The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (PMC), London, and the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA), New Haven have launched a new online and open access journal called British Art Studies. It is always great to see more open access publications and the interface of this online journal has clearly been carefully thought through and designed specifically for online reading (rather than just pdfs on a website).
From the editorial of their first edition:
British Art Studies is the joint publication of two research centres dedicated to British art: the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (PMC), London, and the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA), New Haven. The journal has grown out of many conversations and collaborations between the two centres, working with scholars and institutions worldwide. The foremost aim of British Art Studies (BAS) is to provide a platform for innovative thinking, debate, and dialogue about British art, an area of research that, as our first issue makes clear, is constantly changing, expanding, and being re-defined. Through BAS we want to encourage and share a multitude of approaches, voices, and objects.
British Art Studies is a “digital first” publication, meaning that it has no printed counterpart and is designed primarily to be read on screen (although all content can be downloaded or read offline). Many people now read on the move, using various devices. The “pages” of BAS responsively adapt to the size and orientation of the device, whether a computer, tablet, or smartphone.
From the very beginning, the guiding principle for developing BAS has been to ask what could be done with a digital journal that could not be done in print. This starts with our cover where we have moved away from the convention of using a single image. Of course, a digital publication does not need a cover in the traditional sense; but we wanted to develop a feature that offers content, as well as a compelling visual threshold at which to pause before delving into the journal. For our first issue we have worked with the artists and curators of British Art Show 8 to create a dynamic set of covers, featuring eight works and a “Cover Collaboration” commentary. Each time the journal is reloaded or refreshed, a new image will be displayed.