1.4 Conclusion

While art history continues to be a field of lively intellectual investigation and scholarship, its system ofscholarly publication does not serve the discipline or general readership as well as it could. Many of the obstacles to morevigorous publication in print or digital forms devolve from art history’s fundamental dependence on high-quality images and the costs and copyright restrictions associated with them. Thesechallenges, and some developing solutions, are the topic of Part II . It is unrealistic, however, to assume that such solutions will yield the high publication rates of scholarly monographs in printthat characterized the later 1990s. Art history operates within a wider environment of disciplinary change, scholarly publication,and technological development, and this environment is rapidly embracing electronic modes of scholarly communication. Part III examines art history’s potential to participate in electronic publication in ways that will enhance its own scholarlyinfrastructure and may contribute new models for other kinds of publication dependent on images.