National Portrait Gallery Heinz Archive & Library joins COPAC

The library holdings of the National Portrait Gallery Heinz Archive & Library are now live on COPAC.
The NPG's Library supports the Gallery's research needs, with strengths in British portraiture, history, and biography.
The National Portrait Gallery has collected library materials since the founding of the Gallery in 1856, and the Heinz Archive & Library now holds approximately 35,000 books and exhibition catalogues, runs of 150 periodical titles (70 currently received), catalogues from sales featuring portraits from 1866 to the present, a collection of rare books, and some dissertations and theses.
To search for holdings of the NPG on COPAC, go to the main search tab and choose National Portrait Gallery from the drop down list.
COPAC is a free service accessible to all.

New online catalogue: UoG Art History Resource Centre

The University of Glasgow Art History Resource Centre has launched a new online catalogue using LibraryThing.


As an adjunct to the outstanding resources available within Glasgow University Library, the History of Art Resource and Postgraduate Centre serves the study needs of undergraduates, postgraduates, research and teaching staff within the School of Culture and Creative Arts.


The centre is administered by professional librarians who are always prepared to give advice and guidance on bibliographic matters or other resource requirements. They administer a collection of 4,500 books, selected periodical holdings, over 15,000 exhibition and gallery catalogues and over 82,000 teaching slides.

National Collecting Scheme Scotland

The National Collecting Scheme Scotland is an initiative of the Scottish Arts Council that supports public collections across Scotland to acquire and present challenging contemporary visual art. The initiative also seeks to enable curators within those organisations to extend their knowledge and understanding of contemporary visual arts, and to develop their engagement with the visual arts sector in Scotland.

Find out more about the NCSS scheme and its acquisitions at the University of Glasgow website and at the archived Scottish Arts Council site.

Edinburgh's "Capital Collections" website launches

The Capital Collections website has recently launched as an image library of Edinburgh City Libraries and Museums and Galleries. It contains "images of material from the collections of Edinburgh's City Libraries and Museums and Galleries. You can discover the historical and cultural life of Edinburgh, Scotland and the Scots through this growing image library which includes a wonderful selection of photographs, paintings, engravings and objects ranging from toys to ceramics, silverware and material from the history collections." Images are downloadable for personal/educational purposes, and some are also available to purchase.

Edinburgh College of Art launches new catalogue interface

(with thanks to SVAG member Jane Furness, news on the new and improved ECA catalogue - cheers, Paula)

ECA Library Service is delighted to announce a new and much improved interface to our online Library Catalogue. This will be run as a pilot service alongside our existing catalogue until the end of the year, after which the old catalogue will be discontinued and the new one will take its place.

Our new catalogue has a fresher and more user-friendly design and incorporates several brand new and very useful features:

-Enhanced and improved search functions
- Book jacket images
- Links to book previews, reviews and related books (all from Google Books)
- The facility to add books to your own personal list for future reference
- The facility to save searches and run them again at a later date

Please feel free to try out our new pilot Library Catalogue service. The new catalogue is also available as a link from the homepage of the existing catalogue. We would welcome your comments and feedback during the pilot.

We will be running some drop-in sessions in the coming weeks to help introduce users to the new catalogue – details to follow.