Art Documentation

Art Documentation is the official journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, 1982–present. It includes articles and information relevant to art librarianship and visual resources curatorship. Since 1996, it has been published twice yearly (spring and fall). Art Documentation is published for ARLIS/NA by University of Chicago Press, which supports green open access for all of its journals. Subscription to Art Documentation is included as part of ARLIS/NA membership.

Members-only Access

ARLIS/NA members may access Art Documentation electronically via a controlled access site:

Members-only access to Art Documentation

Authors

Authors who wish to publish their work in Art Documentation should consult the Contributor Guidelines.

Authors may self-archive their own articles and make them freely available through institutional repositories after a one-year embargo. Authors may also post their articles in their published form on their personal or departmental web pages or personal social media pages, use the article in teaching or research presentations, provide single copies in print or electronic form to their colleagues, or republish the article in a subsequent work, subject to giving proper credit to the original publication of the article in Art Documentation, including reproducing the exact copyright notice as it appears in the journal.

Non-member Access to Journal

To purchase individual issues please contact University of Chicago Press customer service online; by email at subscriptions@press.uchicago.edu; or via phone at +1 877-705-1878 (toll-free, U.S. & Canada), or +1 773-753-3347 (International).

Tables of Contents

To search Art Documentation contents 1982–present, visit the journal home page with the University of Chicago Press.

Current Issue Abstracts

Art Documentation Vol. 44, No. 2 (Fall 2025)

Critical Ekphrasis: Applying a Critical Framework to Unstructured Metadata in Online Collections Catalogs 

Whitney Lorenze Willis

This article examines the ways art museums utilize unstructured, non-taxonomic metadata fields to describe objects in their online collection catalogs. The goal in conducting this analysis is to highlight how using these fields inconsistently undermines critical cataloging efforts by making entries appear biased when viewed in comparison. Though classification has been the primary focus of critical cataloging theory, the author argues that the narrative capacities of free-text fields make them equally ripe for perpetuating hegemonic ideas. Critical ekphrasis is the term coined as a theoretical and practical approach to ameliorating this problem and includes guidelines that catalogers can cite when tasked with interpreting collection objects. In keeping with the existing critical scholarship, these emphasize plurality, accountability, transparency, and historicity.

[This article is a revision of the paper that received the 2025 Gerd Muehsam Award. The award recognizes excellence in a paper written by a graduate student on a topic relevant to art librarianship or visual resources curatorship.]

The Primacy of Primary Market Data: Reading Archives Across Disciplines

Amy Whitaker

This paper describes the process of finding economic data in art historical archives and library records as part of conducting art-related research in the disciplines of finance and cultural economics. The paper explores three case studies of papers published in finance and economics that draw on exhibition catalogs, catalogues raisonnés, artists’ biographies, and substantial archival resources from the Archives of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art. This work contributes to the inclusion of artists in art markets and to the consideration of economic provenance as part of the history of art. The recommendations and outcomes of this paper fall into three categories: classification, context, and the motivation to record information that may not yet exist.

[This article is an expansion of a presentation given at the 113th annual College Art Association conference held in New York, New York, in February 2025 as part of the session “Exploring Methodological Approaches in Art Market Studies,” hosted by the International Art Market Studies Association.]

For Film, Not Stage: Descriptive and Record Keeping Practices for Dance for Camera

Hilary Schroeder 

Dance for camera (also known as screendance) is a subset of the already under-considered field of dance, occupying a liminal space between dance, film, new media, and performance art. As such, dance for camera has rarely been considered in depth in terms of its descriptive records in archival and library spaces. This article considers the current status of dance for camera records through the comparison of records from the Dance Heritage Video Archive, Jacob’s Pillow Archives, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, and Merce Cunningham Trust. It makes suggestions for paths towards improvement that honor the interdisciplinary nature of these and other types of resources existing at the intersections of different cultural fields.

Guiding the Creative Mind: A Survey of Librarian Practices and Perspectives on Research Guides for Art Students

Katie Edmiston 

This article describes the results of a survey distributed to art librarians at independent art and design colleges to ascertain how librarians use online research guides to support the unique needs of art students. Responses highlighted a growing shift towards intentionality in guide creation, increased efforts to support non-traditional research needs, and the role of guides in promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. While research guides serve as valuable 24/7 resources, concerns remain in relation to user engagement, time constraints for guide updates or maintenance, and platform limitations. The results underscore the need for continued research on how art students interact with and use research guides.

[This article is based on the poster that was presented by the author at the 52nd annual ARLIS/NA conference held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in April 2024.]

Exhibiting Bibliographies: Curating a LibGuide for University Art and Design Museums

Aubree Tillett

Curators at university museums utilize expansive library collections for exhibition research. Their work demonstrates a professional application of research skills that students within the affiliated disciplines at the university are learning and applying in their coursework. Curators’ research is synthesized into exhibitions panels, wall labels, and exhibition catalogs intended for a general public audience. However, a noticeable difference between the expectations of academic research for publications or coursework and those for exhibitions is the absence in the galleries of a curator’s bibliography associated with their exhibition research. In order to increase the visibility of scholarly research needed for curation of art and design exhibitions, the humanities and design librarian at the University of Minnesota collaborated with the director and the curator of the Goldstein Museum of Design to create a Goldstein Museum of Design LibGuide for disseminating curatorial exhibition bibliographies.

The Closed Circle: Evaluating Art Exhibition Reviews and Catalogs for Race and Gender

 Emilee Mathews

For decades, arts activists have advocated for parity in whose work is shown across demographics, yet what has gained less attention is how those exhibitions have been documented and published. This study takes on the issue by investigating a dataset of exhibitions and the reviews and catalogs about them from 2016 to 2017 to determine proportionality of coverage. Findings vary in which demographics are more frequently covered by media, but overall there was less written about artists of color, particularly women of color. This is notable when considered in light of traditional sources on which art libraries depend.

[This article is an expansion of a paper presented at the 52nd annual ARLIS/NA conference held in Pittsburgh, PA, in April 2024 as part of the session “Collecting for the Future: Strategies for Inclusive Collection Development and Representation.”]

Documenting Defeat: A Journey Through the Past at Pratt Institute Libraries
Matthew Garklavs

Since its founding in 1887, the Pratt Institute seal has served as the primary bookplate for its library collection, embedding institutional identity into the very fabric of its holdings. Over time, a series of redesign efforts—many led by distinguished artists and designers—attempted to replace the seal, yet none succeeded. This article examines those unsuccessful revisions as a case study in the visual culture of academic branding, drawing on original archival research and a review of bookplate scholarship. By contextualizing the Pratt seal within the broader history of ex libris design and institutional visual identity, it reveals how bookplates, seals, and logos serve as both artistic expressions and contested symbols of heritage. The narrative highlights not only the persistence of a flawed image, but also the creative dead ends and aesthetic debates it inspired, underscoring the value of archival collections in preserving stories of failed ambition, institutional memory, and the evolving language of design.

Reimaging Reference and Permanent Reserve Collections: Dynamic Presentation and Pedagogical Foundations
Hillary Veeder

For information professionals, the practice of organizing physical collections in defined locations is familiar, but for library patrons the practice can be more elusive and obscure. The Texas Tech Architecture Library branch has long maintained multiple shelving locations and designations for the physical collection as a basic premise of collection organization and presentation. These distinct locations afford opportunities for classification and communication, such as material type, access, and loan policies. This article concentrates on two physical collection locations—reference and reserve—and the project undertaken to assess and reimagine the collection content, physical locations, and presentation with the aim of encouraging patron self-exploration and resource discovery framed by the context of the undergraduate architecture core curriculum structure.