A project to enhance and co-ordinate online access to research collections in the History of Art in University and National Libraries and other major holdings across the UK, and in particular to collections of exhibition and sales catalogues.
Exhibition and sales catalogues play a significant role in Art Historical research, in some cases representing the single surviving source of information. However they have often been given low priority in library retrospective conversion projects thus limiting accessibility to such material. The HOGARTH Project aims to facilitate access to major exhibition and sales catalogue collections in History of Art in the UK, supporting research activity in the field.
Primarily the HOGARTH Project consists of retrospective conversion. This is a process common to all academic libraries involving the conversion of information from old card catalogue records to online computer catalogue records. As a direct result of “retroconversion” researchers no longer have to travel to an individual library in order to search that library’s card catalogue manually. Instead the complete holdings of exhibition and sales catalogues of the libraries involved in the project will be accessible via the internet.
Having identified relevant material within their collections the thirteen partner libraries are participating in a scheduled retroconversion programme. Project partners operate within an agreed timetable, libraries with the largest collections generally having started retroconversion earlier in the project. All cataloguing is to be completed by October 2002. Cataloguing takes place in-house, supervised by a partner representative. Partners have access to a large range of databases including the CURL database, the Consortium of University Research Libraries, which provides both CURL members and non-CURL partners with a source of high quality records at no cost for the duration of the project.
The HOGARTH Project adheres to the RSLP’s minimum standards for catalogue retroconversion. Due to the complex nature of cataloguing exhibition catalogues, HOGARTH Partners have also been making use of the recent guidelines for the cataloguing of such material produced by ARLIS, the Art Libraries Society.
A project web site - http://www.hogarthproject.ac.uk - was set up early in the project to provide a means of disseminating of information concerning HOGARTH for the duration of the project. Information is published on the web as it is produced and includes the project plan, schedules and targets; minimum standards guidelines; edited minutes of meetings and quarterly and annual reports.
Some 86,800 machine-readable records will have been produced as a result of the retroconversion programme. The single catalogue interface provided by COPAC, the merged online catalogues of members of the Consortium of University Research Libraries, will allow for searching these newly created records at item level.
A web gateway will offer a directory describing catalogues and other holdings in the subject at collection level, encompassing national, university and major museum and gallery libraries. During the early stages of the project it became clear that the proposed HOGARTH web gateway would share considerable similarities with the online version of the Art Libraries Society publication Art and Design Documentation in the UK & Ireland: a directory of resources. The ARLIS/UK & Ireland directory is hosted by the National Art Library and forms part of the Union List of Art, Architecture and Design Serials Project, jointly funded by the British Library and RSLP. The HOGARTH Project is working in collaboration with ARLIS/UK & Ireland in order to produce complimentary resources of the highest quality and relevance to researchers and the wider user community. The gateway is intended to raise awareness of the collective strength of the most significant collections in the History of Art in the UK and to contribute towards the concept of the distributed national collection.
Project Director
Dr Sue PriceProject Manager
Sarah GilmourTel: 020 7848 2288
Fax: 020 7848 2887
E-mail: sarah.gilmour@courtauld.ac.uk
http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/hogarth/
Content: Gill Davenport
Last updated 5 July 2002