AMICO Press Release

July 13, 2000
AMICO Headquarters; Pittsburgh, PA

The Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) is pleased to welcome the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute to our growing Consortium. The Clark Art Institute, located in Williamstown, MA, is a one of a select group of institutions in the United States that combines a public art museum with a separate series of research and academic programs, supported by a major art history library. As such, the Clark Art Institute functions as an international center for research and discussion on art. "The fact that the Clark Art Institute can be an avid user, as well as a contributor to the AMICO Library is very exciting for us," states Jennifer Trant, Executive Director of AMICO. "We hope to use this dual relationship to our advantage, learning from the Clark about how to better support user needs, since access to the AMICO Library is a major benefit of Consortium membership."

The Clark Art Institute holds a fine collection of French Impressionist paintings, has a variety of other European masterworks ranging from the Renaissance to the 19th century, and includes a strong representation of works by such American artists as Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent. Also, the Clark Art Institute is recognized for its decorative arts holdings and array of Old Master and 19th-century prints, drawings, and photographs.

The AMICO Library, officially launched July 1st, 1999, has made multimedia documentation of artworks from the collections of leading museums across North America available to universities, colleges, schools, and public libraries. The 2000-2001 edition of the AMICO Library documents over 65,000 different works of art, from prehistoric goddess figures to contemporary installations. More than simply an image database, works in the AMICO Library are fully documented and may also include curatorial text about the artwork, detailed provenance information, multiple views of the work itself, and other related multimedia. As Jennifer Trant, AMICO Executive Director, notes, "subscribers find the AMICO Library of interest because it combines the immediacy and accessibility of the Web with the persistence and academic weight of traditional library reference sources. Over 700,000 students on more than 110 campuses in North America currently have full, 24-hour access to high-quality museum multimedia."

The AMICO Library is accessible over secure networks to institutional subscribers, including universities, colleges, libraries, schools, and museums. Designated users can include faculty, students, teachers, staff, and researchers. Educational institutions may subscribe to the AMICO Library by contacting one of its distributors. These include the Research Libraries Group (RLG) and the Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK). A subscription to the AMICO Library provides a one-year license to use works from the compiled AMICO Library for a broad range of educational purposes. Interested subscribers may preview a Thumbnail Catalog of the AMICO Library and get further information at http://www.amico.org.

The AMICO Library is a product of the Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO), an independent non-profit corporation, with 501 (c) 3 designation from the IRS. The Consortium is today made up of 32 major museums. It's an innovative collaboration - not seen before in museums - that shares, shapes, and standardizes digital information regarding museum collections and enables its educational use.

Current AMICO Members

Albright-Knox Art Gallery Art Gallery of Ontario Art Institute of Chicago Asia Society Gallery Center for Creative Photography Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute Cleveland Museum of Art Dallas Museum of Art Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College Denver Art Museum Detroit Institute of Arts Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Frick Collection and Art Reference Library George Eastman House J. Paul Getty Museum The Library of Congress

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The McMichael Canadian Art Collection The Metropolitan Museum of Art Minneapolis Institute of Arts MontrZ˙al Museum of Fine Arts MusZ˙e d'art contemporain de MontrZ˙al Museum of the Americas Foundation Museum of Fine Arts, Boston National Gallery of Canada Philadelphia Museum of Art San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art San Francisco Museum of Modern Art San Jose Museum of Art Smithsonian American Art Museum Walker Art Center Whitney Museum of American Art

AMICO Jennifer Trant Executive Director Art Museum Image Consortium 2008 Murray Avenue, Suite D Pittsburgh, PA 15217 Phone (412) 422 8533 Fax (412) 422 8594 Email: jtrant@amico.org http://www.amico.org