"The purpose of this paper is to form an organizational pattern representative of art museum libraries. The writer's choice of this subject has grown out of an extended period of interest in art history and in museums as depositories of great paintings and works of art. In pursuing this interest, the writer has made pilgrimages to art museums in many parts of the country, often for the purpose of seeing a special exhibit. This interest has also resulted in the forming of a personal collection of some fifty volumes in the art reference field, the accumulation of many unbound copies of art magazines, and the preparation of a vertical file clipping and picture collection, particularly representative of modern painting. The ever increasing background information acquired through the pursuance of these projects finally led to a desire for closer contact with museum activities. The writer's comparatively recent interest in library service seemed to offer an opportunity for this fulfillment. The choice of art museum libraries, as the subject for a paper furnished an opportunity for investigation into this specialized field of library service"--Introduction. / "June, 1953." / At head of title: Florida State University. / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Agnes Gregory, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 50-51).

The subject of this thesis is the history of the library at The Göteborg Museum of Art. The aim of the thesis is to depict and analyze the emergence and the expansion of the library’s holdings until 1939. To fulfill the aim, two questions are asked. The first question is: Is it possible to argue that the library’s holdings were collected to document the entire world of art? The question is formulated in relation to a comment by Susan Wyngaard. According to Wyngaard, art libraries tries to document the entire world of art. The second question is: What was the point of having a library at The Göteborg Museum of Art and did the library’s holdings support the museum’s educating, aesthetic or ritual function? The question is inspired by some remarks in Carol Duncan’s book Civilizing rituals: Inside public art museums.The source material which is examined to answer the two questions consists mainly of the annual reports that the museum curator Axel Romdahl published in Göteborgs museum’s yearbook and also of two library ledgers found in The Göteborg Museum of Art. The results of the thesis are based on my observations and interpretations of the data in the annual reports and in the library ledgers. Michael Baxandall’s remark that historical objects can be explained by being treated as solutions to problems in situtations has assisted the analysis of the source material. Three conclusions are drawn in the thesis. The first conclusion is drawn in relation to Michael Baxandall’s remark that historical objects can be explained by being treated as solutions to problems in situations. The conclusion is that the visual documents that were collected in the library helped to expand the opportunities to see art at The Göteborg Museum of Art. The textual documents that were collected in the library helped solving another problem, which dealt with gathering written knowledge of art. The second conclusion is that a few specialized areas were particularly prominent during certain periods of time. In the 1910’s and in the 1920’s, the library’s holdings were focused on reproductions of graphic art and drawings made by artists from the european continent. During a few years in the beginning of the 1930’s, a large number of monographs on Swedish artists were aquired. The conclusion shows that it is not completely safe to argue that art libraries tries to document the entire world of art. The third conclusion is that the library at The Göteborg Museum of Art supported the museum’s educating function, and that the library at least had the potential to support the museum’s aesthetic and ritual function. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

This master thesis examines the cataloguing practices of two art libraries in Sweden in relation to contemporary art. The aim of this study is to show how classification systems and other forms of controlled vocabulary correspond to contemporary art and reveal the factors that influence the everyday practice of cataloguing. The qualitative methods of semi-structured interviews and an analysis of bibliographic records have been used for the purposes of this study. The study is based on domain analysis as conceived by Hjørland and Albrechtsen and some concepts and principles of Knowledge Organisation in the field of Library and Information Science. A total of three interviews of cataloguers has proved that perceptions concerning classification and subject indexing differ among cataloguers and cataloguing practices depend on local policies concerning acquisition, shelving and user perspectives, but also each library’s resources and the institutional context (academic vs museum). Through the analysis of eleven bibliographic records, no consistent pattern has been detected, in relation to indexing and classification. The libraries do not use special systems for subject analysis. The classifications provided by universal systems have been considered insufficient to express all the concepts found in documents. The use of subject headings is, therefore, important and complements the process of subject analysis. The classification systems and subject headings lists analysed include the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), the Swedish Sveriges Allmänna Biblioteksförenings Klassifikationssystem (SAB) and the Svenska ämnesord (SAO). This is a two-year master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies. / Denna masteruppsats handlar om katalogiseringspraktiker på två konstbibliotek, nämligen Umeå universitetsbibliotek och Konstbiblioteket, i relation till samtida konst. Syftet med denna studie är att visa hur samtida konst återspeglas i klassifikationssystem och andra former av kontrollerad vokabulär och ta reda på vilka faktorer påverkar katalogiseringsarbete. Metoden som har använts i studien består av halvstrukturerade intervjuer med katalogisatörer och en analys av bibliografiska poster. Studien baseras på domänanalys som har utarbetats av Hjørland och Albrechtsen samt vissa begrepp och principer från Kunskapsorganisation inom ramen för Biblioteks- och Informationsvetenskap. Analysen av tre intervjuer visade på att uppfattningar om klassifikation och ämnesordsindexering skiljer sig åt bland katalogisatörer och att katalogiseringspraktiker beror på varje biblioteks riktlinjer med avseende på förvärv, hylluppställning, användarperspektiv, bibliotekets resurser samt institutionell kontext (akademisk vs museal). Elva bibliografiska poster har analyserats och genom analysen har inga mönster i relation till ämnesordsindexering och klassificering identifierats. De undersökta bibliotek använder inte något specialsystem för klassifikation eller ämnesordsindexering. Klassifikationskoder från universella system ansågs otillräckliga för att uttrycka alla begrepp i dokumenten. Ämnesordsindexering är därför viktig och anses vara mer effektiv för ämnesanalys. Klassifikationsssystem och ämnesordlistor som har analyserats är Dewey Decimal Klassifikation (DDK), Sveriges Allmänna Biblioteksförenings Klassifikationssystem (SAB) och Svenska ämnesord (SAO). Detta är en tvåårig masteruppsats i Arkiv-, Bibliotek- och Museumstudier.

The purpose of the investigation was to collect information from ninety representative art museums in Europe and North America, with visits made to forty-five and a validated questionnaire sent to the others; to study their research-oriented publications as to contents; and to organize the data so that they would be of value to graduate art students. Although this information will be of value to scholars, undergraduate students, and museum personnel, the study was restricted to the graduate art student because some museum libraries restrict their facilities to this educational level.