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MATTHEW Vassar's plan for the college for women that he chartered in 1861 included among its facilities a cabinet for paintings and sculpture to support instruction in art and aesthetics. To this purpose, on June 6, 1864 Vassar purchased for the college from the Albany minister and art collector Elias Lyman Magoon a substantial art collection as well as a library of over 1,000 volumes on art and architecture. This foundational book collection has been maintained to support the curriculum of the Art Department so that today it is one of the truly exceptional college art library collections in the nation, consisting of over 65,000 volumes whose records may be accessed via the Vassar College Libraries Online Catalog. Included are monographs, periodicals, exhibition catalogs, and other works related to the art and architectural history of Europe, the United States, Asia and Africa. Books in the Art Library general collection are divided by size, with octavo and folio size books shelved in Stacks II and III, and quarto size books shelved on the Entry Level of the library. A separate Art Reference Collection located on the Art Library Entry Level is maintained to facilitate research. Included in this collection are printed library catalogs, handbooks, biographical dictionaries, bibliographies, iconographic resources, and other guides to information in the field. A general guide to the use of this material can be found at this site under Research. The Art Library houses the Nancy Orbison Meeker Visual Resources Room, which contains photographic reproductions of works of art on display for Art 105/106, as well as computing, video, and microfiche platforms for viewing the Library's Digital Pictorial Reserve of images related to specific courses. Access to electronic resources including reference works, indexes, abstracts, and databases of visual images such as Artstore is available through the Art Library Website under Indexes. The Art Library owns two large microfiche collections of visual material: The Italien Index: Pictorial documentation on art in Italy of the Marburg Photo Archive (Bildarchiv Foto Marburg). This is a microfiche collection of black and white photographic images of 60,000 works of sculpture, architecture, painting, drawing, crafts and furniture depicting works in Florence, Milan, Venice, Siena, and the smaller towns and villages throughout Italy. The collection is arranged geographically by location. Within each location, the material is organized by 1) overviews of the city/town, 2) ecclesiastical architecture, 3) secular architecture, and 4) public and private art collections. The
Historic American Buildings Survey Part 1 (to 1980) Microfiche and microfilm are kept in cabinets on the entry level of the Art Library, and may be viewed on readers in the Meeker Visual Resources room. The Art Library also owns a full set of the Decimal Index to the Art of the Low Countries (DIAL). This is a set of small black-and-white illlustrations of Dutch and Flemish drawings, prints, and paintings from the photo archive of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie. The photos are arranged by subject and can be accessed through Iconclass, which is located on top of the file cabinet in which the collection is housed on the entry level of the library. Also located in Van Ingen Hall above the Art Library and maintained by the Vassar Libraries is a separate Visual Resources Library of photographic slides used to support instruction in the history of art and architecture. |
