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It has been close to two years since the last survey of art reference materials in Reference Services Review. Consequently this column will cover as much as possible of the intervening period, roughly from the winter of 1979–1980 until early fall of 1981. It has been a relatively lean period in volume of material produced, but the art reference sources which have appeared are all of high quality and cover aspects of the field which are in need of coverage or of updating.

This chapter analyses the different ways in which metal album covers draw upon medieval media. The analysis is situated within the broad theoretical frame of intermediality, and more specifically view the process where medieval media cross the borders and find their way into metal album covers as media transformation. Four different types of media transformation are analysed, and it is argued that the medievalism of album covers can be defined in terms of media transformation. Likewise, neomedievalism is defined in terms of second-order media transformation. The album cover is described as a media patchwork, and the chapter gives examples of the patches in terms of relationship and properties.

The greatest gains in art reference sources have been experienced this year in practical tools for the student and teacher of art history, especially at the undergraduate level. Next in line have been specialized encyclopedias for various periods of art history and bibliographies for highly specialized subject areas within both art history and applied arts. Some subject areas previously poor in reference tools of any kind have experienced enrichment this year, and some useful trends pointed out last year in this column, notably in the publication of reference sources for the decorative arts and crafts, and of indexes to reproductions of works of art, have continued to blossom. In addition, at least one new and very useful directory in the field of art education has appeared on the art reference scene this year.

The massive growth in the number of book titles has made publishers think about how to attract a customer’s attention to particular books. This is the reason why the book cover plays an important role as a tool of communication with the reader. The research question of this exploratory study is whether the preference given by readers to book cover colors is different across genders and age groups when they choose the book in an online bookstore by its cover. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The experiment in a bookstore and a library was done. Each respondent was asked to choose one book from our sample of 18 books and a mobile eye tracking laboratory was set up in order to find out the respondents’ basic gazing data. After conducting an experiment with bookstore and library visitors, the results showed that younger women tend to select a book by its cover (when the time for selection is not limited) statistically significantly faster than men of the same age group. The difference disappears with age.

The data of the experiment suggested that women from the age group 18-35 prefer books with cool color covers and the preference disappears with age; accordingly, men in the age group 56+ prefer books with warm color covers. The preference was not seen in younger age groups. The analysis of data on the number of choices for each cover and the time spent looking at each of them revealed a significant positive correlation between the women’s preferences in selecting covers and the time women spend looking at them; however, there was no such correlation in the case of men’s data.

The study has shown that the reader’s book choice is at least partly influenced by the cover color. The preference given to cool and warm colors and the speed of decision making show certain differences across genders and age groups. The result contributes to knowing how to create book covers more adopted to reader’s needs.

That photography was more than a mere technological breakthrough was clear to its inventors but not to their contemporaries or generations after. The fast visual appropriation of “reality,” the sudden transformation of this reality into an image which mirrored our world, gave us a new lease on immortality. From its inception, photography became an act of assertion and vainglory and biographers could study the psychology of a face as well as the depth of the soul. Walt Whitman once wrote: “I've been photographed, photographed, and photographed until the cameras themselves are tired of me.” (As quoted by Justin Kaplan. Walt Whitman. A Life. Simon & Schuster, 1980.) From Whitman's ego trips to the forced smiles in that brief but powerful scene in the film, Ordinary People, when family soul‐searching is captured by the click of a camera, the world around us is preserved and mythologized. Photography is witness to history and art, and shapes our lives as well. In a recent interview, Mikhail Baryshnikov stated that as a dancer he had been influenced not only by other choreographers but by “movies, musicals,(and) photo exhibitions.” (The New York Times, June 28, 1981, p. 6). Thus, photography becomes archival material, for it speaks of the human adventure in all its diversity.

This study aimed at understanding the use of paintings outside of an art-related context, in the English version of Wikipedia.

For this investigation, the authors identified 8,104 paintings used in 10,008 articles of the English Wikipedia edition. The authors manually coded the topic of the article in question, documented the number of monthly average views and identified the originating museum. They analysed the use of images based on frequency of use, frequency of view, associated topics and location. Early in the analysis three distinct perspectives emerged: the readers of the online encyclopaedia, the editors of the articles and the museum organisations providing the painting images (directly or indirectly).

Wikipedia is a widely used online information resource where images of paintings serve as visual reference to illustrate articles, notably also beyond an art-related topic and where no alternative image is available – as in the case of historic portraits. Editors used paintings as illustration of the work itself or art-related movement, but also as illustration of past events, as alternative to photographs, as well as to represent a concept or technique. Images have been used to illustrate up to 76 articles, evidencing the polysemic nature of paintings. The authors conclude that images of paintings are highly valuable information sources, also beyond an art-related context. They also find that Wikipedia is an important dissemination channel for museum collections. While art-related articles contain greater number of paintings, these receive less views than non-art-related articles containing fewer paintings. Readers of all topics, predominantly history, science and geographic articles, viewed art pieces outside of an art context. Painting images in Wikipedia receive a much larger online audience than the physical painting does when compared to the number of museum onsite visitors. The authors’ results confirm the presence of a strong long-tail pattern in the frequency of image use (only 3% of painting images are used in a Wikipedia article), image view and museums represented, characteristic of network dynamics of the Internet.

While this is the first analysis of the complete collection of paintings in the English Wikipedia, the authors’ results are conservative as many paintings are not identified as such in Wikidata, used for automatic harvesting. Tools to analyse image view specifically are not yet available and user privacy is highly protected, limiting the disaggregation of user data. This study serves to document a lack of diversity in image availability for global online consumption, favouring well-known Western objects. At the same time, the study evidences the need to diversify the use of images to reflect a more global perspective, particularly where paintings are used to represent concepts of techniques.

Museums wanting to increase visibility can target the reuse of their collections in non-art-related articles, which received 88% of all views in the authors’ sample. Given the few museums collaborating with the Wikimedia Foundation and the apparent inefficiency resulting from leaving the use of paintings as illustration to the crowd, as only 3% of painting images are used, suggests further collaborative efforts to reposition museum content may be beneficial.

This paper highlights the reach of Wikipedia as information source, where museum content can be positioned to reach a greater user group beyond the usual museum visitor, in turn increasing visual and digital literacy.

This is the first study that documents the frequency of use and views, the topical use and the originating institution of “all the paintings” in the English Wikipedia edition.

Image content opens up exciting possibilities for stand‐alone media, distributed networks, on‐line networks and on‐site publishing from information systems for use by the general public, for research, collection management, education and distance learning. These developments coincide and overlap with widespread new questioning and thinking as to the role of museums in relation to their diverse publics and also have many parallels in the library world. They raise difficult questions about intellectual property rights – copyright protection, fair remuneration and complex questions concerning moral rights. Clearly international co‐operation, working partnerships and consortia are going to gain further importance and significance.

THE library service commenced in Grimsby in 1901 in a former Mechanics' Institute dating from 1856 and, with a lending library erected on an adjoining site in 1910, the two buildings served with moderate success until a German bomb destroyed the older of the two in February 1941, fortunately sparing the two special collections on Lincolnshire and the fishing industry. After the war the service was re‐organised and expanded in three wooden huts erected on the bombed site and in an old three‐storeyed house adjacent to the surviving lending library.

Two recent court cases have redefined how images may be used on the Internet without copyright infringement. The Bridgeman case is based explicitly on British as well as US law. Kelly v. Arriba rested on the definition of fair use in the US copyright law, and therefore has more limited (or perhaps merely more complex) implications. Before these cases, essentially all photographs since 1923 had the presumption of copyright protection. Now exact copies of public domain art, and perhaps other images that lack originality, are in the public domain. And thumbnail copies of protected images can be regarded under at least some circumstances as being safely within the US fair use guidelines.