Institutional Sources Study Project



 

Project potential

From its list of 630+ museums in the Art Museum, Gallery and Art Center index, TFAO searched via Google Books for catalogues published by the following sample of museums to provide an indication of the potential for this project. Each museum name is followed by a count of selected catalogues with a topic of American representational art and a count of related essays published in Resource Library. Many of the sample museums have published catalogues of interest that are not listed via Google Books based on Resource Library cross-checking of museum sub-index pages. In some instances, Resource Library has published essays from books not listed via Google Books.

 

Selected books of interest from the above list = 903

Texts published in Resource Library from the above list: 52, or 6% of the identified books.

Please click on each museum name to see the list of books for the museum. Essays within listed catalogues may be copyrighted by the publisher or by others. Book names followed by links to related essays published by Resource Library are a marker to prevent reduplication of effort.

The above Google Books-identified catalogues from the 68 museums listed above equals 13 average catalogues per museum. The average of 13 related catalogues per museum times TFAO's list of 630 museums suggests 8,190 potential catalogues listed by Google Books containing essays of interest.

Since Google Books has not listed numerous catalogues from the sample museums, this estimate of potential catalogues is probably considerably short of the actual number of potential catalogues. On the other hand, the likely universe of book candidates for free online viewing of texts is diminished by the desire of many museums to reserve from free online viewing their books in print.

An addition to catalogues from museums, there are many catalogues with scholarly essays published by commercial galleries. Many of these essays have been reprinted online in Resource Library, yet many more are potential candidates.

See the Author Study and Index for a count of texts by named authors that have been published in Resource Library. Most of these texts relate to exhibitions held at American art museums. Some essays are from commercial galleries and other sources. The above small informal sample of museums is not large enough to derive an accurate estimate of total project potential, yet it does indicate substantial opportunity.

 

For information on an alternate solution please click here for TFAO's grant program for conversion of analog text to digital files and online publication of scholarly texts.

 

Please click here to return to the Institutional Sources Study Project.

 


Links to sources of information outside of our web site are provided only as referrals for your further consideration. Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information contained in these and all other web sites. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or out of date. TFAO neither recommends or endorses these referenced organizations. Although TFAO includes links to other web sites, it takes no responsibility for the content or information contained on those other sites, nor exerts any editorial or other control over them. For more information on evaluating web pages see TFAO's General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of Art History.


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