Links

Introduction to Archival Organization and Description
This site, created in 1998 for The Getty Information Institute, contains introductory information about organizing and describing collections that make up the fabric of archival collections. Effectively organizing and describing these collections, a sequence of activities collectively known as "processing," is an important part of an archivist's responsibilities. These important activities require a grasp of basic archival principles and how these are applied in practice, for without the work of archivists who organize the materials and create the descriptive tools, the collections are silent. The archival principles and practices reviewed in this site, and employed by archivists, make it possible for the professional researcher and layperson alike to pursue their inquiries among the vast archival resources of our cultural heritage institutions and to discover information that would otherwise be lost from view. A physical book Introduction to Archival Organization and Description is also available from the Getty Research Institute.


Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, Inc. (ART)
Founded in 1979, the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, Inc. (ART) is a not-for-profit organization representing a diverse group of more than 330 archivists, librarians, and records managers in the New York metropolitan area. It is one of the largest local organizations of its kind in the United States with members representing more than 160 repositories. Through its monthly meetings and its Membership Guide, ART links its members to a network of colleagues and repositories and provides a forum for professional discussion and development. Site features a rich body of information including a wealth of links found at http://www.nycarchivists.org/links.html, and professional development information.


A Survey of Digital Cultural Heritage Initiatives (DCHI) and Their Sustainability Concerns Council on Library and Information Resources, 2003
A survey of North American-based digital cultural heritage initiatives (DCHIs) to identify their scope, financing, organizational structure, and sustainability. The survey, commissioned by the Council on Library and Information Resources, was a preliminary step in a larger effort aimed at developing recommendations for a coordinated strategy to sustain and strengthen digital cultural heritage initiatives and their by-products. This new report contains survey results and recommendations in a 53 page PDF document.


Archives of American Art
The Archives of American Art, founded in 1954 and a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution since 1970, provides researchers with access to the largest collection of documents on the history of the visual arts in the United States. The collection now totals more than thirteen million items, consisting of the papers of artists, dealers, critics, art historians, curators, administrators and the records of art dealers, museums, and other art-related businesses, institutions, and organizations.


Art-OMMA / Archiving: Theory and Practice
The notion of the archive and archiving and the response of artists to the methodologies instructed by these notions are the principal concerns of a current research which focuses upon the institutional archives and their curatorial potential. For this issue of Art-Omma a call was made for essays to authors whom their engagement with art is from different standpoints. All the authors have dealt with the notion of the archive and have investigated this area either through theoretic work, art practices or curatorial projects.


Archiving the Avant-Garde: Documenting and Preserving Digital / Variable Media Art
Preserving digital and variable media art, works of digital and Internet art, performance, installation, conceptual, and other variable media art represent some of the most compelling and significant artistic creations of our time. These works constitute a history of alternative artistic practice, but because of their ephemeral, technical, or otherwise variable natures, they also present significant obstacles to accurate documentation, access, and preservation. Without strategies for preservation many of these vital works— and possibly whole genres such as early Internet art— will be lost to future generations. Long term strategies must closely examine the nature of ephemeral art and identify core aspects of these works to preserve. Archiving the Avant-Garde is a project of the Conceptual and Intermedia Arts Online consortium.


Finnish National Gallery Central Art Archives
The Central Art Archives (CAA) is the custodian of primary documentation and library resources on Finnish art intended mainly for the use of art historians and scholars. The CAA also engages in research, publishing and exhibition projects related to its collections. The archives and affiliated Library of the Finnish National Gallery are based at two locations in Helsinki, in the Ateneum building and at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the latter specialising in photographic and library resources on contemporary art.


Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, is a research institute that fosters study of the production, use, and cultural meaning of art, artifacts, architecture, and urbanism, from prehistoric times to the present, founded in 1979 as part of the National Gallery of Art. The Center encourages a variety of approaches by historians, critics, and theorists of art, as well as by scholars in related disciplines of the humanities and social sciences.


Dance Heritage Coalition
Founded in 1992, the DHC was established to address problems identified by a field-wide study of the current state of preservation and documentation of American dance. The study, jointly commissioned by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, recommended that a coalition of the major dance collections be formed to facilitate communication, and promote joint programs, projects, and policy-making in order to strengthen a national dance documentation and preservation network.


Dance Notation, Documentation and Preservation
Dance and Ballet documentation, restoration, and preservation is a very exciting field. Artslynx’s website contains online resources for issues related to copyright of choreographic works, dance notation, performance history database software and other resources.


Getty Conservation Initiative
The Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) works internationally to advance the field of conservation through scientific research, field projects, education and training, and the dissemination of information in various media. The mission of the Institute is to enhance and encourage the preservation and understanding of the visual arts in all of their dimensions—objects, collections, architecture, and sites—by addressing unanswered questions, demonstrating best conservation practice, and contributing to the development of sustainable conservation solutions.


Getty Research Resources
The Getty’s website provides for a wealth of archiving, research, and resource information including AATA Online, a major database of conservation literature abstracts offered free by the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI); Project Bibliographies, a database of bibliographies produced as part of the GCI's conservation projects; Research Library, information on the holdings of the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute (GRI); and links to other conservation-related Web sites.


Groups and Spaces
Groups and Spaces is a website that also gathers information about people making art and/or working in Groups and running Spaces. This site was first launched in 2000. It lasted for 2 years and then went on extended hiatus. There were many conversations over those dormant years about relaunching the site. It has been relaunched as an extension of research currently underway for a book by Temporary Services.


Independent Media Arts Preservation, Inc. (IMAP)
Independent Media Arts Preservation, Inc. (IMAP) is a nonprofit service, education, and advocacy organization committed to the preservation of non-commercial electronic media. IMAP has grown from a New York—based consortium of arts organizations and individuals to a national resource for preservation training, information, and advocacy. IMAP’s core constituents include institutions, organizations, and individuals whose diverse media collections are underserved by existing preservation efforts. IMAP provides archivists, artists, conservators, curators, distributors, librarians, media makers, producers, registrars, scholars, and other professionals with accessible solutions to document and preserve media collections.


International Oral History Association
The International Oral History Association (IOHA) is a worldwide network of oral history scholars, professionals and researchers. The site contains relevant articles, conference information and links to international oral history websites.


Latin American Modern and Contemporary Art and METRO-MoMA Survey of Archives of Latino Art
The Survey of Archives of Latino Art aims to survey and inventory the archival holdings of galleries, museums, grassroots organizations, and research centers containing research material on the Latino visual arts community in New York and the greater Metropolitan Area. The immediate goal of the survey is to establish a network of Latino art archives and provide information about these archives through the publication on its website.


Moving Image Collections (MIC)
CMIC provides archivists, educators, and the general public the ability to discover, locate, and in some cases view moving images from repositories around the world. MIC’s two databases can be searched from anywhere on the site. MIC also provides a wealth of information about moving images and their preservation, organized into specific portals that customize information for different audiences.


Media Matters: Collaborating Towards the Care of Time-Based Media Works of Art
Curators, conservators, registrars and media technical managers from New Art Trust, MoMA, SFMOMA, Tate, have formed a consortium to establish best practice guidelines for care of time-based media works of art (for example, video, slide, film, audio and computer-based installations). Effective approaches to the stewardship of electronic art rely on the blending of traditional museum practice with new modes of operating that derive from and respond to the complex nature of these installations.


The New York State Archives
The New York State Archives was established in 1971 and opened its doors to the public in 1978. It is a program of the State Education Department, with its main facility located in the Cultural Education Center on Madison Avenue in Albany. There it cares for and provides access to more than 130 million documents that tell the story of New York from the seventeenth century to the present. This link is to a directory of publications on the care and use of historical records and funding sources for managing historical records and archival programs.


Oral History Association
The Oral History Association (OHA), established in 1966, serves a broad and diverse international membership and encourages standards of excellence in the collection, preservation, dissemination and uses of oral history testimony. In addition to goals, guidelines and evaluation standards for oral history interviews, the website provides links to regional organizations, centers and collections and international oral history websites.


Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic Region
Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic (OHMAR) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion and improvement of oral history. OHMAR provides a forum for sharing information about the techniques and application of oral history, promotes standards of quality among practitioners, and assists those interested in the subject. The site contains an on-line project directory list of some of the past and current oral history projects in the region.


PreserveNet
PreserveNet is designed to provide preservationists with a comprehensive database of regularly updated internet resources and current professional opportunities. Established in 1994 by Cornell University's Michael Tomlan and Bob Pick, PreserveNet was the result of a collaborative effort by preservation students of various universities interested in providing preservation information in what was then a new and exciting arena, the internet. Site contains an extensive directory of links of interest to AS-AP.


Smithsonian Archives
The Smithsonian Institution Archives is the institutional memory of a unique American cultural resource and a steward of the national collections. In order to ensure institutional accountability and enhance public appreciation of a great national treasure, we are committed to serving the Smithsonian community, scholars, and the general public by: appraising, acquiring, and preserving the records of the institution and related documentary materials; establishing policies and providing guidance for management of the national collections; offering a range of reference, research, and records services; and creating products and services which promote understanding of the Smithsonian and its history.


Smithsonian Archival Preservation of Web Resources
The Smithsonian has developed strategies, principles, and best practices which are elaborated with in this report of the Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA) with a set of recommended guidelines for the archival preservation of Web sites and HTML pages. The purpose of the guidelines is to help the SIA implement appropriate strategies and procedures that ensure the capture, management, and preservation of Smithsonian Institution (SI) Web sites and HTML pages for as long into the future as may be required. The framework for this study incorporates an integrated records life cycle process model that links the design and maintenance of SI Web sites with their archival appraisal and long-term preservation and usability. Another key component of this framework is an understanding of potential technical issues associated with SI Web sites and HTML pages that can create difficult, and in some instances intractable, barriers to their long-term preservation as complete and accurate historical resources.


Tate Gallery's Archive Journeys
The Tate Gallery, London, is starting to provide online access to parts of its remarkable Archive for the first time. These journeys through three themes from the Tate Archive provide a fascinating insight into Tate's History, the Bloomsbury Group and the art world of the 1960s and 70s as seen through the eyes of the art critic Barbara Reise. We hope that for those discovering our Archive for the first time this is just the beginning of the story...


Underground Rhode Island
Growing out of Brown University Professor Paul Buhle's Oral History seminar in which students interviewed Rhode Island's counterculture artists and leaders, this interactive site contains images, audio recordings, videos, and personal stories from those who shaped Rhode Island's culture throughout the 20th century. The George Street Journal has written about the project in an October 2004 article.


VEKTOR - European Contemporary Art Archives
Since mid-1999 various archives and databases concerned with recent and contemporary art have been co-operating under the name VEKTOR. The long-term goal of this co-operation is the linking of decentralised archives through a central internet interface. A research project sponsored by the EU in the framework of the programme Culture 2000 , Vektor aims at a qualitatively improved mediation of contemporary art, working on scientific/academic standards to register materials in differently structured institutions (exhibition spaces, museums, libraries, archives).


WAAND - Women Artists Archives National Directory
WAAND – The Women Artists Archives National Directory – is designed to become an innovative web directory to U.S. archival collections holding primary source materials by and about women visual artists active in the U.S. since 1945. WAAND is designed to serve scholars in art history, visual arts, cultural and intellectual history, American studies, and women’s and gender studies, as well as artists, students, collecting institutions, and the general public. WAAND project directors are Dr. Ferris Olin, head of the Margery Somers Foster Center, Rutgers University Libraries, and Professor Judith K. Brodsky, founding director of the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, Mason Gross School of the Arts.