Art Researchers’ Guide to Liverpool and Merseyside 
Editors: Emily Parsons & Rose Roberto
ISBN: 978-0-9562763-8-4
Order online at: http://arlis.net/periodicals-libraries-sources/publications  
before 1 August and receive discount price for £5.

The Art Researchers’ Guide to Liverpool and Merseyside is the sixth in a series of pocket-sized books aimed at visual artists, academics, art teachers, art students and local researchers, published by the Art Libraries Society, UK & Ireland (ARLIS/UK & Ireland).  It describes institutions across the region with both traditional and recently established collections, from book binding and history through to counter culture and modern art.  

About the Book
‘These are handy, well designed little booklets,’ says art historian, Mark Westgarth, ‘loosely drawing on the format of the ubiquitous city tourist guides.’  They are portable, user friendly and fit in a coat pocket.

The Liverpool and Merseyside Guide provides 2 foldout maps, with locations numbered and highlighted. There are high quality colour images of the buildings, interiors and some of the key objects and artworks in each institution.  At the back of the guide is a subject-index to the collections in each institution, using simple, at-a-glance visual keys.

‘Art historian Catherine Marcangeli’s introduction captures both the history and the current thriving arts scene in Liverpool,’ says Emily Parsons, editor of the guide, ‘while the full colour illustrations in the guide show the wealth and variety of the unique material housed in Liverpool and Merseyside available for researchers to come and see.’

‘There’s nothing like having a handy little booklet to carry around and place oneself, metaphorically, in the city,’ says Mark Westgarth of the series.  ‘And perhaps more importantly these Guides inculcate an attitude, in students in particular, to move away from the Internet (excellent though such a resource is!) and become more active as researchers.’

This handsome and practical book was designed by Rose Roberto and co-edited with Emily Parsons.  Contributions from local librarians, archivists, and scholars were sourced to describe the fantastic resources held within the region. 

ARLIS/UK & Ireland is the professional organisation for people involved in providing library and information services and documenting resources in the visual arts. Founded in 1969, ARLIS is an educational charity with over 700 members worldwide, including librarians, archivists, libraries, publishers and specialist library suppliers.  Members work in libraries and archives serving the academic, public, gallery and museum sectors.

About the author of the Introduction
Dr Catherine Marcangeli is an art historian with a particular interest in Liverpool's 1960s art scene. She has curated many exhibitions on the subject, including Adrian Henri - Total Art (Liverpool Biennial, 2014, catalogue published by Occasional Papers), First Happenings (ICA, London, 2015), The Mersey Sound at 50 (South Bank Centre, 2017). She has also curated the Tonight At Noon Festival, a programme of exhibitions, concerts and poetry readings marking 50 years since the publication of The Mersey Sound, by Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten: https://www.cultureliverpool.co.uk/tonightatnoon/
She is Senior Lecturer at the University of Sorbonne-Paris-Cité and she lives between Paris and Liverpool. 

About the co-editors
Emily Parsons has been Archivist and Special Collections Librarian at Liverpool John Moores University since 2007 and regularly works with internal and external partners to support teaching, research and community engagement using the collections.  She previously worked for the National Trust on the Edward Chambré Hardman Photographic Archive, and at Greater Manchester County Record Office as searchroom archivist.  She qualified as an archivist at Liverpool University in 2001, and is a registered member of the Archives & Records Association and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Rose Roberto is a historian of 19th century art and culture and specialises in Victorian book illustration and is currently based at National Museums Scotland.  Prior to her PhD at the Department of Typography and Graphic Communications at Reading University, she served as subject librarian for visual arts, museums studies, and design. Rose has written articles and book chapters about online exhibitions, web archiving, e-learning, and copyright resources, as well as designed all the books in this series.