Arlis was established as a result of this letter which Trevor Fawcett, then Sub-Librarian at the University of East Anglia, published in the Library Association Record, March 1968. (Reproduced here with permission.)

Arlis arose in the late 1960s out of the need for British art and design librarians to have a specialist organisation to support their emerging professional concerns. The Society was independent from other library bodies and has remained so. From its original modest aim of ‘promoting art librarianship’ it has become a force for redefining this subject specialist area and creating international links, especially with sister organisations across the world; from ‘gossip shop’ for domestic concerns to an active participant in the IFLA Section of Art Libraries. The Art Libraries Journal has been the principal vehicle for promulgating this concern. ARLIS/UK & Ireland can look forward to extending its role and pursuing its activities with vigour in the next 25 years.

This article is a slightly revised version of a paper delivered to the 25th Anniversary Conference of ARLIS/UK & Ireland, London, 7th-10th April 1994.

How has the vision of the pioneers of ARLIS translated into the activities and achievements of the Society and its members in the present? The relationship of ARLIS and the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum has radically improved; collaborative projects in the areas of periodicals, slides and exhibition catalogues have yielded fruits in the form of union lists, surveys and directories; the longstanding Directory of members has been joined by a new directory documenting art, design and architecture resources in the UK and Ireland. However, as the Follett Report shows, the demands on libraries in the UK are heavier than ever before and will continue to increase, meaning that libraries will have to find new strategies to keep abreast of demand and take advantage of the new technologies. ARLIS should broaden its membership and may be able to achieve some of its long-term goals through the Visual Arts Library and Information Plan.

This article is a revised version of a paper delivered to the 25th Anniversary Conference of ARLIS/UK & Ireland, London, 7th-10th April 1994.

The National Art Library (NAL) has moved from its former isolation, through the developments of the last decade, to its present position as a focus for and active player in the art library and information community of the UK. The NAL has worked with ARLIS on some of the major co-operative ventures currently preoccupying the art library field. However, there is still a need for further clarification of, and support for, subject specialist services in the national arena, not least the relationship with the British Library. The potential of the proposed Library Commission and Visual Arts Library and Information Plan is still to be realised. Art librarians must work with their users in formulating a more radical and visionary view of their objectives, as they face the challenges of the future.

This article is a revised version of a paper delivered to the 25th Anniversary Conference of ARLIS/UK & Ireland, London, 7th-10th April 1994.

From its earliest days ARLIS has carried out its work through committees and working parties: the Education Committee (which has organised conferences and courses since 1972), two standards working parties (which have produced guidelines on standards for art libraries), the Cataloguing and Classification Committee (which ‘was preceded by working parties on the Dewey Decimal Classification system and on the Anglo American Cataloguing Rules) and the Visual Resources Committee. A diagram shows the relationship of committees and working parties to Council. (The ARLIS committees concerned with the national coordination of art library resources, and with international matters, are discussed elsewhere in this issue of the Journal.)

ARLIS’s awareness of its national role and the necessity for a nationwide response to the needs of art library resources found expression in the work and research activities of the Committee for the National Co-ordination of Art Library Resources. The Committee first established itself as an influential voice in the debate on the National Art Library in the late 1970s and early 80s and later in discussions with the British Library which led in due course to the setting up of the BL Standing Committee on Art Documentation. An initiator of some of ARLIS’s major publications (the Union List of Art Periodicals; Art & Design Documentation: a Directory of Resources), the Committee has also seen notable success in the work of the Exhibition Catalogue project and more recently in the Visual Arts Library & Information Plan (VALIP).

From the outset ARLIS has consistently published serials, from the ARLIS Newsletter to the present Art Libraries Journal (with its international role) and the ARLIS News-sheet (for current and domestic information). An annual Directory of Members has provided vital information about ARLIS membership. Monographs and occasional publications, some published by ARLIS and some in collaboration with other publishers, have included a variety of manuals, guidelines, directories, indexes and union lists. A full list of publications is appended.

Between 1969 and 1979, while it was establishing itself, ARLIS attracted the attention of art librarians in other countries, publicised and encouraged their activities, and in particular developed a close relationship with the new ARLIS/NA (ARLIS/North America). This phase culminated, in 1976, in the launch of the Art Libraries Journal, and in the organisation of an international conference at Brighton which inaugurated a new era of collaboration between art librarians around the world, initial plans for an ‘ARLIS International’ being put aside in favour of working within the framework of IFLA. ARLIS subsequently participated in the activities of the IFLA Round Table of Art Librarians and its successor, the IFLA Section of Art Libraries. More recently, ARLIS responded to the growth of an international community of art librarians by changing its name to ARLIS/UK & Eire (and later to ARLIS/UK & Ireland) and by relaunching the Art Libraries Journal; the winding up of its International Committee, far from representing a decline in the Society’s international activities, was a logical consequence of the fact that an international outlook had come to pervade virtually all of its work. ARLIS/UK & Eire hosted the IFLA Section of Art Libraries Pre-Conference at Brighton in 1987, and the Section’s Fourth European Conference, at Oxford, in 1992. While international activities may sometimes seem remote from the day-to-day work of art libraries, most British art librarians probably do now recognise the value of’a grapevine round the world’; furthermore, by ‘acting locally’ we are all helping to build the larger world of art librarianship.