Digital access to the old and the rare: Bibliothèque Artistique

The small shoestring-budget team is trying to create digital access to their rare material as much as they possibly can as they continue the Herculean cataloguing task. They regularly utilise other organisations high quality digital collections. 

Books that are already digitised by other projects (NYPL, Archive.org etc) are furnished with embedded links to that product in the Bibliothèque Artistique's catalogue.

Here is an entry for the title L'ornement des tissus : recueil historique et pratique , utilising the NYPL digital gallery under the "Uniform Resource Locator" tab:

Full description

Contents A
Title Proper	L'ornement des tissus : recueil historique et pratique
First Statement of Responsibility	par M. Dupont-Auberville ; éd. ss la dir. de M. Bachelin-Deflorenne
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.	Paris : Ducher et Cie , 1877
Collation	37 p., [100] pl. : lithographies coul. ; 39,50 cm
Note	Tables des planches Notes explicatives Une version numérisée de ce livre est disponible sur http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/mais ne comprend que 49 pl.
Serie	Art industriel
Uniform Resource Locator	Voir copie numérique nypl de ce livre ici
Shelfmark	Bib. artistique : Magasin 677(09) DUP O R B Not loanable Details
Authors	Dupont-Auberville , Auguste  Bachelin-Deflorenne
Subject Term	Textiles et tissus -- Motifs Textiles et tissus -- Histoire
CDU	677(09)

All Bibliotheque Artistique titles with full entries on archive.org under the "Uniform Resource Locator" tab. I love how archive.org virtually flicks throughout the entire tome as you are checking out its bib details.

Titles not included in other institutional projects are photographed and presented in online albums using Jalbum, and Flickr.

The Jalbum digital projects are divided into albums on subject: painting, sculpture, architecture, drawing, fashion, prints/graphic arts, decorative arts.

dOCUMENTA Archiv and Research Library: Media Archive

Here are some of the slides ready to be shipped off to their digitised future.
All artworks included in dOCUMENTA programs are photographed for posterity.
There is a slight race against time right now, as concern about ageing slides and fading colours mount. So goes the eternal search for the perfect preservation technique.

In the meantime, some copyright issues have of course raised their little heads.

This seems to be dealt with in an extremely well mannered way, with one off licensing fees paid through an agency. All participating artists and collectives now sign waivers to eliminate future issues.

Below are some slides that have already been digitised, safely mounted in a very awesome filing and viewing system. These files are jam packed with Very Important Artists who have shown in earlier dOCUMENTA. Seen here: Wassily Kandinsky.

dOCUMENTA Archive and Research Library

The dOCUMENTA Archiv is currently undertaking a massive digitisation project, and have converted to bytes all images from dOCUMENTA 1 through 5, and are currently tackling 6 (1977).

The job is not one for the lighthearted. The amount of data generated for and about these major events, held every five years, multiplies in each instance. Good luck, team.