

The Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, CA is currently showing the exhibition Unbound, which features a large selection of artists' books from around the country. Notable artists include Jina Valentine (MFA 2009), Susannah Hays and Charles Hobson (both of whose archives are housed at Stanford), and Gail Wight (Associate Professor of Art).

Read a description of the show here, and view a slideshow of the installation here.

The Judd Foundation has just completed a remarkable project: cataloging and photographing all of Donald Judd's personal library. Were access available solely by traditional searching methods (keywords, call number [Dewey], title, etc.), this project would certainly have been very useful for researchers wishing to gain a sense of Judd's literary environment. However, the Foundation has taken the concept of access a step further: visitors to the site can view the collection's floor plan and--most excitingly--by navigating through photographs of the books on their actual shelves, in the order in which Judd placed them.

The BBC has produced a fascinating documentary entitled The Machine that Made Us which traces the history and use of the fifteenth-century Gutenberg Press. The British actor Stephen Fry investigates how the press itself was built and used; he also learns of the contemporary politics surrounding its creation.

See the documentary here: http://www.dontpressme.com/video/gutenberg.html.

And access lots of contextual information here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/medieval/gutenberg.shtml. The video itself is not viewable to American audiences on the BBC site.

The British Library's online versions of the Gutenberg Bible itself reside here: http://www.bl.uk/treasures/gutenberg/homepage.html.

1. The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci (1497)
2. The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli (1484)
3. The Anatomy Lesson by Rembrandt van Rijn (1632)
4. Henry VIII of England by Hans Holbein the Younger (1536)
5. Girl in a Turban by Johannes Vermeer (1660-5)
6. The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault (1819)
7. The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David (1793)
8. Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes (detail: The Creation of Adam) by Michelangelo (1508-12)
9. The Son of Man by Rene Magritte (1964)
10. Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue by Piet Mondrian (1921)
11. Self-Portrait by Frieda Kahlo (1940)
12. Portrait of Dora Maar by Pablo Picasso (1937)
13. The Scream by Edvard Munch (1893)
14. Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear by Vincent Van Gogh (1889)
15. Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol (1967)
16. Gabriel d'Estrees and Her Sister by unknown painter (c. 1595)
17. Madonna of the Holy Trinity (Madonna and Child) by Cimabue (c. 1260-80)
18.Salome Receives the Head of St. John the Baptist by Caravaggio (1607-10)
19. Olympia by Edouard Manet (1863-65)
20. Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix (1830)
21. Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden by Otto Dix (1926)
22. The Kiss by Gustav Klimt (1907-08)
23. La Mariée by Marc Chagall (1950)
24. Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez (1656)
25. Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh (c. 1888)

A page with a host of useful links:
http://www.collegeart.org/ip/

Looking for a really quiet space to study?

Want to reserve a room for planning group projects?

Need a space where you can quiz each other prior to finals?

The room on the basement floor of the Art Stacks (formerly known as the Rare Book Room) is now available as a reservable study/discussion/seminar space. When not reserved, the Study Room may be used as an open study area. Enjoy!

Katie and I just returned from Indianapolis, where we attended the ARLIS/NA 37th Annual Conference.
Lots of good ideas and impressive projects; here are just a few notes (more to come).

• BHA to become IBA:
  The Bibliography of the History of Art, published by the Getty Research Institute, has parted ways with its French partner the Institut de l’Information Scientifique et Technique du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. The result: among other things, a name change, to the International Bibliography of Art. More importantly, updates to the database that had not occurred for a year will soon be made (and will include the year's backlog).

• What is "Visual Literacy," and how can an art library/visual resources center help contribute to its development in students of all disciplines?
  This was the general inquiry that inspired the conference session "Visual Literacy: What, Why, How?" Here is a reasonable-sounding definition.: http://www.ivla.org/org_what_vis_lit.htm Ian McDermott, Assistant Librarian at the Yale Center for British Art and one of the session's speakers, breaks the goals of Visual Literacy down into three components: discovery, interpretation, and use.

  Discovery: through use of tools such as the ones he presents in his research guide: http://guides.library.yale.edu/findimages

  Interpretation: Here is a great example of interpretation that isn't limited to the realm of art history: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shaw/reading-the-pictures-embo_b_1....

  Use: Ian's research guide includes a good section on this topic. At the conference he also presented this terrific voicethread presentation (see description of "voicethread" below): http://clc.yale.edu/tools/visual-literacy-tools/.

• Some interesting Web 2.0 tools:

  http://www.cooliris.com/
  Image management is as important as image discovery. This is a fairly compelling tool (at least visually).

  http://voicethread.com/about/
  I'm especially excited about how this program could assist in bibliographic instruction.

  http://tineye.com/faq
  I'm not sure yet if and when I would use this reverse image search engine in my daily work, but it does reveal really interesting trails of image use across cyberspace.

  http://www.blist.com/
  A blist is, apparently, a Web list. This set of widgets allows users to create online lists and forms and tables and tallies, and then to post them online wherever they wish.

  http://www.eurekster.com/
  A swicki is, according to the Eurekster Web site, a "customized search portal for your website or blog." Perhaps worth exploring.