Collecting ‘the now’

Abstract

Is it, should it be, the responsibility of an art librarian to document and collect ‘the now’? There are obvious pros and cons of this – the inevitable value-judgments, the expensive errors of unnecessary acquisition or omission, the labour involved, deviation from the institutional mission, etc. The author explores a personal journey through the acquisition of artists’ books and multiples, defending a role for the art librarian in the interstices of curatorship and the art world as it actually happens.