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Tracking art historians: on information needs and information-seeking behaviour

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

Deirdre C. Stam
Deirdre C. Stam*
Affiliation:
Museum Computer Network, Syracuse University, School of Information Studies, Syracuse, NY 13244, U.S.A.
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Abstract

The information-gathering activities of art historians have been studied from three different perspectives: in terms of the books they use; through their own accounts of their working processes; and by informal, systematic observation, written up as ‘user studies’, by art librarians. While observation implies objectivity, a distance between observer and observed, in practice art librarians are very much involved with the art historian in the work of art history and in the development of its methodologies.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Art Libraries Journal , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , 1989 , pp. 13 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 1989

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