A slide library is a library that houses a collection of photographic slides, either as a part of a larger library or photo archive, or standing alone within a larger organization, such as an academic department of a college or university, a museum, or a corporation. Typically, a "slide library" contains slides depicting artwork, architecture, or cultural objects, and is typically used for the study, teaching, and documentation of art history, architectural history, and visual culture. Other academic disciplines, such as biology and other sciences, also maintain image collections akin to slide libraries. Corporations may also have image libraries to maintain and document their publications and history. Increasingly, these types of libraries are known as "Visual Resources Collections," as they may be responsible for all "visual" materials for the study of a subject and include still and moving images in a variety of physical and virtual formats. They may contain:
The Frick Collection is an art museum on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. Established in 1935 to preserve the art collection of the industrialist Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919), the museum consists of European paintings from the 14th to the 19th centuries, as well as European fine and decorative arts. The museum is located at the Henry Clay Frick House, a Beaux-Arts mansion designed for Henry Clay Frick. The Frick also houses the Frick Art Reference Library, an art history research center established by Frick's daughter Helen Clay Frick in 1920, which contains sales catalogs, books, periodicals, and photographs.
Artstor is a nonprofit organization that builds and distributes the Digital Library, an online resource of more than 2.5 million images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences, and Shared Shelf, a Web-based cataloging and image management software service that allows institutions to catalog, edit, store, and share local collections.
The Frick Art Reference Library is the research arm of the Frick Collection. It is typically located at 10 East 71st Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. As of 2021, the library's reference services have temporarily relocated to 945 Madison Avenue.
Helen Clay Frick was an American philanthropist and art collector. She was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the third child of the coke and steel magnate Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) and his wife, Adelaide Howard Childs (1859–1931). Two of her siblings did not reach adulthood, and her father played favorites with his two surviving children, Childs Frick (1883–1965) and Helen. After the reading of their father's will, which favored Helen, the brother and sister were estranged for the rest of their lives.
The Getty Vocabulary Program is a department within the Getty Research Institute at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California. It produces and maintains the Getty controlled vocabulary databases, Art and Architecture Thesaurus, Union List of Artist Names, and Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names. They are compliant with ISO and NISO standards for thesaurus construction. The Getty vocabularies are the premiere references for categorizing works of art, architecture, material culture, and the names of artists, architects, and geographic names. They have been the life work of many people and continue to be critical contributions to cultural heritage information management and documentation. They contain terms, names, and other information about people, places, things, and concepts relating to art, architecture, and material culture. They can be accessed online free of charge on the Getty website.
United States copyright registrations, renewals, and other catalog entries since 1978 are published online at the United States Copyright Office website. Entries prior to 1978 are not published in the online catalog. Copyright registrations and renewals after 1890 were formerly published in semi-annual softcover catalogs called The Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) or Copyright Catalog, or were published in microfiche.
The New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC) consists of the research libraries of three leading art museums in New York City: The Brooklyn Museum, The Frick Collection, and The Museum of Modern Art. With funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, NYARC was formed in 2006 to facilitate collaboration that results in enhanced resources for research communities. Called a groundbreaking partnership, NYARC also provides a framework for collaboration among art research libraries.
Art historical photo archives are collections of reproductions of works of art that document paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, architecture and sometimes installation photos. They are essential resource tools for the study of art history. Image collections deepen understanding of specific objects of art and the careers of individual artists as they also provide the means for a comparative approach to the study of artists’ works, national schools and period styles. The documentation that accompanies the images can also reveal patterns of art collecting, art market fluctuations and the changeable nature of public opinion. Photo archives build their collections and gather documentation for the works of art they record through purchases, gifts and photography campaigns. Information about ownership, condition, attribution, and subject identification is recorded at the time of acquisition and is frequently updated.
The American Art Association was an art gallery and auction house with sales galleries, established in 1883.
The David A. Hanson Collection of the History of Photomechanical Reproduction is a collection at the Clark Art Institute Library documenting the history of the development of photography from 1826 to the early 20th century. It includes all kinds of photography as well as books and articles. It was assembled by David A. Hanson.
The Brooklyn Museum Libraries and Archives holds approximately 300,000 volumes and over 3,000 linear feet of archives related to the history of the museum and its collections. The library collections comprise books, periodicals, auction catalogs, artist and institutional files as well as special collections containing photographs, sketches, artists' books, rare books and trade catalogues. The museum archives contains institutional records, curatorial correspondence, expedition reports, and other related textual and visual records dating to the founding of the institution.
The Kandinsky Library is a library of 20th and 21st century visual arts located at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, France. It also serves as the Documentation and Research Centre of the French National Museum of Modern Art.
The documentation of cultural property is a critical aspect of collections care. As stewards of cultural property, museums collect and preserve not only objects but the research and documentation connected to those objects, in order to more effectively care for them. Documenting cultural heritage is a collaborative effort. Essentially, registrars, collection managers, conservators, and curators all contribute to the task of recording and preserving information regarding collections. There are two main types of documentation museums are responsible for: records generated in the registration process—accessions, loans, inventories, etc. and information regarding research on objects and their historical significance. Properly maintaining both types of documentation is vital to preserving cultural heritage.
Catherine Ruth Savord was a librarian and the author of several books and articles on library work. She served as president of the Special Libraries Association, the first Chief Librarian of the Frick Art Reference Library, and the head special librarian of Council on Foreign Relations.
Ethelwyn Manning was the second Chief Librarian of the Frick Art Reference Library. During World War II, she assisted the Committee of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) on Protection of Cultural Treasures in War Areas, later known as the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (MFAA).
Arthur Tooth & Sons was an art gallery founded in London, England, in 1842 by Charles Tooth (1788–1868).
Mildred Steinbach was an art historian and the fourth Chief Librarian of the Frick Art Reference Library.
Helen Sanger served as the fifth chief librarian of the Frick Art Reference Library and the institution's first Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian, a position inaugurated in 1990.
Patricia J. Barnett served as the sixth Chief Librarian and second Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian of the Frick Art Reference Library.
