Introduction .............................................................. 1
                            Critical Literature Review ...................................... 2
                            Artist Interview ......................................................... 7
                            Discussion .............................................................. 13
                            Conclusion .............................................................. 15
                            Acknowledgements ............................................... 15
                            Selective Transcript ............................................... 15
                            Annotated Bibliography ......................................... 28
                            Works Consulted ...................................................  39

This study began with my curiosity about the role of information in the creative work of artists. I brought to my research the assumptions that artists are professionals, and that their work is creative; I also brought the high value that I place on artists’ work and on creativity. My hypothesis was that artists may differ somehow in their information needs and uses than other professionals such as physicians, engineers and lawyers. I wanted to understand whether and how the nature of artists’ work might influence the way they seek information, and the kinds of information they seek. As I began to explore the literature, my curiosity was thwarted first by the limited amount of research within the library and information science field about artists or other creative workers, and second by the nature of the research available. My hypothesis evolved into a critical one about the nature of the research in the field. I quickly came to believe that the information-seeking behavior studies were rife with unidentified assumptions which distorted their results. And so my research took two streams: the first, to find out what has been done in the LIS field, and try to come to grips with why I find the existing research so unsatisfactory; and second, to find out through a case study what an artist’s information needs and sources in relation to her work actually are.
 
 

As I mentioned, there is very little research about artists in the library and information science field. In her key 1996 study "The Information-seeking Behavior of Artists: Exploratory Interviews", Susie Cobbledick demonstrates this and attempts to begin to fill the gap. According to her 1995 statistics, there were 921 000 professional artists in the USA. According to 1996 Canadian statistics, there were 73 105 creative and performing artists in Canada, with a further 73 530 creative designers and craftspersons (Statistics Canada, 1996). Cobbledick makes the point that there are likely many more artists who go uncounted because they make their living by other means. As she says, "If only because of their sheer numbers, artists deserve the attention of information professionals; yet their information needs have been neglected..."(Cobbledick, 1996: 344). Case and others confirm this lack of research about artists (Case, 2002: 253; Van Zijl, 2001; Frank, 1999), and my own literature survey did not prove otherwise.

There is more research about art historians than artists, perhaps in part because, as academics, art historians are more easily accessible to the LIS scholars and academic librarians who might engage in this type of research. There is often a convenience bias in the research, with informants being selected from the pool of library-using teachers, students, and academics who are all easily available to the researchers who invariably have an academic and/or library affiliation. I looked at all of the studies about artists I could find: there were six (Cobbledick, 1996; Layne, 1994; Stam, 1995; VanZijl, 2001; Frank, 1999; Oddos, 1998). Of these, only three (Cobbledick, VanZijl and Frank) actually sought data from artists themselves. The others got their information primarily from art librarians. Of the three that talked to artists, Cobbledick surveyed and interviewed 4 American artists on faculty at the same college, Van Zijl surveyed 123 South African artists, most of whom teach at secondary or post-secondary institutions, and Frank held focus group interviews with 181 undergraduate visual arts students at a Minnesota college. They all focused on how artists use libraries rather than any broader information seeking context.

The fact that the research tends to be done with informants who are conveniently situated in the academic world and who are library users was just one of the biases and assumptions that were revealed to me in my survey of the literature. The scope of the research about artists was narrowed to their information-seeking within libraries only. The assumption of these researchers is that the library is the primary place where artists do (or should) seek information. There is also a tacit assumption that there is a correct way to use libraries, and a strong thread of belief that artists deviate from this correct usage. They are therefore considered to be inadequate and inefficient library users, usually characterized as browsers: "Artists may not start out knowing exactly what image they need; they will want to be able to browse among many images..." (Layne, 1994: 25); "Although they are infrequent users of the library, when these patrons do come, they often like to browse the collection for ideas" (Jones, 1986: 6). Other art librarians report that:

It has been recognized elsewhere that perhaps libraries’ systems of organization are not the most beneficial for all users:

There is an assumption that art librarians know what artists need and want, and how they go about looking for it. As Stam explicitly states, she would rather talk with art librarians than artists about artists’ needs because "...they, like other users, seldom can provide the kind of reasoned information on their needs and use that translates directly into improved service" (Stam, 1995: 21). Experience working with artists, as well as empathy for them and their work, may indeed give art librarians a good sense of artists’ information needs and uses in the library, but it is still second-hand information. If we really want to know about artists, shouldn’t we ask the artists themselves? Furthermore, it has been observed that the main users of art libraries are not studio artists, but art historians, professors, and academics (Jones, 1986; Collins, 2003; Oddos, 1998; Rose, 2002). "The information needs of artists are too diverse to be addressed solely within the confines of art librarianship" (Cobbledick, 1996: 365). So perhaps art librarians are not as expert as they may think they are on the ways of artists. As demonstrated in earlier quotes from Stam and others, they are certainly as capable of stereotyping artists as anyone else. Perceptions such as the following prevail: "Artists may also want to browse among images at random, seeking for serendipitous inspiration" (Layne, 1994: 25). "Thoroughness is not characteristic of their approach in the way that it is in other scholarly endeavors. Artists are compulsive browsers. They need to ‘paw through’ materials" (Stam, 1995: 22). Artists’ library use is generalized and characterized as serendipitous and somehow disabled. It is believed that they lack rigour in their research methods, and that they do not understand the organizational structures of the library because they are not perceived to use the library as librarians think it should be used. This perception is based in part on stereotypes of artists. Both Stam and Cobbledick find in talking to artists that some if not all artists are quite capable of using library systems in the prescribed way, if they so choose.
 

The nature of the questions asked of the artists limits the answers they can provide. Survey questions in particular limit the range of possible answers. Closed question surveys such as the one used in Van Zijl’s study shape the range of possible answers into a narrow stream that cannot extend beyond the researcher’s experience or imagination. This may be useful in some instances, for very specific purposes, but it does not allow for any understanding of the depth, complexity and idiosyncrasy of human behavior. "The survey method...has proved to be very popular, and when properly used is capable of producing path-breaking contributions. But it is not always appropriate in all library or information-use situations, and it is disturbing to see it being imposed indiscriminately on situations that can be better studied using other methodologies" (Aboyade, 1984: 245). Cobbledick, who did some interesting research with her in-depth artist interviews, only did the interviews in an effort to design a survey instrument for artists. While her survey is a vast improvement on the typical user questionnaire, it is still laden with librarianly and objectivist assumptions. Her survey is designed around the conception of information as thing, or at least as something obtained from things, and a large proportion of the thingly information fulfillers that she privileges in her survey questions are the province of the library (ie. journals, catalogs, books, slides, films). John Budd traces the intellectual history of LIS in his book Knowledge and Knowing in Library and Information Science, and points out how strongly biased the field is toward the scientistic/ objectivist viewpoint. We came by this viewpoint honourably, along with DesCartes and most of the rest of Western civilization, however we do seem more tenacious than others in holding onto it. It is characterized by the treatment of things as quantifiable, decontextualized objects of study, whether they are people, books or behaviors. "Of course LIS practice does not consist entirely of objectified reductions, but objectification is too common to ignore" (Budd, 2002: 251). When a survey is designed using objectivist categories and language, the informant has little choice but to fit their needs and behavior into the available categories, whether it is an accurate representation or not.

Questions asked from a library-centered perspective may solicit answers about library use, but the seeking and use of information among artists, other professionals, and indeed most people, goes far beyond the library. These studies demonstrate the limitations that Dervin has identified in disciplinary discourse communities. As she says, "we work within insular discourse communities" (Dervin, 2003: 2). The limitations of language and discourse, and hence of available perceptions and interpretations of reality and thought, shape and severely curtail our research. This critique is also made by Introna, who points out that the structure and type of discourse within an institution perpetuates its truth and disallows other contextual possibilities. Interpreting Foucault’s thought on discourse and power, Introna claims: "Each institution or society has its ‘regime of truth’ its ‘general politics of truth...This means that in an organizational setting certain topics or perspectives just do not come up as contextual possibilities" (Introna, 1998: 5). If the language is does not exist (or is not in use) to say it, it cannot be said. It has been suggested that "...being accepted within a discipline requires consistent displays of allegiance to a discipline’s orthodoxy in how narratives are constructed, in assumptions, in methods, in status hierarchies, and in doctrinal knowledge" (Dervin, 2003: 7). LIS is not alone in accepting limiting conformities: academic disciplines are defined and recognized, hence accorded value, by their discourse, and many succumb to the phenomenon called "recipe research". Dervin suggests interdisciplinarity and a dialogic narrative-based interview methodology as ways to move beyond these limitations; Introna suggests contextualization and hermeneutics.

"Most studies of information seeking (and indeed virtually all of those studying information use) have made no explicit claims to theory. Instead, most of them have been administrative in nature, concerned with collecting data for the purpose of improving operations in information agencies such as libraries" (Case, 2002: 138). If we want to discover what artists really do to inform their work, we will not find out through research shaped by the library-centered user-study template. It is my contention that much information-seeking behavior research is rooted in user studies that are more closely related to market research than academic social science research. Commercial motivations are explicitly cited as the purpose for some information seeking research: "[C]ommercial database vendors were already developing services tailored to particular professionals but lacked understanding as to whether such services would actually meet the real-life need of daily practice" (Leckie et. al, 1996: 162). This may also explain why the studies tend to be concentrated on higher income professions. User studies are motivated not by intellectual curiosity about human behavior and meaning, but by a desire to better serve library users in concrete terms, which can slide a slippery slope into a desire to push information products. The studies, with their aim to quantify information needs and objectify them into something that libraries can fulfill, are motivated by the perhaps unspoken desire to move product: to increase usage of services, books, periodicals, and databases, thereby justifying the expense of libraries to increasingly corporate-minded organizations and boards. This represents a serious misstep both in libraries as institutions for the public good and in LIS research.

Budd makes the connection between LIS discourse on customer service and the commodification of information:

My intention is to begin research from a slightly different set of assumptions than those that I found in the literature. I have little interest in the objectivist stance, or in subject/object hierarchy, and even less in attempting to reify and quantify human experience and meaning. In the creation of understanding, we are always engaged in the hermeneutic task—interpretation—whether we acknowledge it or not. As an interpretive framework, Gadamer’s hermeneutic circle makes sense to me because it is contextualized, historicized, iterative and dynamic. The circle cuts through dualistic thinking: "It is neither subjective nor objective, but describes understanding as the interplay of the movement of tradition and the movement of the interpreter" (Gadamer, 1993: 293). It insists that we acknowledge our prejudice, our historicity, and it resists stasis and objectification. Most important, it is about questioning: questioning one’s own foreknowledge, "prejudice" and contextual position, but also interrogating outward in order to develop understanding and meaning.

My own bias, as may be clear, is a preference that informants speak in their own words about their processes and what is important and meaningful to them. I prefer to let the information gathered, the "data", speak for itself rather than shaping it with librarianly assumptions and survey instruments. "The received view among many information seeking researchers...is that more meaningful research—if not actual progress—can be attained through shifts in theoretical orientation (toward the more phenomenological, contextual, and hermeneutic) and by a more qualitative emphasis..." (Case, 2002: 286). Of course, I cannot escape my own context and prejudice, and my actions of selecting, omitting, asking or staying silent will shape the research. However, my research is meant to be dialogic, in both form and spirit. By questioning both outward and inward, in an iterative and incremental movement, understanding emerges from my interaction with the artist and the text produced. Still curious about what informs an artist’s creative work, and finding only limited answers in the existing research, I decided to do some qualitative research of my own.
 
 

As exploratory and preliminary research, I decided to do an in-depth interview with a practicing professional artist. The case study is limited, of course, in that it is unique and cannot be generalized. However, the strengths of an interview in ethnographic depth and in its contextualized, narrative-based and dialogic nature at least partially make up for these limitations. Information behavior is highly subjective and idiosyncratic, and to portray it otherwise is to falsify it to some degree. "[I]t must be remembered that the information search is a highly personal one and does not always follow universal patterns" (Rose, 2002: 41). One person’s behavior is both unique and at the same time not that different from other people. As Case points out in regard to the researcher of one information-seeking study: "[T]he more important point is that she is not trying to generalize her findings to the entire population of securities analysts. Rather, she is exploring a basic aspect of human information behavior. We do not have a strong reason to think that this particular person is radically different from all other human beings" (Case, 2002: 182). I am interested in what Case calls "phenomenological interviewing, intended to uncover the meanings and intentions of the person studied—to see reality in the unique way that the respondent sees it" (Case, 2002: 200).

I tried to enter into the interview with minimal assumptions of what "information" consists of, and designed it to be as open-ended and conversational as I could. I wanted to be led by the artist, to follow her cues about what is important to her work, rather than putting my own information needs and my presumptions informed by academic research first. I was not entirely successful in this, since I really had to insist on my point of view in order to get her to talk about anything other than the actual creative process of making art—for example, she resisted talking about concrete technical issues, the processes of documentation and dissemination of her art, and the business side of it because she does not give these things the same weight of importance and meaning as the work of creating pieces of art. All of these kinds of information that she considers secondary are only present in the data because I insisted on asking about them.

I have known the artist for several years, and I am very familiar with her work. I have even, at times, shared studio space with her, and worked alongside her. Because of this foreknowledge, I am at a perceived advantage in interpreting her words and providing background information that fills the gaps in the interview. By way of introduction, the artist has done artwork since she can remember, beginning with drawing and snow sculpture as a very young child. She has completed three university degrees in visual art, culminating in an MFA with a major in sculpture. She taught art at the post-secondary level for 3 years part-time, and a further 7 years full-time, but found that teaching did not leave her enough time or energy to do her own work. Currently, she has not taught for the last four years, and this past 18 months has been the first time that she has survived solely by doing her artwork, without a second job. In the past she has done a lot of large sculpture and installation work, but she has been concentrating almost exclusively on works on paper for over a year now. She primarily uses oil sticks and various instruments that she makes, finds, or buys for moving the paint across the paper and making marks on the surface. Colour and the making of marks are key to her work. Her work is abstract, quite geometrical—at times almost architectural—and rich in colour and texture. Lines are very important, as is depth and layering of colour. The marks made on the work reveal layers of colour. In size, the pieces range from 5 x 5 inches to 15 x 15 inches, and they are normally framed behind glass with a wide white matte.

At the time of the interview, the artist was at a one-month residency in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains, where I reached her by telephone. The tape-recorded interview lasted for 45 minutes, with two follow-up phone calls that were not recorded. Establishing rapport was not an issue because we know each other quite well. She was more than willing to talk about her work and her creative process, and the appended transcript is rich with material, of which I will only discuss a small portion within the scope of this paper.

After the interviews were complete, I selectively transcribed them. I let the transcript sit for while, then went back to it and read it carefully several times. During the readings I did a rudimentary coding of the work, watching for the main themes that the artist brought up, and for repeated words, phrases, and ideas. I checked back with the artist to see whether my reading made sense to her, and it did. The main themes about what informs her work that emerged were:

1. Natural environment.
2. The work itself.
3. Relationships.
4. Self-inquiry.
5. Attentiveness.

When I asked her what informs her work, she said, "Well, see, environment does, but I don’t have to be in a wonderful environment to do work, so that isn’t always the case. So then it might be memory of an environment..." The natural environment, particularly in remote and beautiful places, is very important to her work. She gathers sensory information from the environment—the colours, textures, smells, temperature, a sense of space and light, the view of a landscape—and this is the primary source of external information that goes into her work. Recently, she has taken trips to such relatively wild and remote places as Isle Royale in Lake Superior, the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, the shores of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior, and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming, for the specific purpose of working on her art.

"Well, what I’m gathering in from the last year comes from place....The places, the environments I’m in, whether it was the Pribilofs [Islands off Alaska] or whether it was Hancock, or Michigan...or wherever I’ve done the work in the last year, has come from being in a specific place....It feeds me. They [her work] feel like visual poems of an experience of being in a place that is a very exciting place to be...in terms of landscape. And not only landscape, but colour, and quiet, or sounds, or the environment, what it’s filled with, animal life..."

"[T]he resources [that inspire her] are where I am, so like now, even though I’m not researching anything, I’m using my walks and my constantly looking out...of where I am, and paying attention to the sounds, and...what I’m hearing, what the temperature feels like, all of those things...feed the work..."

"I suppose I actively seek...I go to places that I like to be in....That’s something I’ve actively done. Probably that’s the most paramount thing, is...to be in landscapes that I know I’ll enjoy."

The natural environment inspires her, and also provides her with ideas in very specific ways. She takes colours directly from the natural environment of particular places, and also visual patterns:

"And I suppose some ideas come from...I remember in the Pribilofs because the wind was so strong on the, the sand would have all the lines over and over because the wind lines...well, here there’s the lines in the snow that are the same. the wind lines, but they’re on the snow. So it’s that kind of stuff too, that feeds my work...I’ll pick up on that and then I’ll put it into the work."

"Oh, I do a little bit of research, like I take, like yesterday I took some sage from the top of the mountain and I...matched that specifically, that colour....Like I got that piece of wood when we were at V's [on Lake Superior],...and it was so blonde, and then I matched that. So I pick up little things, that then I match the colour of...Because then I have a specific colour that comes from the place..."

She prefers to work in places where she has easy access to wild, natural spaces, and landscapes that resonate with her. However, she ultimately works from the memory of sensory experience of natural environment, whether she has just returned to her studio from a walk in the mountains, or whether she has been in the city for months. She very seldom works directly from nature.
 
 

2. The Work Itself: "What I need to know is what the piece tells me"

The information that this artist relies on the most is sensory information that comes back to her from the work in process. Her interaction with the materials she works with—paper, oil sticks (which she calls "my colours"), various mark-making instruments, such as brushes, sticks and so on—and with the colours and shapes that emerge tell her all she needs to know to progress with a piece. She ascribes the emerging work of art agency, autonomy, and almost its own voice, characterizing it as something coming to life that is in active communication with her. It is this dialogue with the work that is her most important source of information.

"...then it starts to come together in some ways, almost by itself because it has a day to be there...It starts telling me kind of...I start working with it, I don’t necessarily command it and say this is my idea, but because I’ve already laid down my first colour, then having it up for a day or two days, [it] gives me a lead on what would be the next colour or the next shape, or what kind of manipulations I’ll make into it."

"What I need to know is what the piece tells me, it’s not like I can go look up anything. Nothing I would know—I can’t know anything from a book or a resource, I have to know from the piece....So I don’t think there’s anything I need to know outside of the work."

"I get the ideas from the work." The information that she needs comes from a collaboration or dialogue between herself and the work. As it evolves and takes form, it has something to say to her, and she responds to it. In one instance that she described, she was troubled by a particular colour and mark on a piece she was working on. She decided to let it be, but the next day when she looked at it, she told me that the piece asked her, "Are you sure you can live with me?" And she answered, "No, I can’t." After confirming with another artist that it was indeed that particular mark that was throwing the piece off, she overpainted it. In her studio she does not like to have extraneous sensory input apart from the piece she is working on. Although her studio might be cluttered, she perceives it as having no visual distraction, "nothing to look at". She seldom plays music or engages in conversation while she works. She focuses intently and exclusively on her interaction with the work itself.
 
 

3. Relationships: "My work is about relationships"

The artist develops a relationship with the piece that she is working on, in much the same way that she would develop a relationship with a person. "I think sometimes the more time I spend with the work...it’s like when you spend time with a person, you get to know it more. By hanging out with the work and having it around, and looking at it from different times of day, or different situations, you get to know it differently...and it...keeps giving you information differently." Her work is a manifestation of her relationship with the materials, colours, and shapes that go into its creation, as well as being a representation of her relationship with the world, and more specifically with the natural landscape. The work also has its own internal relationships of colour and form and line which are what it communicates to her during the creation process. Once done, the work moves into its own autonomous relationship with the world. Relationship is one of the key things that informs her work at all stages.

"[M]y work is about relationships really. I mean it’s one thing relating to something else and overall it’s relationships—it’s how things relate to each other. You know, colour against another colour, a line against another line, that relationship is what makes it work. Without them relating it doesn’t work. But then when the work starts to move into the world, it moves into its relationship with the world by my relationships with certain [people]...whatever my relationships are then that carries it hopefully out into the world, but then it relates to other things. I guess it’s my relationships to other people or galleries or...whatever, that makes the work go out into the world. If I didn’t have any relationships, it wouldn’t go out."

[What would you say are the main things that inform your work?]

"Well, see, environment does...or it might be just...relationships....What kind of relationships can I find on that day...by doing the work. And that’s what I’m always interested in. How do the relationships come to be and how do they then reside with each other. I think that’s it really, the bottom line maybe."

"[My work]...celebrates colour and relationships, and it plays..."

Her relationships with other artists, living and dead, feed her work in different ways. She likes to read about how artists she admires such as Agnes Martin, Emily Carr or Sean Scully live(d) their lives, and to read what they wrote about their lives and work. "[T]he monographs on artists are very important to me...I kind of nose around to find out which books are newly published about this artist or that artist...try to read as many biographies as I can about artists that interest me." She "gets inspiration" from this reading, and also from looking at art done by people she admires:

"[I]t hones my own thinking and my own movement to see what other people are doing. It keeps reminding me of what I can do—it sharpens me, because I can use other people to get more in tune with my own...it’s like when you play in an orchestra, you have to kind of listen to the other people playing. That’s what I think it does, I can hear other people playing by looking at their work and getting excited about my own work in ways that I’m excited by their work."

Her relationships with artist friends and acquaintances provides her with information of a more technical nature.

"[T]echnical questions would be what’s the best way to preserve work...and doing that little inquiry I did about how I work with shellac first and then I use a latex gesso instead of an oil gesso, and finding these things out by asking people who have worked with it for a long time."

"[I find out from] other artists too. I’ve gotten some things from J. or...other people who work in the same medium."

She will also ask art store clerks and technical support staff if she has technical questions: "...I called that...the Golden Paint people, and they have a technician on hand all the time, kind of a help line. So occasionally I’ll...toss out questions that I don’t know the answer to that are technical that I want to find out." Many different kinds of relationships with people support and inform her work, as do relationships with place, colour, and the work of art itself. The work itself is both about and informed by relationships in many senses of the word.
 
 

4. Self-inquiry: "We ourselves are worthy of inquiry"

Although the artist takes a lot from the natural environment and her relationships, she privileges inner seeking. Her communication with her work in process is, to some degree, an externalization of her own inner inquiry. She has come to believe that what is important to know does not come from outer, authoritative sources, but from paying attention to her own experience, her own internal processes.

"I think some of it is inquiry...We inquire about others, and we use other sources for trying to study and research, but we ourselves are worthy of inquiry....I think that’s what I’m allowing myself. If I can inquire and read books and do all these things, and research other things that other people have written, then why can’t I do the same for myself? so I’m kind of using myself as inquiry for my work...And that feels just as valid as going off and studying somebody else’s word about something. It’s my experience that feeds this, so then I learn from my experience."

"I think the common understanding of information is that [it is] something you get from somebody else. But we get information from ourselves, and I think we tend to overlook that kind of information, and we don’t give it as much precedence as information we get from others. Which is interesting to me."

"I just kind of want to know about the information that I would beget myself from my experience of being on this planet. Because that really is information. Informed—you know you can be informed by the weather, by going outside, you can be informed by...doing all kinds of things very simply, you get information back. By paying attention."

This paying attention and inquiring of herself, like the practice of work itself, requires discipline, consistency and focus.

"Well, I think the inquiry...it comes kind of subtly because, the more I’m finding out, the more I find out, the more consistent I am, and the more disciplined I am, and the more focused I am. So then I find out things that...I kind of have some sense of what begets my wanting to even be creative....I can kind of get an idea of my character and find out that...I think the information comes from...looking at my own stuff and how I behave in the world."

Recognizing herself as the most important generator of knowledge, her consistent inquiry into her own processes and her perceptions results (among other things) in the creation of two of the key objects that she uses in her work: her sketchbook and her colour strips. These are the two things that she identified as being the most important objects in her studio, and they are both her own information products. Her colour strips are visual records of the colours she uses and creates. She refers back to them time and again to learn about colour relationships of her own design. "I’m learning more and more about colour relationships because I’m studying my own palettes, and I keep making my own little cards of all the colours...the colour is really important, how...each colour plays off the colour next to it." Her sketchbook is where she makes drawings of ideas, and writes about a piece as she creates it. She always writes as she works. She also uses it to record the process of making each piece. She keeps a journal too, in which she writes almost daily about her inner life, her work, and whatever else is going on. Her persistent self-reflection is an important source of information for her work.
 
 

5. Attentiveness: "By paying attention"

It is interesting to me that, while the artist attributes a great deal of agency and autonomy to her work, she presents herself as playing a fairly passive role. Her main strategy of information gathering is simply paying attention; being attentive to the world around her and to her movement through it. As long as she keeps moving and stays attentive to process and place, she finds out everything she needs to know.

"I’m not going out into the world looking for something to put in [to her work], because I’m already in it [the world], I’m just then making these pieces that come from my being here. But I don’t specifically go and gather anything."

"So ultimately information can just be about being attentive. So that’s kind of what I try to do, being attentive, and that brings me information then."

By paying attention and being receptive, she gets subtle information about light, colour, space and sound that are processed through her and translated into colour, shape and marks on paper in her work. By paying attention and keeping her ears open, she hears about galleries or individuals who might be interested in her work. By being attentive, "...maybe something will come...or an accident will happen, or...I’ll just be messing with something and I’ll stumble on something that I hadn’t thought of before..." She maintains a receptive stance, open to accident and willing to engage with whatever comes her way. Although it may be described as passive, true attentiveness and openness to the world around and within is something that she has practiced for a long time—it is not an easy thing to maintain.
 
 

6. Other Sources of Information

Some of the other means by which the artist finds out what she needs to know in order to do her work include experimentation: "Some of it is just by trial and error." She has worked for many years, and through experimenting and trying out different techniques and materials, she has come to develop a way of working that is technically almost invisible to her. She has developed and refined her techniques and materials to the point that she does not need to think about them much anymore. It is only when a change occurs, or she tries something new, that she needs to seek new technical information.

She depends on art magazines, in particular the ads at the back, for information about grants, shows, residencies, galleries, and so on. "I’m always reading art magazines and paying attention to ads and things in the back." The residency that she is currently on is one that she applied to based an advertisement in the back of Art in America. She looks up factual details in books, and she always has her dictionary close at hand to look up words for her titles and her writing. She uses art company catalogues, and peruses art supply stores, for new products and technical information. Finally, she has absorbed a lot of technical, practical and other information through immersion in the established practice at institutions where she has worked, such as an art museum or art college. She does occasionally visit libraries, usually public, and usually when she is traveling and needs a place to read and write in, or to check her e-mail. She has a deep appreciation of libraries, however she is a much more frequent visitor to bookstores where she reads and sometimes buys art magazines and the occasional biography or theory book.
 
 

Interestingly, I discovered that this piece of research supported a lot of Case’s conclusions, especially: "Information seeking is a dynamic process" and "Information seeking is not always about a ‘problem’ or ‘problematic situation’. Some information-related behavior is truly creative in its origins" (Case, 2002: 290). I recognized after the interview that I had developed a conception of information seeking as a kind of problem-resolution or gap-filling thing. I assumed information seeking to be an action motivated by a perceived need, by a lack, rather than a creative process motivated by curiosity, pleasure, or sensory feedback. In spite of my best intentions, I walked into the interview with the scholarly category of "information need" reified in my mind by the reading I had done in the field. Furthermore, in spite of my recognition of the complexity of human behavior, on some level I really wanted the "information need" to be simple, identifiable and resolvable, so that I could point it out and discuss it easily. My problem-orientation came from two sides: the lack-motivated need assumed by information seeking research, and the problem-creation that Getzels proposes is central to creative work:

The term "information-seeking" somehow oversimplifies the creative process, reducing it to a technical problem. The term does move away from the objectified, thingly nature of "information" alone without its accompanying action/process-oriented "seeking", but not quite far enough away. It is still contaminated by the disconnected coldness of the word information. The artist did not like the word: "Information sounds too technical." To her the word implies stasis and external authority. "I think the common understanding of information is that [it is] something you get from somebody else." This is contradictory to her creative process which is highly personal, self-reflexive, and characterized by process and sensory feedback. She perceives the process of finding out what she needs to in order to do her work as moving, relational, organic, dialogic and iterative.

Interestingly, and quite unexpectedly, her description of her creative process echoes my earlier description of the hermeneutic circle. This indicates to me that it is an apt metaphor for framing research about creative work. While there is always a problem with having to set limits and define terms in order to study any phenomena, I think "information-seeking" is less than an ideal concept to use in the investigation of what informs an artist’s creative work. The main things that inform this artist’s creative work are natural environment, the work itself, relationships, self-inquiry, and attentiveness. Her categories are fluid, interrelational, dynamic, and creative—they rely on the action of creating understanding, rather than finding pre-existing information. In order to understand this phenomenon, it is more appropriate to engage with it from the hermeneutic standpoint, which is closer to how the artist herself engages with it: "The work itself is a movement that is back and forth, relating, moving, expanding, coming back, and so is my work in getting the work in the world."
 
 

What are the information needs and sources of artists? There is no simple answer to this question. Information-seeking is a creative process that begins and ends outside the walls of any library. Those of us who work within the library world do not necessarily have a complete understanding of the process for artists, or any other user group for that matter. It is difficult to measure these qualitative processes by quantitative measures. The only way we will gain the understanding we need in order to be truly user-centered rather than prescriptive is by talking to the artists themselves. It is my opinion that we constantly need to question our motivations and our assumptions about who our patrons are and what their needs are, and consciously choose our opinions and actions, in order to truly enact the values of the library and assist its users.
 
 

I would like to thank Dr. Carole Farber at the University of Western Ontario for so kindly supporting and guiding me in the research and writing of this paper, and the members of ARLIS/NA for taking an interest in my research. I would also like to extend my thanks to the artist who so generously worked with me throughout.
 
 

Background:

The artist has done artwork since she was a child, and completed 3 degrees in visual art, culminating in an MFA with a major in sculpture. She taught art at the post-secondary level for 7 years, but found that it did not leave her enough time or energy to do her own work. She has not taught for 4 years, and this past year has been the first that she has survived (if barely) solely by doing her artwork. In the past she has done a lot of sculpture and installation work, but she has been concentrating almost exclusively on works on paper for over a year now. She primarily uses oil sticks and various instruments that she makes, finds, or buys, for mark-making. She is currently at a one-month artist’s residency in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains, where I reached her by phone.

 Transcript:

• ... stands for omitted words, often false starts, you-know-what-I-means, umms, etc.
• --- stands for selectively omitted sections, judged to be less relevant or inconsequential.

 Next day, unrecorded phone conversation:

Artist tells me that information comes from paying attention. She gets subtle things that come through about light, colour, space, and sound that are processed through her, and translate into colour, shape and marks on paper.

The information she needs comes through a collaboration between herself and the work. As it evolves, as it takes form, it has something to say to her, and she responds to it.

She described her work process as being like stepping stones, walking up a hill. It’s full of movement and process. When you walk 10 steps up a hill and turn around to look back, the view is really different, then you walk another 10 steps, and it has changed again. She does not like the word information because it seems too technical, too static, like something that comes to her already complete, from outside. She perceives the process of finding out what she needs to in order to do her work as moving, organic and iterative. Nothing comes all at once.

She also mentions that she gets inspiration from reading the writings of artists she admires, like Emily Carr or Agnes Martin. She likes reading about how they lived their lives, and what they have to say, even more than looking at their work.

* She found out the information about the jack rabbits by looking it up in a book at the residency where she is staying.

** The next day, this particular colour bothered her again. She says the piece asked her, "Are you sure you can live with me?", and she said, "No I can’t." So she asked another artist to come in and look at the piece, and asked her if there was anything that bothered her about it. When that artist pointed out the same mark, thus confirming her discomfort with it, she changed it by overpainting very carefully. "I solved a problem today."

*** She found out about the brushes by asking a clerk at an art store. First she asked him if he was a painter, then whether he was an oil painter, and when he said yes, she asked him to recommend different kinds of brushes.

Further unrecorded phone conversation:

Upon asking the artist what she always keeps in her studio, her first response is "my lights". Light is very important to her because lately she has been having some difficulty with her vision. She needs very good halogen lamps, and also has enormous windows that let in a lot of natural light during daylight hours. She normally paints only in daylight hours. The other things she has in her studio are her colour strips, paints, paper, materials, and her sketchbook, in which she writes and sketches her ideas as she works on a piece. She says the most important things are the sketchbook and the colour strips. Other things she has around her are sheets of sheetrock on the walls where she pins her work up as she works on it, and leaves it up to look at it, a soft chair to sit in (she works standing up), and a desk to write on because she always writes about her work as she is working on it. She does not have much up on the walls, and prefers no visual distraction. She occasionally plays music, but usually not.

Having been in her studio, I can tell you that there is a lot more in it than that! It is, in fact, quite a cluttered space, although very large, used for storage, office work, and correspondence, among other things. There are many objects around, including some pieces of art by herself and others, rags and rag disposal can, a stereo, computer, printer, scanner, fax, carpentry tools, lumber, files, two desks, two large tables and a drafting table, a futon, shelves and cupboards, tool cabinets, slide and photography paraphernalia, many books, natural objects such as sticks and stones, meditation cushions, and general stuff. However, most of this she does not find necessary to her work—it is just so much clutter that she tunes out when she works, unless she happens to need to look up something on the Internet or in a book, or needs a specific tool, or unless she is working on the processes of documentation and dissemination which she considers secondary to the work of art-making.
 
 

Bates, Marcia J. 1996. "Learning About the Information Seeking of Interdisciplinary Scholars and Students." Library Trends 45(2): 155-164. Bates uses the concept of low, medium and high scatter fields of research, with low scatter being those whose principles are well developed, literature is well organized, and the subject area is well defined. High scatter fields are those that include a wide range of different subjects and organization of the literature is almost non-existent. Bates suggests that interdisciplinary fields are high scatter, and therefore the researchers have many more problems gathering information. They need to be familiar with the vocabulary, the literature, the navigation, of several different disciplines. She identifies the assumption in LIS that organization, description, indexing, etc. contribute to the successful and speedy retrieval of information by users, and questions whether this is actually the case. The way libraries are set up influences the kind of research that can be done. Bates identifies practicing artists as well as interdisciplinary scholars as lacking in attention regarding their information seeking behavior, and she seems to point to the fact that the research needs and patterns of these groups is less easily defined and articulated. It is more idiosyncratic and inclusive, therefore difficult to draw conclusions about and difficult for librarians to address. Her paper leads to, but never asks, the question: have these groups been neglected because they reveal the flaws of library processes and organization?

Cobbledick, Susie. 1996. "The Information-Seeking Behavior of Artists: Exploratory Interviews." The Library Quarterly 66(4): 343-372. Cobbledick has identified two key things: the lack of attention paid to artists as library users, and the inadequacy of standard user questionnaires for artists. The purpose of her study is to establish a framework for future research in the area of information-seeking behavior of artists. She conducts in-depth interviews with four artists on faculty at the same college who work in four different media (sculptor, painter, fiber artist, metalsmith), and uses the interview results to design a survey instrument for artists as library-users. She concludes that information practices of artists are diverse, but identifies several common features: 1) centrality of print material, especially monographs; 2) an interest in non-art subjects; 3) an interest in verbal content, not just visual; 4) artists use all kinds of libraries—public, academic, art/special; 5) contrary to popular belief, they do not depend on browsing as main information strategy.  Her assumptions are that she, as a librarian, understands the main areas of artists’ information needs well enough to identify them and use them to inform and structure her interviews, and that the library is somehow central to artists’ information needs. Like most of these studies, its scope is limited by the author’s perspective from within the library profession. She is intent on developing a survey instrument to address the information needs of artists, assuming that their need are not only library- and object-centered, but quantifiable.

Collins, Kim. 2003. "Patrons, Processes, and the Profession: Comparing the Academic Art Library and the Art Museum Library." Journal of Library Administration 39(1): 77-89. Volume 39, no. 1 of Journal of Library Administration is devoted to art librarianship, and serves as a reference guide to the subjects and contemporary issues within the field. Collins’ article makes the point that the main users of art libraries are art historians (not artists). The patrons also include students of art history and studio art students and practitioners, students from other disciplines and the public at large, but professional art historians are targeted as the most important user group. There are two kinds of art historians: the curator/practitioner who uses the art museum library that may, if they are lucky, exist as part of their work institution; and the academic/theoretician whose main library is an academic art library. The different needs of the two groups, and the practices of these two different kinds of art libraries are compared. Collins then discusses funding, financial accountability, and how to justify the art library as an expense/as a resource to its parent institution.  This is a descriptive essay, neither theoretical nor empirical. It seems to be an informed overview of two different kinds of art libraries’ definition and services in accord with their art historian patrons. She reveals that issues of funding are key, and that art librarians need to strive to justify their existence.

Dervin, Brenda. 2003. "Human Studies and User Studies: A Call for Methodological Inter-Disciplinarity." Information Research 9(1). In this passionate, manifesto-like essay, Dervin sparks at the limitations of disciplinarity in general and the LIS discipline in particular, with special reference to user studies. She points out the limitations of discourse communities, describing how they increase disciplinary insularity and limit research potential by limiting the range of options (in language, assumptions, accepted practice, narrative construction, methods, subordination to disciplinary hierarchies) available to researchers in their work and interpretations. She plainly states that funding and politics have come to drive research, to the detriment of the academy. She criticizes the teleological bent of research, proposing that it be instead philosophically grounded in methodology, and that it pay more attention to asking questions than finding answers. Identifying the object of her scorn as script-based research, or recipe research, she cites her own Sense Making Methodology as a way to alleviate the problems. Part of this methodology is a dialogic interview approach which draws on narrative/story telling in order to interrupt normal discourse and explore deeper understandings. The essay is based on an extensive, cross-disciplinary literature survey. She obviously knows her stuff, and I tend to agree with her objections to the limitations and failures of academic research. However, she seems to be agenda-driven, to the extent that I question her objectivity. All the same, she is asking some very important questions, questions which need to be asked.

Frank, Polly. 1999. "Student Artists in the Library: An Investigation of How They Use General Academic Libraries for Their Creative Needs." Journal of Academic Librarianship 25(6): 445-455. This study is based on focus group interviews held with 181 undergraduate visual arts students in Minnesota. Frank is investigating how these student artists actually perceive and use the library for artwork related problems. She recognizes that "the literature generally overlooks information solicited from the users themselves" (p.446), and valiantly fills this gap. Her results are broad and rich, but her main findings emphasize that students look for many different things in a library, categorized generally as things that broaden their knowledge about art, that address specific creative problems, and that inspire or provide relief from creative block. There is a heavy emphasis on browsing, which the students identified as their preferred and primary strategy for using the library. She found also that art students are heavily influenced by the design, aesthetics and condition of a book or other resource in their searches. Among the suggestions received from the students were: add more resources on new art and artists, better signage and organization, bring together collections of importance to artists to enhance browsing. As an exploratory and general study, the author does not draw finite conclusions. She identifies several areas for future study based on her results, and in her conclusion she tries to apply her research by making several concrete suggestions of how the library could better serve student artists. She recommends opening channels of communication between the library and the students, whether by user studies, outreach to the department, or simply talking to students. This study has many strengths, chief among them that Frank actually talks to student artists themselves. She begins by interpreting from a function- or need-based (user-centered) perspective rather than resource-based (librarian-centered) perspective, but degenerates into interpreting things in the light of functional details like signage, book jackets, and OPAC training. However, her recommendation that librarians respect the search strategies (ie. browsing) that artists use is golden: "Librarians will need to get beyond questioning whether or not student artists should browse, recognize that some do, and enhance their ability to do so" (p.454).

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1993. Truth and Method, 2nd ed. New York: Continuum. The main idea that I want to pull from Gadamer’s comprehensive work on philosophical hermeneutics is the concept of the hermeneutical circle as a description of the way interpretative understanding is achieved. The hermeneutical circle describes the circular, dynamic, incremental, dialogic way that understandings are reached against the ever-growing, ever-changing foreground of our historicity, our individual subjectivity, our tradition, our context, our prejudice. Understanding, or meaning, grows as an interplay between the whole and the parts of the circle. The whole is constantly revised in light of the parts, the parts are understood against the foreground of the whole (what we already know, and/or the text as a whole). This dialogic process of interpretation is the way that we come to understand a text (text in the broadest sense of the word). Interpretation, or understanding, is always dependent on prejudice, on historicity: an objective viewpoint is not available to us, but we do have the ability to critically analyze and interrogate our prejudice, preunderstandings, and interpretive process. Gadamer has been criticized for taking a relativistic position, but this is a misinterpretation of his work.

Introna, Lucas D. 1998. "Context, Power, Bodies and Information: Exploring the ‘Entangled’ Contexts of Information." In Exploring the Contexts of Information Behavior: Proceedings from the 2nd International Conference on Research in Information Needs, seeking and Use in Different Contexts, edited by Thomas D. Wilson and David K. Allen. Los Angeles: Taylor Graham, 1999. This is a philosophical paper, intended as a gentle critique of LIS research. Within LIS research Introna has observed that the relationship between text and context, whole and part, is portrayed as an either/or relationship, where text and context are separated and both are available as objects to the interpreter. Introna finds fault with this Cartesian (dualistic) view which seems to inform research in the field. He proposes, rather, that contexts are "entanglements": inescapable, pervasive, unknowable, and diffused. Referring to Foucault’s thought on power, he argues that we are all always entangled in a web of influence or network of power, which is dis-located and dynamic. There is no interest-free act or position. The structure and type of discourse within an institution or society perpetuates its truth and disallows other contextual possibilities. Moving from Foucault to Gadamer, he argues along the same lines, that there is no possibility of objectivity. We are unaware of the values, interests, beliefs, and so on, that inform and filter our perception and our judgment. These form the context within which we are immersed and cannot escape, they are the condition for our understanding and making of meaning, neither of which can ever be "pure" or uncontaminated by our subjectivity. There is no possibility of an objective gaze. We are always within a context which is dynamic, diffused, immersive, and mostly unrecognizable to ourselves, and it is in the interaction of the context (in which we are immersed) and the text (which we only think we see objectively) where meaning arises.  I think I understand what he’s getting at, but it would be nice to have some application to LIS research, or some idea of how it can be done differently coming from this point of view. How do we actually move out of our dualistic ways of thinking/perceiving and understand the falsity of claims of objectivity? He does important work in raising the question of the validity of our supposedly empirical, objective studies, although this is not new news in other fields. The shift in thought away from Cartesian dualism, toward multiplicity, complexity, and questioning objectivity is fairly pervasive in this post-modern age, if not across the board in LIS research.

Jones, Lois Swan and Sarah Scott Gibson. 1986. Chapter 1 "Art Libraries and Librarians" and Chapter 5 "Materials for Special Types of Users." Art Libraries and Information Services: Development, Organization, and Management. Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Chapter 1 is introductory, providing history and general information about art librarianship. The importance of developing profiles of users—practitioners, students and teachers—is outlined. Art historians are identified as the main user group. Patrons are described by their needs for information sources, and studio artists described as infrequent users of art libraries. Chapter 5 discusses the material needs of different groups of patrons to the art library. The user groups identified are art/architectural historians, studio artists, art/museum educators and administrators, and professional designers. Artists need access to art historical works, information on competitive exhibitions, methods for displaying and selling work, legal aspects of the art field, the latest facts of chemicals and substances used in art production, recent exhibitions of contemporary art, works on safety, and illustrations of art works, as well as sources for materials, information on the business side of art, and how-to books. This book is dated, certainly, but it reveals the groundwork, definitions and assumptions that continue to inform art librarianship today. The focus is on resources/materials rather than on patrons, however the main user groups are identified and their perceived needs explicitly stated. This information comes from the observations, experience and assumptions of art librarians.

Layne, Sara Shatford. 1994. "Artists, Art Historians, and Visual Art Information." The Reference Librarian 47: 23-36. This is a discussion of the information-seeking and –using behavior of applied artists and art historians, based on previous studies. Layne identifies art information as both textual and visual, and as about both art and the wider world of information that is used in the creation of art. It could be about almost anything. Concentrating on visual information, which is more problematic, she identifies a deficiency in systems of citation and cataloguing images, and suggests that the role of art reference librarians should include evaluating, influencing the creation of (informed by the needs of artists and art historians), and mediating virtual image databases. Librarians have identified that artists require a wide range of textual and visual information to browse, and art historians in particular need linkages between the textual and visual information. Artists need to access images by the following characteristics: artist’s name, title of work of art, dates, places, physical characteristics of art works, type/genre of art work, style, and subject. Since Layne has an MFA as well as an MLS, and has worked as a practicing artist (costume designer), I am inclined to take her insights about artists seriously—they are less likely to be based on stereotype. In spite of this, she perpetuates the idea that artists don’t know what they want, that they are browsers who depend on serendipity as their main information-seeking technique. Would this be said of any other user group: "[artists] may in fact benefit from imprecise retrieval methods: one person’s irrelevant image may be another’s serendipitous discovery" (p.34)? Her point of view in this paper is a cataloguer’s perspective, and she sees improvements in library cataloguing as key to improving artists’ access to desired information. She speaks tentatively, using  "may" very frequently, which makes it seem as though she is only suggesting possibilities rather than asserting her researched point of view.

Leckie, Gloria J., Karen E. Pettigrew, and Christian Sylvain. 1996. "Modeling the Information Seeking of Professionals: A General Model Derived from Research on Engineers, Health Care Professionals, and Lawyers." Library Quarterly 66(2): 161-193. Leckie et al propose that information seeking behavior of professionals differs from that of scholars, and seek to understand that of professionals in a way that can be generalized across professions. They have extensively reviewed and analyzed the literature on information seeking behavior of professionals (in particular engineers, health care professionals, and lawyers), and earlier models of information seeking, and devised a general model from their findings and analysis. The key characteristics of their model are complexity, multiplicity and dynamism. The model proposes that professionals have several different work roles (service provider, administrator, manager, researcher, educator, student), and each of these roles is manifested in multiple tasks. Information seeking is usually role and task related. Information needs are context dependent and highly multiple and variable according to individual and general factors. Information seeking is shaped by sources of information (highly multiple) and awareness of information. Outcomes can satisfy the information need or not. If they do not, there is a feedback loop to more information seeking. The model is useful because it integrates existing research findings, it can serve as a theoretical framework for future research, and it can broaden theoretical horizons by explicitly emphasizing role theory, which has been implicit but not openly acknowledged in LIS research.  The authors have done an excellent synthesis and application of a large body of research in this field. It is very helpful that they are looking at information seeking in the work place, in a larger context than the library. This was almost made requisite by choosing to study professionals rather than scholars, and is a perspective that could (should) be applied to all groups studied. This is more than a user study, it has a larger perspective and asks larger questions. However, its fodder included many user studies, and the bias that those user studies may manifest, which may have affected this study from its root, was not discussed. Some questions arise which they did not address (of course they are beyond the scope of the paper): why has the research been (and continues to be) focused on prestigious professions, in particular physicians? Could this model not be applied beyond professionals—is there really anything that makes it specific to professionals?

McNamara, Joann. 1999. "Dance in the Hermeneutic Circle." In Researching Dance: Evolving Modes of Inquiry, edited by Sondra Horton Fraleigh and Penelope Hanstein. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press: 162-187. McNamara uses phenomenological (as opposed to objectivist) hermeneutics as a theory of interpretation for aesthetic issues, in particular for dance. Rather than emphasizing a right or correct interpretation, phenomenological hermeneutics emphasizes relative understanding within the context of a whole—it recognizes that our understanding is historically and culturally conditioned. "Observations and interpretations are also made from a vantage that often, already, embraces certain theories. This does not mean that when one interprets phenomena that a theoretical framework or method will automatically be attached to that observation, but rather that these theories subtly precondition our observations and interpretations to begin with" (p.166). In her view, hermeneutic theory is particularly suited to dance because dance, while an expressive or symbolic act, is always experiential and embodied in the dancer. She makes a parallel to "the hermeneut" who is never divorced from Being/body. Hermeneutics is also appropriate for aesthetic interpretation because it allows for (demands) creativity from the interpreter. McNamara describes the hermeneutic process as being composed of questioning phenomena and clarifying one’s own position. There is no constructed hypothesis to test, and the data collected/discovered is qualitative and experiential. This is a philosophically grounded essay in which she demonstrates her mastery over hermeneutic theory and applies it to dance.

Oddos, Jean-Paul. 1998. "A Ghost in Your Library: The Artist’s Relationship with the Art Library, the Need for Information and the Need for Recognition." Art Libraries Journal 23(1): 13-21. This article is the text of a paper presented at the 1997 IFLA conference by the chief conservator of documentation at the French National Museum of Modern Art in Paris. From his own experience, observation, and insight during his career at the documentation centre (ie. library) of this major museum, he proposes ways and justifications for libraries to actively include living artists both in their group of patrons and in their collections. He reiterates that art museum libraries are used primarily by art historians, curators and students, not working artists, and that artists’ "need for information and images is extremely far-reaching and varied and also very subjective" (p.18). An artist may be motivated by curiosity rather than by a need for facts. A specialized art library can rarely meet their needs. He identifies some key information needs for artists that the art museum library could and should fill, including: the need for current information about exhibits, galleries, practicing artists; the need for freedom and possibly anonymity in their research (ie. not to be constrained by making them a special category of user, or expecting them to behave in prescribed ways); and, most interestingly, the need for recognition. A living artist depends largely on recognition for her/his success and livelihood, and Oddos perceives this as an information need that the library can help fulfill by encouraging the presence of living artists in the library (through their work, catalogues, videos, photos, clippings, etc., as well as themselves). He proposes creating a living link, a relationship, between artists and the library, which helps the artists by providing recognition of them and their work, and helps the library which he views as "cut off from the creative process" (p.20). It was refreshing to read a European point of view on the subject, and I think his identification of recognition as an information need is insightful. His proposal that art libraries fill this need is courageous and creative, a departure from the usual role of libraries (although not such a long stretch). The main problem I see in his proposal that the library cultivate a stable of artists that they will serve through promotion and collection: how would the decisions be made to include and exclude artists from this special attention?

Rose, Trish. 2002. "Technology’s Impact on the Information-Seeking Behavior of Art Historians." Art Documentation 21(2): 35-42. This study adheres closely to the template of library user studies. Rose surveyed 15 art historians from her region (San Diego) about their information seeking processes, restricting it to "aspects of the research process upon which the art librarian could have the greatest impact" (p.35). She found that they employed a wide variety of methodological and theoretical approaches. She found also that the most consulted people in research were art librarians (80%) (although only for very basic needs), and colleagues (40%); that libraries were used by all of the participants, followed by archives, Internet, conferences, museums, ILL and archaeological sites. Print monographs were the most frequently cited resource, with print/electronic journals, and the art object itself in 2nd and 3rd place. Although the art historians use computers for information gathering (searching online catalogues and periodical databases, compiling bibliographies, searching the Internet for images and information, e-mail) and word processing, they do not use computers for organization of information. Instead, they prefer manipulable media: "Index cards, loose-leaf binders, and notebooks continue to be the recording and storage tools of choice in the field" (p.40). This seems to be because paper allows for a breadth of access, while computers, due to the limited screen size, requires depth of access, which is not conducive to organizing and working with research notes and other material. The production of online digital image databases has stumbled over copyright restrictions as well as image quality problems, but it is something that the art historians identify as a high priority. My instinct about this study is that the author got the results she wanted. She designed it from an art librarian perspective, and composed her survey questions in such a way that they led the respondents to talk about their use of libraries, librarians, print and electronic sources, and computers. Furthermore, she makes one or two astonishing leaps in logic, and appears to have contradictory results regarding art librarian consultation. She states in one paragraph that art librarians are consulted "infrequently and only for very basic needs"(p.38), and in another paragraph that "by far the most frequently consulted person was the art librarian (80%)" (p.36). However, she acknowledges that she was limited by time and resources, hence limited in perspective. In spite of her generalizations, which she was surely expected to produce to justify the study, she acknowledges that information searches are always idiosyncratic: "it must be remembered that the information search is a highly personal one and does not always follow universal patterns" (p.41).

Stam, Deirdre. 1995. "Artists and Art Libraries." Art Libraries Journal 20(2): 21-24. Stam finds that artists begin their work with ideas, and need access to wider culture than the art world. They require access to the realm of ideas, as well as to technical information. Artists read widely, serendipity plays a large part in their processes, they need access to images, and to information about the business side of art. Artists working in different media have different information needs and patterns, which seem to be recognizable and generalizable to art librarians. They are compulsive hands-on browsers, and have eclectic information needs. Stam reports that artists are not thorough in their research, they do not know how to use indexes and catalogues and do not want to learn, and are not particularly literate. Proposed resources and services for the artist patrons include: better access to images, through indexes or image banks; the ability to make colour copies; subject specialists; in-house indexes to slides and videos; more videos; open stacks for browsing; large library tables; museum and exhibition catalogues; more detailed indexing and cataloguing; an index or guide to location of art works; exhibition directories. Stam suggests that cooperative action between art libraries is the only way to meet these needs, especially those involving new media. Stam has done extensive empirical research about art historians’ use of libraries, but seems not to have talked with artists at all. In fact, she is reluctant to talk to artists because they "...seldom can provide the kind of reasoned information on their needs and use that translates directly into improved service." (p.21). For this conference paper, she gathered her information by surveying art librarians, and it is rife with stereotypes about artists, their needs and behavior. Her suggestions are useful, but the paper is narrow in scope.

Van Zijl, Carol and Elizabeth M.Gericke. 2001. "Methods Used by South African Visual Artists to Find Information." Mousaion 19(1): 3-24. This study is a less rigorous version of Cobbledick’s study of the information seeking behavior of artists. Like Cobbledick, the authors identify a neglect of artists as information users, and seek to fill that gap. The study is based on a survey of 123 South African artists who work in all media. Many of the respondents sought out for the study teach in post-secondary institutions, some in high schools, and some are members of South African National Association for the Visual Arts. Van Zijl finds that the preferred methods of information seeking are (in descending order of importance): 1) Conducting own search on OPAC or databases. 2) Browsing. 3) Asking a librarian for assistance. 4) Following up citations in bibliographies. 5) Conducting own searches on the Internet. 6) Asking a friend or colleague for help (invisible college). The final method, using electronic lists and bulletin boards, was found to be the least used by artists. Each method is analyzed according to one or more factors that the author felt were co-related with the result (eg. by gender, lecturing field, race/ethnicity, age, educational qualifications, institutional affiliation). The authors recommend outreach and education to artists. Artists prefer to do their own research independently, so librarians need to educate them about resources and provide them with the skills to do research.  Although the survey tool was not appended, it was clearly a closed-question survey that allowed artists a small and limited range of choices. It inquired almost exclusively about resources that a library could provide, and inquired almost exclusively of a group of artists who would be most likely to have access to and familiarity with an academic library—post-secondary educators. The researcher purposely skewed the study to those she considered to be "more information-literate visual artists" (p.4). Because of the limitations of the sample and the questions asked, the results really cannot be generalized at all, and should be taken with a grain of salt. The researcher makes several groundless suppositions and assumptions to explain her results, which further compromises her credibility.

 

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