Does a decade make a difference? Comparing the web presence of North American art museum libraries and archives in 1999 and 2011

Abstract

The number of North American art museums with a presence on the internet has more than doubled since 1999. This is not surprising given the power of new media to transform the experiences that museum visitors have with our cultural institutions. Every year museums attract thousands of visitors to view, both in person and online, their specialized collections and unique exhibitions. Developing in tandem with these resources and largely unfamiliar to the general, museum-going public, the libraries and archives of these institutions have contributed to the research mission, educational programming, documentary history, and curatorial functions of museums in countless ways. In addition, especially for art historians and other scholars, museum libraries and archives have been and continue to be increasingly valuable for primary and secondary sources, including artists’ correspondence, diaries, sketches, hard-to-find monographs, exhibition records and sales catalogues. What is unclear, however, is the extent to which resources in art museum libraries and archives are being documented, preserved and made accessible online. This research is perhaps the first of its kind to evaluate, on a small scale and during a span of twelve years, the web presence of 22 North American art museum libraries and archives.