The Frick Art Reference Library announced the launch of two new electronic resources available online and at no charge. One is a directory of particular interest to those researching the history of collecting art in the United States, and the other is a database of inventories from the Dutch Golden Age. Comments Inge Reist, Director for the Frick’s Center for the History of Collecting in America, “We are thrilled to introduce these two resources, knowing that art historians and others will find them fascinating and rich in information. Nothing comparable to the Center’s new Archives Directory has ever existed...
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Dutch Collectors in the Golden Age
The complete Montias database, currently accessible only through the Frick’s website, offers an unprecedented look at ownership of art during the seventeenth-century in Holland, known as the “Golden Age.” It is a trove of searchable information about buyers, sellers, and prices, including comprehensive information on over 50,000 objects (paintings, prints, sculpture, furniture, and so forth) listed in nearly 1,300 Amsterdam city inventories. Approximately half were created in preparation for auctions, almost an equal portion were notorial death inventories for estate purposes, and the remaining documents relate to bankruptcy cases. Although the database, which specifically addresses records from 1597 through 1681, is not a complete record of all inventories made in Amsterdam, it contains a vast amount of information that can elucidate patterns of buying, selling, inventorying, and collecting art.
A Unique Directory Dramatically Aids Researching American Collections
From its inception in 2007, the Frick’s Center for the History of Collecting in America has worked to broaden and deepen scholarly research in this field of study, in an effort to expand the related body of literature. The Center’s new Archives Directory, the first online database of its kind, speaks directly to that vision by consolidating into one place a wealth of information about the location and nature of documents and archives available on American collectors. Until now, scholars have had to comb through multiple websites, and, if permitted, sift through analog data held at library, museum, and university archives to construct their own plans for research?a time-consuming and imprecise process. The Center’s new Directory is, by contrast, accessible around the clock via the institution’s website, presenting the information in a manner that allows for greater flexibility in searching for and organizing information. Its use will help scholars worldwide as they approach research projects, guiding them beyond existing publications and standard paths to overlooked repositories, including primary source materials.
Currently, the Archives Directory guides researchers to more than 5,000 collections held in more than 300 repositories worldwide, which together have bearing on the lives and activities of more than 1,500 American collectors. Information in the Archives Directory was culled from various online and printed materials ranging from federated and individual online library catalogues to Google Books to published literature in the field. By launching the Directory with this critical mass of material in place, the Center for the History of Collecting in America moves its development to the next phase, that of welcoming contributions of additional information for this online resource.
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?
Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.
What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?
Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).
FreePint Family
Quilting big data threads
The fallacy of information overload
Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure? 
