ARLIS/VRA 2011

No ARLIS conference would be complete without Worldwide's coveted tote bag.

The joint ARLIS/VRA conference takes place this weekend and Worldwide is ready for it. There's a lot to look forward to!

A selection of more than 100 of our exhibition catalogues and art books has been shipped to Minneapolis and will be on display at our booth in the exhibit hall from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Friday, and from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Saturday.

On Saturday morning, Worldwide will participate in the Vendor Slam event, in which vendors are given the opportunity to make a 5-minute presentation about their companies. Stop by the Salons ABC between 10:00 AM and noon to catch ours and to learn something new about us!

We are bringing some exciting new publications for your perusing pleasure. There are two titles from the inaugural program of the new Design Museum Holon, Israel (see Worldwide 73974 and 73981). Focusing on contemporary Israeli and international design, this new museum is located just outside Tel Aviv, and was designed by prominent British architect and designer Ron Arad.

A century after their revolutionary accomplishments, Die Brücke continues to fascinate. Retrospectives on individual members of the German Expressionist group occur on a regular basis, with shows on Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (Worldwide 33797) and Max Pechstein (Worldwide 33764) among the most recent. Even their models get their own show (Worldwide 33765)!

New monographs independently published by North American museums focusing on contemporary artists include exhibition catalogues for shows on the installations of South African artist Siemon Allen, hosted at the Anderson Gallery, Richmond (Worldwide 73752); the sculptural works and jewelry of Lisa Gralnick at the Bellevue Arts Museum (Worldwide 73909); and the work of Canadian artist Shary Boyle at the Gallery of the University of Quebec, Montreal (Worldwide 33763).

Book in Hand

The bibliographic records that are found on our Web site and in our monthly printed list are routinely created with book in hand, making them highly accurate and reliable. While records for forthcoming titles on our Web site are initially based on pre-publication information that is subject to change, the records are corrected and revised with the book in hand once initial copies of the titles arrive into stock. In the case of straight museum publications for which there was no advance information available from a commercial co-publisher or distributor, we routinely create entirely original records based on an examination copy before the titles have been widely catalogued by libraries, thus providing the first reliable documentation of an exhibition catalogue.

Our bibliographic records for catalogues include not only the primary publishing entity, but also the first exhibition venue and any other institution that was involved in organizing the exhibition, co-publishing the catalogue, or distributing it commercially in North America. These additional elements that relate to the exhibition (rather than the catalogue itself), and that may note the title's commercial distributor in North America, are not details that are necessarily included in standard bibliographic records, but can be very useful when trying to locate catalogues associated with specific institutions, publishers or distributors, and are also provided to assist libraries in determining whether or not a given title can be expected to be supplied through an approval plan administered by Worldwide or through another vendor who may be responsible for supplying titles from certain exhibitors, organizers, publishers or distributors.

We also provide detailed physical descriptions of the titles we carry, including an accurate count of pages and illustrations (with color and black-and-white illustrations indicated separately), and the counts often differ dramatically from the publisher's pre-publication announcement. Worldwide has always recognized that the number of illustrations included in an art book can be particularly important when evaluating illustrated books for purchase, and Worldwide is one of the few booksellers that routinely provides its own carefully determined illustration counts.

Subject headings are added to all of our records to facilitate filtering and locating titles through our Web site and to generally assist librarians in making purchasing decisions. Additionally, informative comments are often provided to address or clarify certain exhibition- or publication-related issues, or to summarize the content of a catalogue, especially in cases where the title and subject headings alone do not provide adequate information about the publication.