Art Libraries Society Of North America Research Articles

“And That Is the Basis of ARLIS/NA”: Enduring Values across the Fifty-Year History of the Art Libraries Society of North America

Since its founding in 1972, the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) has helped art information professionals develop, promote, and improve library and information resources and services. For the society’s fiftieth anniversary, a group of members who previously served on the Strategic Directions Committee reflect on the society’s initiatives—past and present—that highlight the values of collectivity, inclusion, and transparency. The authors make recommendations as possible ways for ARLIS/NA to continue building on its history over the next fifty years, particularly that of documentation, so that members can better draw on the society’s history.

An overview of recent digital humanities initiatives in US art libraries

As producers and mediators of digital resources, art librarians frequently interact with the digital humanities in a broad sense. In the following brief overview of recent DH work undertaken in US art libraries, engagement with digital humanities is evidenced by the development of open access projects, the creation of linked data sets and the innovative sharing of art and archive collections to support digital pedagogy. Related activities of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA), its Digital Humanities SIG and the ARLIS/NA in the Humanities Commons are also discussed.

It’s About Time

The price of textbooks and other learning materials hinder students’ ability to pursue higher education. Open educational resources (OER) provide one answer to this problem. Though well established in STEM disciplines, OER are less common in art history and other arts courses. The College Art Association (CAA) and the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) hosted panels on OER at their 2019 annual conferences. This article summarizes those panels and analyzes the speakers’ experiences within the context of OER initiatives in higher education.[This article is an expansion of conference sessions at the College Art Association conference held in New York, New York, in February 2019, and the ARLIS/NA conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah, March 2019.]

Addressing the Gender Gap

This article documents one approach to improving the professional support system for librarian-parents and especially librarian-mothers: developing a conference childcare program, which the authors undertook as a pilot program in partnership with the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) from 2016 to 2018. After a two-year trial and mixed attendance results, the childcare program was adopted as part of ARLIS/NA’s annual conference plan. The article provides recommendations on how to successfully implement a childcare program and offers evidence on how conference care enhances an organization’s ability to include and support caregivers during a critical period of need.

Unrecognized Creative Labor

As an interwoven case study, this article examines the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award, a hybrid award that celebrates the scholarly achievement, design, and production excellence of art publications. In the award’s history, however, it has not credited the contributions of graphic designers, typesetters, printers, and other creative laborers. The author examines these omissions by analyzing citation structures and systems of description shared by publishers, booksellers, and libraries, as well as by exposing the invisibilities so often allied to graphic design. A revision of the Wittenborn Award bibliography is proposed as a retrospective corrective to these oversights.

The Outcome of the ArtFrame Project: A Domain-Specific BIBFRAME Exploration

The ArtFrame Project, a part of the Linked Data for Production (LD4P) collaboration, was a domain-specific, linked-open-data (LOD) initiative that explored the metadata practices of art libraries and museums. The project, headed by Columbia University Libraries and including major art institutions and the Cataloging Advisory Committee (CAC) of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA), focused on developing an extension to the Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME) tailored to the needs of art catalogers. This article describes the history of the project and its collaboration with the LD4P Rare Materials Extension Group to produce a shared ontology, the Art & Rare Materials BIBFRAME Ontology Extension (ARM).[This article is an expansion of a presentation at the ARLIS/NA conference held in New York, New York, in February 2018.]

Insights and Overview: The ARLIS/NA Museum E-Book Publishing Survey

The author reports on a survey sponsored by the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) that was sent to forty-nine museum librarians to gain a better understanding of the scope and scale of e-book creation in North American museums. The survey covered both digitized books and born-digital books and requested data from the libraries and the publications departments. Questions included volume of activity, file formats used, distribution methods (platforms, vendors, aggregators), metadata formats, use of preservation service platforms, use of digital rights management, content selection strategies, and staffing configurations. A particularly significant finding was the number of institutions making large quantities of their publications available through open access.

Trends in Professional Art Library Job Postings, 2010–2015

AbstractThe author outlines the geography of the current art library job market through an examination of job postings from the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) ARLIS-L listserv. The breakdown of institution type (academic, museum, other) and preferred and required qualifications for professional-level vacancies are analyzed, with results showing the majority of open positions are in academic institutions and the most commonly requested qualifications are library experience, communication skills, knowledge of digital trends, an additional subject degree, and supervisory experience. Finally, the author compares the qualifications for various position types, showing that some qualifications are more highly preferred for certain positions.

Wolfgang M. Freitag, 1924–2012: A Tribute

Wolfgang M. Freitag was a distinguished leader in the fields of art history and international art librarianship, a charter member of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA), former ARLIS/NA president, recipient of the ARLIS/NA Distinguished Service Award, and an author of important publications in art librarianship and the literature of art history. Through his vast range of contributions and prophetic insights, he significantly influenced and enhanced the development of art librarianship. With the help of friends and colleagues, this article paints the portrait of a master librarian and leader in the profession who deserves our praise and recognition.

A Tribute to Judith A. Hoffberg May 19, 1934-January 16, 2009

At the request of Ken Soehner, president of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA), Betty Jo (BJ) Irvine, Librarian Emeritus, Indiana University, coordinated a tribute to Judith Hoffberg, founding member and ARLIS/NA's first president and executive secretary, during the membership meeting held in Indianapolis on April 20, 2009, at the society's 37th annual conference. The tribute included contributions by Irvine, Laurence McGilvery, Richard Minsky, and William Walker. Following is BJ Irvine's summary of the presentation.

Statistical Profile of Academic Architecture Libraries

Previous articleNext article No AccessStatistical Profile of Academic Architecture LibrariesJeanne M. BrownJeanne M. Brown Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Art Documentation Volume 15, Number 1Spring 1996 Published for the Art Libraries Society of North America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/adx.15.1.27948816 Views: 6Total views on this site Copyright © 1996 ARLIS/NAPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Reflections: Directions: Projections

Reflections on three facets of professional art librarianship as experienced by the author over the past twenty years: the status of librarians, the status of the art library, information storage and retrieval. The University of Manitoba Faculty Association was one of the first in Canada to accept professional librarians as equal to faculty, a major step for the profession. Canadian librarians have played significant roles in the development of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) which from the beginning interested itself in collection development, technical practices of art libraries, and the needs, qualifications and physical surroundings of art librarians. The major technological development of the eighties for art libraries was not the widespread automation of major academic and public libraries, but the introduction of relatively inexpensive personal computers and attendant technology, which gives any library the capacity to access national and international databases and to assemble their files in a format which makes them readily available to a wider public.

A Portrait of Cooperation in the Fine Arts

This aper examines art-related cooperative roups and projects in the 6 nited States and Canada. It profiles t f e Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLISMA), the Washinglon Art Library Resources Committee, and the Art and Architecture Program of the Research Libraries Group and describes their major cooperative projects.

Decennalia: an editorial essay

The year the Olympic Games were forced to halt international sportsmanship to include a horrifying entre’act of international bloodshed. A year of political schizophrenia in the United States, in which the largest popular vote ever was accorded to the man who was to be at the epicenter of the most profound national scandal in U.S. history. The sort of year which makes newspaper editors happy, and fills the rest of us with morbid fascination. It is not surprising, therefore, that the founding of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) is not the event that most people associate with the year 1972. And yet, the organisation grew and was shaped in the intervening decade by circumstances not only within the relatively narrow spectrum of professional art librarianship and visual curatorship, but within the larger contexts of sociological and technological circumstances, and within the art and library worlds of which it is a part.