Word & Image: Art, Books and Design from the National Art Library

摘要

The National Art Library has had its ups and downs, and perhaps more than many libraries its fair share of navel-gazing as to its purpose and status. Its title is part of its problem-or its opportunity?-as it is not, and never has been, a national library in the usual sense of the term, and it will not be found represented at the Conference of Directors of National Libraries. It is the library of the Victoria & Albert Museum and its predecessor the School of Design, but was christened the National Art Library around 1865. Since then the title has variously been trumpeted, or discretely played down, according to the relative emphasis given by successive generations of Museum management to the primary aims stated on the website, to be 'a major public reference library for the fine and decorative arts, and the V&A's curatorial department for the art, craft and design of the book'. Its public entrance on the first floor of the Museum, shown in this book, has the words in bold capitals across its portal, but the Library has had no Keeper or Chief Librarian since the last such postholder retired in 2000, and it was merged with Prints, Paintings and Drawings to create a new Word and Image Department. The book has been produced to accompany an international touring exhibition, and uses the title of the enlarged department, but is devoted specifically to NAL material. Not that this creates any shortage of choice; the Library has a huge and diverse range of holdings, historic and modern, and beyond its million or so books there are ephemera, trade literature, comics, manuscripts and book art to be explored.