The Reference Library of the Chinese Academy of Arts (RLCAA) has identified the maintenance and development of its rich collections as its primary objective, which it pursues not merely by acquiring published materials but also, for example, by making recordings of musical and dramatic performances. But also, the RLCAA is committed to promoting and facilitating the use of its collections, and is consciously moving away from a passive custodial role to the active provision of services to users. In order to serve their users better, libraries must end their isolation and join together in networks; a new building at the Chinese Academy of Arts is to become the national centre for art information and library services, and this development also challenges the Academy to co-ordinate its several resource centres more effectively. Staff at the RLCAA have already created an art thesaurus, and are currently working on a bibliography of Chinese artists which it is hoped will be the first of several online databases covering different branches of the arts in China.

London is a major international centre for study of and research into Chinese art. Four libraries - the British Library, the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, the library of the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, and the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum - are perhaps the main providers of information on Chinese art, although information is also available from several museum libraries, from the library of Christie’s auction house, and from public and other libraries. A survey of users of information on Chinese art indicates that provision is generally satisfactory, although the degree of user satisfaction varies from one library to another. More effective networking between the key libraries would bring about significant improvements.

While copper-printing can be traced back to the Yuan Dynasty in China, the art of copper-engraving was introduced by the Italian missionary, Matteo Ripa, in 1711. The first work to be printed with this new technique was Illustrations of 36 Vista ofthejehol Palace (1712). The Qianlong emperor wanted pictures of his military campaigns in Eastern Turkestan engraved on copper, and so he arranged for a series of sixteen engravings to be executed in Europe. Following the success of this initiative, pictures of his subsequent military exploits were engraved on copper by Chinese artists. Thus, while the West learned a great deal from China about paper and printing, copper-engraving is a technique which China acquired from the West in spite of a supposed lack of interest in the West.

The Smithsonian Institution, a trust instrumentality of the United States, and the largest museum and research complex in the world, receives many outside permission requests to reproduce images in the Smithsonian Collections. Charging fees for photographic usage is a common practice in the United States, especially in art history and general museums. Beginning in 1992, the Smithonian established internal guidelines for changing such fees and for handling permission requests from outside sources. The procedures ensure that the Smithsonian recognises and respects the intellectual property rights associated with images in the collections and the terms of any pre-existing agreements. Great care is also taken to protect the Smithsonian’s name from use in any commercial context, to avoid the implication that the Institution endorses a product (or one product rather than another).

The Queen’s University of Belfast set-up a fee based service in 1991 aimed initially at built environment professionals. The Architecture and Planning Information Service at the University has long been a major source of architectural and environmental information in Ireland, and has close links with the Architectural Library at University College Dublin and with professional bodies such as the Royal Society of Ulster Architects and the Royal Town Planning Institute in Northern Ireland. Problems encountered include the relationship and balance of services to internal and external (fee-paying) users, staff training, setting realistic prices, quality control, and contract issues. Future trends are likely to include the development of client-tailored services and further collaboration between providers of fee-based services from different institutions.

The Spanish National Library’s Memoria Hispánica project aims to provide networked access to a digital database, the Biblioteca Nacional Digita, including every item in its collection. The first phase of this project is scheduled to take place between 1996 and 1998. This follows an earlier project, the Sistema Integrado de Información Heráldica, which involved digitising the text and images of a major work on heraldry. Two ongoing projects comprise the production of an optical disc of Spanish portraits in the library’s collections, the Iconografía Hispana, and of a CD-ROM documenting an exhibition, mounted by the library from its collections, of prints and drawings by Goya. In both cases, the projects are being implemented and funded by external bodies who expect to recoup the costs from sales. It is likely that the Memoria Hispánica project will be funded in much the same way.

Confronted by enormous financial problems in the late 1980s, many Russian libraries were obliged to find ways of earning money in order to survive and to maintain their collections. The State Library for Foreign Literature was one of the first to break out of the stranglehold imposed by Lenin’s ideal, ‘Libraries - free of charge for everyone’. The Arts Department led the way to the introduction of paid services, over and above basic library services which remain free. Paid services include picture research, special loans, and photocopying, but also classes for children in foreign languages and art to supplement education in school, and courses for trainee teachers. Fees are reduced or even waived to ensure that services are accessible to those on low incomes.

Through the last decade the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP), recently renamed the Getty Information Institute, has been subsidising end-user online access to scholarly research databases. A study of subsidised access to Dialog databases provided to Getty Centre resident scholars has been reported by Marcia Bates, who found that searching patterns in humanities research differ substantially from those previously investigated in science and the social sciences. The cost of collecting research information and of making it available greatly exceeds revenues generated from its use; inability to measure use is an obstacle to justifying maintenance of subsidies at present levels. Key factors to be considered in assessing the relative value of different models of information provision include information quality, number of accesses, royalties received, user charges, producer subsidy, and user input. Analysis suggests that the non-profit method provides the best mode of access and supports the decision of AHIP to work in partnership with the Research Libraries Group.