A Pioneering Past. A Vibrant Future.
Papers & Presentations
Day 1: 15 July 2019
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12:15-12:45 Ashley Levine, Artifex Press ‘Archivist as Creator’
Artifex Press, a New York City publisher of web-based catalogues raisonnés, collects and preserves artwork photos, videos, and audio recordings from thousands of institutions, collectors, and artists around the globe, and provides access to this material through a series of comprehensive and authoritative single-artist publications. Each Artifex Press catalogue raisonné is a deeply researched compendium of an artist’s entire oeuvre created through a systematic gathering of previously disparate visual and audio-visual (a/v) resources into a single platform. The result is a highly vetted, interactive digital archive. At Artifex Press, I am both an archivist and content creator. I preserve and manage hundreds of thousands of digital assets. From this starting point, I also assess and harness these existing archival photos, videos, and audio to create new content.
This presentation will focus on my dual roles as archivist and creator, demonstrating the workflows behind Artifex’s digital archive, and the original content created as a result. Conferences attendees will walk away with an understanding of digital asset management as it relates to catalogue raisonné research and production, and case studies will provide practical applications for managing, harnessing, and recontextualising growing digital collections.
Ashley Levine is the Archivist and Digital Resource Manager for Artifex Press in New York City. He holds an MA in Archives and Public History, and a BA in History, from New York University. Ashley is also Director of Advocacy for The Archivists Roundtable of Metropolitan New York (ART), editor of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Lone Arranger Section newsletter, SOLO, Chair of SAA's Visual Materials Cataloguing and Access Committee (VMCAC), and New York City representative of the Concerned Archivists Alliance (CAA).
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Based on Leopoldo Cicognara’s 1821 bibliography (Catalogo ragionato) on art history and related subjects, approximately 5,000 titles comprise the Biblioteca Cicognara, with the original volumes now housed in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV). In 1997, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation funded the creation of bibliographic records for each title of an earlier microfiche edition. In 2014 six “charter partner” libraries devised a plan to aggregate access to digital versions of copies held by libraries outside of BAV’s collection and present links to high-resolution digital equivalents. A project website (www.cicognara.org) was established and is hosted by Princeton University – the project is now in its fifth year. The objective is to bring together digitized copies of all volumes, with scans of the microfiche versions and the related bibliographic metadata in other libraries worldwide. The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) was chosen for platform-neutral viewing of digital reproductions, and the Getty Research Portal is where libraries contribute records for their digitised copies.
A working model for an international, multi-institutional, digitising project is being tested and built in real time by our group. Today we are strategising outreach methods and thinking broadly about potential users. The future of the project is dependent on building an extensive user community and deciding how the project can evolve. Our ultimate goal will be to provide a resource with multi-faceted uses, a variety of user communities, and present a sustainable working model for a multi-institutional scholarly project.
Holly Hatheway is currently the Head of the Marquand Library of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. Prior to that, she was Head of the Arts and Humanities Division at the UC Berkeley Library; and from 2008-2015 Associate Director for Collections, Research and Access Services at The Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University. Other professional experience includes serving six years as Associate Library Director at The School of Visual Arts, NY, as well as roles at Christie’s Art Auction House.
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Day 2: 16 July 2019
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Day 2: 16 July 2019
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Day 2: 16 July 2019
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The aim of this session is to discuss student partnerships in the library, utilising the existing Special Collections and using the talents of our Fine Art and cartoon and comic artists.
Two projects overseen this academic year will be discussed. Firstly, the commissioning of a Fine Art installation in the library by local artist and BA Fine Art final year student Jez Hastings with his installation ‘Off The Wall / On the Shelf’. This work questions the status quo by calling upon the Golden Mean (5x3) asking three artists at a time to choose five objects that have some private historical reference. There is no explanation or sharing of story save that for the objects/curios themselves. To the audience these are random, assembled objects in the public domain yet to each of the individuals they have a particular resonance that only they know.
The second project explores innovation from Cartoon and Comic Arts students. Housed within Special Collections (and out of public view) is a large collection of original film soundtracks on vinyl LPs. This collection was not being exploited and there was an opportunity to show off the contents and potentially attract non-traditional library users to visit by launching a Vinyl Listening Club. Cartoon and comic artists were commissioned to produce promotional posters to inspire vibrant and creative art.
Both talks will be illustrated with images from the projects, including photographs of the installation and original poster art.
Eleanor is a subject librarian at Staffordshire University and currently works with Creative Arts and Social Sciences. She has undertaken projects with Cartoon and Comic Arts, Fine Art, History and International Relations. Eleanor works with students to increase their knowledge of peer-reviewed resources, reading lists and excellent academic practice.
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The library and information science literature on artists and designers shows that ‘inspiration’ is a crucial information need. This talk will explore how art and design libraries can help their patrons to understand, find, and foster inspiration.
However, what is really meant by ‘inspiration’, and how is it found? I will be discussing some of the historical, cultural, and psychological conceptions of ‘inspiration’. Looking at the Library and Information Science literature on information behaviour, there are multiple areas of research that could be applied to finding inspiration, including browsing, Information Encountering, and the importance of serendipity. I will be discussing these behaviours and how they can help in finding inspiration. Finally, the presentation will offer some practical ideas for how art and design libraries can help their patrons’ creativity and inspiration through sessions, resources, systems, and space.
Cait Peterson is an Assistant Academic Support Librarian at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London. She studied illustration at Camberwell College before completing her MSc in Library Science at City University of London.
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This lightning talk presents a case study assignment developed collaboratively by a Librarian and a Professor of Architectural History. The goal of the assignment is to demonstrate the value of research as a creative tool through the application of visual literacy techniques. It is inspired by and adapted from Catherine Haras. While Catherine focuses on observing, negotiating, and interpreting works of art, students are instead encouraged to think about what they don’t know in order to spark curiosity and a desire to discover. Through scaffolded exercises requiring repetition and reflection, they investigate an architectural era or movement through the initial lens of a single image of an architectural work.
Students move through short response answers and annotated sketches to the incorporation of secondary sources. By building on their own knowledge, they are able to identify gaps in their understanding, thus enriching appreciation for the work and the wider information landscape.
This talk provides reflections and recommendations based on the process undertaken to strengthen outcomes and learning objectives. It offers some thoughts on the challenges and successes of enabling academic literacies for library users.
Lucy Campbell is Librarian of the Richard P. Welsh Library at New School of Architecture and Design, San Diego, California. She manages the resources, materials and personnel of the library and is very active within the school and San Diego’s professional design community. She holds a BA in History and American Studies from the University of Sussex, and a Masters in Library and Information Science, University College London (UCL). Originally from England, Lucy moved to San Diego in 2011.
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Day 3: 17 July 2019
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In the 21st century art librarians wear many hats, such as collectors, curators, hardware specialists, programmers, researchers, social media managers, social workers, teachers, technology support, writers, as well as sometimes providing candy and tissues to students, faculty, and staff in times of need. As collection and staff budgets are dwindling, the skill sets of art librarians are widely expanding as the field continues to move away from the traditional ideas of subject background, foreign language proficiencies, and professional studies such as cataloguing, indexing, and abstracting.
This paper will briefly look at the history of art librarianship, discuss the current skill sets needed by art librarians in higher education, and provide insight for future students pursuing a career in art librarianship. The methodology includes a national survey of art librarian skills sets in the 21st century, as well as a series of one-on-one interviews with art librarians working in college and university libraries.
Megan Lotts is the Art Librarian at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, where she teaches research workshops, builds collections, curates exhibition spaces, and facilitates engaging programming and events. Lotts has presented her research internationally and published articles in Art Documentation, portal: Libraries and the Academy, Journal of Library administration, multiple articles in College and Research Libraries News and more. Her research interests include outreach, engagement, makerspaces, and the work of subject specialists in academic libraries. Megan earned her MFA in (2004) and an MLIS (2007) from University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Over the last few years, University of the West of England Bristol Library Service has been given responsibility for the coordination of academic skills provision across the institution. The Library works alongside other study skills teams across the university. We have also integrated colleagues with an English for Academic Purposes background into our structure to help develop our strategy, and our skills base. Each library subject team works closely with their faculty to promote and integrate our academic support, based on core academic skills.
Engaging staff and students in art and design has been rewarding challenge. At City Campus, our Art and Design campus, the library has adopted a three-way approach to deliver these skills.
During this presentation, we will talk about our campus context in relation to UWE Bristol strategy, how we embed our workshops, and reflect on our challenges and successes. More specifically, we will consider issues around confidence building of our librarians, getting the faculty as well as students to buy-in. We will also talk about the challenges around measuring the impact of our sessions on students’ academic literacy. The presentation will potentially include some interactive elements through the use of an online quiz.
Ludovik Sébire: I have worked at UWE Bristol for over 12 years. I was appointed as the Faculty Librarian for the faculty of Arts, Creative Industries and Education (ACE), in August 2016. I obtained a degree in Information Science, with a speciality in audio-visual archives in France. I recently completed an MSc in Management.
Morwenna Peters: I have worked in art and design institutions throughout my professional career and have been in my current position at UWE for the last 10 years. My current interests circle around using visual and material literacy in teaching and creating inspiring learning spaces and collections.