My on-line research began with UBS’s website and web-museum. This was well-designed and easy-to-use with hyper-links to its art ‘partner’ sites. The UBS site was an excellent resource for information on the history, structure and corporate rationale for the bank’s arts sponsorships and the development of its art collection. Opinions expressed on the site provided insights into the relationships between UBS’s core wealth management/ investment advice businesses and the bank’s use of its arts partnerships and art collection to develop and market the bank’s corporate image. Hyper-links with art partner sites revealed how those institutions perceived, valued and endorsed UBS’s sponsorship.
My Google search for ‘UBS Art Collection’ returned close to 30,000 hits, an obvious disadvantage, but as I was not ready to narrow the parameters I reviewed the first 50 sites. Although it was time-consuming to cull through irrelevant and/or unreliable information, Google did provide a range of art critic reviews and blogs. Questions of potential conflict of interest and of the influence of corporate collections on curatorial independence and public trust, were being widely discussed in the public arena in light of the type of arts ‘partnerships’ that UBS was developing, particularly with Tate Modern and MoMA. Although several of these articles were also available through Factiva.com and Findarticle.com, without Google I would not have found interviews with UBS executives justifying corporate involvement in the arts sector; nor art-blogs which provided a cross-section of public opinion on controversial aspects of these arrangements. Google proved to be particularly useful for identifying issues relevant to my case study.
To consolidate the media reviews, I then used newspaper, Findarticles.com and Factiva.com search engines. Newspaper sites tended to be limited to archival access to a specific publisher, charge a fee and/or require registration which virtually guarantees spam ads. Findarticles.com was a wider but not comprehensive search engine and had irritating advertising pop-ups. Factiva.com was excellent: comprehensive with quick and easy-to-use search, save, download and indexing functions; the only disadvantage is it requires an expensive subscription unless accessed through a subscriber like USyd.
Information not on the web related to financial and other specific details of UBS’s art partnerships. Also missing are archival records for UBS’s co-branded marketing campaigns. Although the bank’s site and its art partners' sites show co-branded web advertisements and press releases, print advertising campaigns are not on the web and so I have had to source hard copy samples from the current UBS/AGNSW newspaper campaigns. Similarly UBS banner campaigns for MoMA’s re-opening would have been useful in light of media criticism.
Notwithstanding all its faults, the web is a goldmine of readily accessible information. As with any source, there are advantages and disadvantages in web-based research both as to ease of access and use, as well as to quality and reliability of the information unearthed.