Source: Bezalel Academy Online Catalogue
The Bezalel Academy of Art and Design was established in 1906 by artist Boris Shatz as the "School for Arts and Crafts", and has evolved into an internationally acclaimed institution and Israel's leading art and design academy.
The Bezalel Academy stands at the center of the cultural discourse associated with the country's artistic activity and plays a decisive role in the shaping of Israel's cultural identity.
The Bezalel Catalog was established for the purpose of documenting and preserving the visual history of the Bezalel Academy and the creative output of Academy graduates, and creating a historic archive of the institution that would contain works created by the students during the various stages of their studies, to enable documentation and provide access to current activities at Bezalel.
Every year, the Academy's extensive database is further enriched by current records of hundreds of new works from all of the departments at Bezalel: Architecture, Industrial Design, Ceramic & Glass Design, Jewelry & Fashion Design, Photography, Fine Arts, Screen-Based Arts, Visual Communication as well as from the higher degree programs in fine arts, industrial design and urban design.
Additionally, the Bezalel Catalog preserves and digitizes documentary historic collections of the various departments and assists in digitizing collections of artistic value owned by private collectors.
In the course of the compilation work, a lateral catalog of the archive categories is created and a complex system of links is developed between the items from the different databases, to enable intuitive searching of information by people visiting the institution's catalog through the website and provide maximum, convenient access to the information to the students and lecturers at Bezalel as well as to the general public.
The Bezalel Catalog enables users to find images of final projects and other selected works by students over the years, through different and diversified search profiles: creator's name, department name, type of work, materials, techniques, etc.