Göteborgs konstmuseibibliotek : En skildring av bibliotekets historia till och med 1939

Sammanfattning: The subject of this thesis is the history of the library at The Göteborg Museum of Art. The aim of the thesis is to depict and analyze the emergence and the expansion of the library’s holdings until 1939. To fulfill the aim, two questions are asked. The first question is: Is it possible to argue that the library’s holdings were collected to document the entire world of art? The question is formulated in relation to a comment by Susan Wyngaard. According to Wyngaard, art libraries tries to document the entire world of art. The second question is: What was the point of having a library at The Göteborg Museum of Art and did the library’s holdings support the museum’s educating, aesthetic or ritual function? The question is inspired by some remarks in Carol Duncan’s book Civilizing rituals: Inside public art museums.The source material which is examined to answer the two questions consists mainly of the annual reports that the museum curator Axel Romdahl published in Göteborgs museum’s yearbook and also of two library ledgers found in The Göteborg Museum of Art. The results of the thesis are based on my observations and interpretations of the data in the annual reports and in the library ledgers. Michael Baxandall’s remark that historical objects can be explained by being treated as solutions to problems in situtations has assisted the analysis of the source material. Three conclusions are drawn in the thesis. The first conclusion is drawn in relation to Michael Baxandall’s remark that historical objects can be explained by being treated as solutions to problems in situations. The conclusion is that the visual documents that were collected in the library helped to expand the opportunities to see art at The Göteborg Museum of Art. The textual documents that were collected in the library helped solving another problem, which dealt with gathering written knowledge of art. The second conclusion is that a few specialized areas were particularly prominent during certain periods of time. In the 1910’s and in the 1920’s, the library’s holdings were focused on reproductions of graphic art and drawings made by artists from the european continent. During a few years in the beginning of the 1930’s, a large number of monographs on Swedish artists were aquired. The conclusion shows that it is not completely safe to argue that art libraries tries to document the entire world of art. The third conclusion is that the library at The Göteborg Museum of Art supported the museum’s educating function, and that the library at least had the potential to support the museum’s aesthetic and ritual function. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.