Art & Design School Library Division Meeting Minutes—April 17, 2004

ARLIS/NA Annual Meeting, New York

 

 

Co-Moderators Rachel Beckwith, Massachusetts College of Art, and Nensi Brailo, California College of Art and Design

Vice-Moderator: Amanda Gluibizzi, Art Institute of Boston (not present)

 

Beckwith and Brailo introduced several figures important to ADSL division:

  1. the ADSL liaisons to the ARLIS/NA executive board: Jeanne Brown from University of Nevada (for 2003-2004) and Margaret Webster from Cornell University (for 2004-2005)—this is the role of the vice-president of ARLIS/NA
  2. Update editor: Ellie Nachman, Rhode Island School of Design
  3. ADSL website editor: Alan Michelson, UCLA

 

Mission Statement

Earlier in the year Beckwith and Brailo had solicited recommendations from the ADSL members regarding our mission statement. One major change was the revision of the statement of purpose to allow for more than one moderator or vice-moderator. This is the current practice so it should be reflected in the division’s written documentation. Katherine Cowan, Maryland Institute College of Art, suggested that the term for moderator be extended to two years so that they have time to implement changes or initiatives. Carol Graney, University of the Arts, pointed out changes to terms of office need to go through the ARLIS/NA board.  Beckwith added that there is some consistency of office due to the fact that a person serves for a year as vice-moderator before becoming moderator.  Cowan recommended that vice-moderators be more incorporated in their first year.

 

Website

Beckwith and Brailo thanked Michelson for updating the website and announced to the division members that the website includes recent meeting minutes, the mission statement, annual reports, conference sessions related the ADSL, and more. Michelson was overwhelmingly voted back to another year as website administrator. Michelson acknowledged Kari Horowicz, Rochester Institute of Technology, for her contributions to the website.

 

Brailo asked if there are ARLIS/NA guidelines for the division websites. Graney responded that ARLIS/NA is working on revising its website, but that there are currently no guidelines. She will bring that suggestion to the Board. Brailo also pointed out that some schools won’t allow for website hosting, so in the future we may be forced to use a commercial provider for our website.

 

Conference sessions of interest to ADSL

Two sessions which have already passed:

            • Building Bridges Between Online Art Information Resources

            • Instructing Diverse Learners: Information Literacy Competency in the Arts

Two upcoming sessions:

            • Destruction and Reconstruction of Cultural Heritage Affected by Wars

            Moderators: Nensi Brailo, CCA, and Vibiana Bowman, Rutgers University

            Sunday, April 18, 9-10:30 am

            • Matters of Scale: the Nature of the Smaller Art Library

            Moderator: Sarah McCleskey, Clemson University

            Sunday, April 18, 9-10:30 am

 

Visit from ARLIS/NA President and Vice-President

Jeanne Brown, incoming ARLIS/NA President, and Margaret Webster, incoming ARLIS/NA Vice-President came in and introduced themselves. 

In her role as former program co-chair Webster welcomed everyone and asked for people to submit proposals for conference sessions for Houston by May 31st. She also asked everyone to please fill out conference evaluation forms available at the hospitality desk and soon on the web. She also reminded everyone that May 31st is the date by which special budget requests need to be submitted to the Treasurer and conference proceedings to Ted Goodman.

Brown announced the meeting to discuss the revision of the strategic plan and invited all interested parties to attend. She also announced that Jack Robertson who is the incoming chair of the Publications Committee is focusing his attention on revising the ARLIS/NA website. Graney asked if the national website will consider hosting division websites to which Brown replied they will look into that.

 

Update update

Nachman, the editor of ARLIS/NA Update, reminded everyone that Update is published twice a year and is available on the ARLIS/NA website.  She tries to have a thematic topic for discussion in each issue and would love for ADSL members to make suggestions for topics. Last year she polled libraries via ARLIS-L about auction catalogs in art and design school libraries. She had also researched a piece on picture collections and digitization, but there was a conference session held on this topic instead.

New topics suggested during the ADSL division meeting were:

            -    strategies for dealing with book mutilation

-         information literacy in art and design schools

-         plagiarism and what information is made available to students about plagiarism

 

Proposals for sessions for 2005 conference

Beckwith and Brailo called for brainstorming on conference sessions that could be moderated by ADSL members.

Graney – reminder that the theme is Beyond Borders: Collaborative and Explorative Ventures

Cowan – Idea 1: involving students in the design of library instruction materials and databases; exploring ways the library could serve as a lab for students doing visual and conceptual design. Idea 2: the DC/MD/DE chapter is holding a workshop this summer on digital arts that could be modified for the Houston conference. Idea 3: getting technical support for our libraries; how do we tie into campus-wide resources

Paul Dobbs, MassArt – look at the supply-oriented business models of our vendors (like ARTStor); how do we become more than pawns

Eric Wolfe, NY School of Interior Design – seconded Dobbs’ suggestion; how can we create a more demand-side relationship with vendors or bypass them all together?

Robert Lobe, SVA – career resources for students; collaborating with placement offices (handful of schools represented at the meeting don’t have a career centers)

 

Sidebar--ARTStor

Moira Steven, Atlanta College of Art, announced that the AICAD group met with representatives from ARTStor and offered them suggestions about ways the art and design school libraries are different from academic libraries and why we should receive a different pricing model. ARTStor agreed, so it is suggested that each library contact Barbara Rockenbach at ARTStor to ask about pricing for his/her particular library. They are also considering giving discounts to libraries that have already done their budget for fiscal year 2004-5. If you are a charter member you can distribute the initiation fee over a three year period. To project images from ARTStor you must use the ARTStor system; you cannot project images with Luna or MDID.  But you can project any images from ARTStor not just those in their database. Directors of AICAD are sending a letter to ARTStor addressing the concerns art and design schools have about ARTStor. It was suggested ARLIS work more collaboratively with VRA in addressing these issues, because of their expertise in digital imaging.

 

Proposals cont.

Beckwith – how art libraries work within consortiums to ensure their particular needs

 

Beckwith wrapped up the brainstorming session by encouraging people to work together to get some of these suggestions in proposal form.  Members can use the website to track each other down

 

New Business

The sign-up sheet that is being circulated will be posted on the website. If you know of someone who is missing ask him/her to e-mail Michelson contact information to be included on the website.

 

Election of new vice-moderators

Tony White, Pratt Institute, and Rachel Resnik, MassArt, volunteered and were approved as co-vice-moderators of ADSL.  Beckwith volunteered to act as moderator for another year to replace Marjorie Chenoweth who resigned from the position on leaving art librarianship.  She will co-moderate with Gluibizzi, who could not be here due to a scheduling conflict.

 

Minutes submitted by Rachel Resnik