Dave Hollins informs me of a rather surprising source of material that he came across recently. This is the National Art Library, which is part of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London, SW7 2RL. Tel. 071589 6371.

Dave has discovered that, certainly on the Austrian side, it has quite a lot of uniform books - Ottenfeld, Knotel etc.plus Exhibition catalogues, the most remarkable being that of the 1909 Exhibition to mark the centenary of Aspern. Often it requires some lateral thinking as they have a very strange cataloguing system, but the staff are very helpful.

The NAL is closed on Mondays, but open on Saturdays. Photography is allowed, subject to copyright restrictions, but the photographic stand is often heavily used during the week. The normal procedure is to obtain a Reader's ticket (free) on production of identification, which allows entry five times per year. The V&A currently charges 0.50 for entry, but if you tell them that you are going to the NAL to perform some serious study /photography, you can get in for the Student rate of £ 1.00.

The Dusty Archive

Introduction
Public Records Office
National Art Library
Musee de l'Armee, Paris
Future Museum Reports and Conference
Books
Memorials
Napoleonic Old Wives' Tale: Buttons