ADBiB: Art and Design Books in Brighton Project

ADBiB: Art and Design Books in Brighton Project has long been a focus for the arts and numerous practitioners, academics and collectors are numbered amongst the local population. The Universities and the local authority are currently working in partnership on the further development of Brighton and Hove as a regional centre for contemporary culture and the arts. This is being encouraged by the recent achievement of city status, the redevelopment of the Dome, museum and art gallery complex and the construction of a new public library.

The University of Sussex, the University of Brighton and Brighton and Hove City Council have jointly received funding from the Research Support Libraries Programme for the Brighton Art and Design History Research Support Project. This is a one-year project which started in July 2001 and will identify, promote and develop the resources for research in art and design history owned by the libraries of the Universities of Brighton and Sussex and the public libraries, museums and art gallery of the local authority of Brighton and Hove.

The Project has four main elements:

• Identification of the strengths of the book collections relevant to art and design history research in Brighton and Hove Museums and Art Gallery, Brighton and Hove Public Libraries, the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex.

• Development of the basis of an agreement to share future collecting responsibilities in this subject area in the light of existing strengths. This process will include consultation with academic staff at the Universities and experts in the libraries, museums and art gallery. It will take account of the existing obligations of the stakeholders and their institutional strategies.

• Preparation of guides and promotional material - both printed and web-based - to relevant resources and the negotiation of access arrangements where necessary. In addition, links will be established with other centres of excellence in art and design history to facilitate the further development of the distributed national resource in this subject area.

• Identification of future projects which might make the rarest and least accessible parts of the Brighton collections more accessible. This may include the digitisation of certain primary materials. This aspect of the Project will also include the identification of the scale of future work necessary to create networkable records for resources not included in current catalogues.

The Project will highlight material relevant to the national and international research community in art and design history even though limited to collections located in Brighton. An important part of the distributed national collection in art and design history will be made known to the research community and the project will act as a demonstrator for cross-sectoral working - a key ingredient in bringing to public awareness the richness of the distributed national collection.

The Project will help the three libraries maintain and develop their collections in the light of mutually agreed priorities by establishing policies for the future collaborative acquisition and retention of material. It will also help confirm research identities for the libraries and museum, which, it is hoped, will attract further Brighton-based research.

The project partners are:

• University of Sussex Library

• University of Brighton Learning Resources

• Brighton & Hove City Council, The Royal Pavilion, Libraries, Art Gallery & Museums

Contact details

Content: Gill Davenport
Last updated 2 July 2002