Inserted below is the report for Session 11. Barbara Mathe's (panelist number
4) affiliation has changed, but I have not yet obtained the new information.
I will send it on when I receive it. 

Regards, 

Renata


Renata Guttman
Chef, Services aux usagers/
Head, Reader Services
Bibliotheque/Library
Centre Canadien d'Architecture/
Canadian Centre for Architecture
Tel: (514)939-7011/Fax: (514)939-7020
renata@cca.qc.ca

Panel Session 11
" The Art Librarian as Curator "
Sunday a.m., 8 March 1998

Co-moderators: Deirdre Lawrence, Principal Librarian/Coordinator of 
Research Services, Brooklyn Museum of Art; Rosemary Haddad, Associate 
Librarian, Canadian Centre for Architecture.
Sponsor: Museum Library Division

Co-moderator Rosemary Haddad opened the session with a brief introduction 
to its theme.  She noted that art librarians in many types of libraries 
are often called upon to act as curators or keepers, as interpreters, as 
publishers or as publicists of the collections they oversee.  To this end 
they require a variety of skills: they must have a knowledge of the 
aesthetic, historical and monetary value of their collections and be good 
administrators and organizers; they need a solid grasp of information 
technology and what it can do for their collections. They must find ways 
to meet demands for access in one form or another, whether original or 
surrogate, and at the same time preserve their collections for future 
generations. In publicizing their collections they need to maintain a 
certain level of intellectual content while often being required to 
appeal to a broader public. They need the skills to form effective 
partnerships. They need to be scholarly. They need museological skills, 
writing skills, judgment, taste.  

Rosemary noted that some art librarians come to these roles fully 
prepared and fully supported while others are required to make their way 
and learn as they go. In curating exhibitions some operate with the full 
support of museum service departments while others find themselves 
personally responsible for carrying out nearly every step in the process. 
The members of the panel were selected to address some of these 
challenges from a variety of perspectives, and their presentations 
covered a ranges of issues from collecting and selecting to promoting 
institutional and community goals.

Panelist: Rochelle Elstein, Bibliographer, Collection Management, 
Northwestern University 
             Library

Rochelle Elstein recounted her experiences organising an exhibition of 
Haggadot in the library at Northwestern University. She had learned that 
a local collector of Haggadot, a form of rabbinical literature which 
includes legends and proverbs and, more specifically, is the story of 
Exodus as it must be retold at the beginning of the seder dinner at 
passover, was interested in making his books available for exhibition. 
Ms. Elstein realised that this would provide an excellent opportunity for 
an educational exhibit about Jewish life and art, since, contrary to 
other rabbinical texts, the Haggadot include images. She also saw this 
event as a way to get a potential donor more interested in the 
university. To this end a reception was held on the opening night, at 
which the collector gave a talk and to which other donors to the 
university were invited. 

Six display cases were available and Ms. Elstein knew that it was 
critical for the display in the first case to attract attention; the 
exhibition also had to appeal to those who know nothing about Haggadot 
and those with an understanding of the genre. The goal of the exhibition 
was to engage people with individual items but also to give a sense of 
the whole collection.  Since textual objects are not necessarily 
interesting to all viewers it was decided that a selection of liturgical 
items would be borrowed from other insititutions in Chicago. This, of 
course, meant that there were more items to worry about losing.

Consequently the first thing Ms. Elstein had to learn about was 
"self-insurance", to find out what would happen if any items were lost or 
damaged. Although  the collector was sanguine about possible loss or 
damage, a Northwestern University vehicle was used to transport the 
objects, each item was signed for and kept in a safe, and updated lists 
locating each Haggada were kept.

Since Haggadot were published all over the world, the first case in the 
exhibition highlighted their geographical distribution. The exhibition 
also attempted to put the exhibited items in context.  For example, a 
liturgical object of gold glass from Central Europe would be placed with 
texts from the same region. An general explanatory text was placed in 
each case and shorter texts accompanied each item. 

Some of the major themes in Haggadot were taken and illustrated through 
publications from different periods and countries. There was also an 
attempt to highlight womens contributions to Jewish life, through the 
display of objects such as a matzoh cover.  The lineage of Haggadot from 
rare early items through to corporate America was illustrated by 
exhibiting the Haggadot produced by food companies such as Manischewitz 
and Maxwell House. 

In order to woo the collector one case was devoted to the Haggadot he 
esteemed the most. An elegant catalague was produced to accompany the 
exhibition and a small pamphlet on Passover was distributed at the 
opening. The exhibition was a great success; however, the collector did 
not donate his Haggadot to the university.

Panelist: James A. Findlay, Librarian, Broward County Librarys Bienes 
Center for the Literary Arts, The Dianne and Michael Bienes Special 
Collections and Rare Book Library

James Findlay began witha brief description of the Broward County 
Librarys Bienes Center for the Literary Arts and the Dianne and Michael 
Bienes Special Collections and Rare Book Library. Broward County Library 
is a public library with 33 branches.  With a special grant and a 
donation from Dianne and Michael Bienes the Library set up the Center for 
the Literary Arts and the Rare Book Library. The Center is located on the 
sixth floor of a downtown building. It consists of three parts: a 
conference room and a reading room with seating for 12 readers; a lobby 
with display cases; and a ceremonial room which can seat 65 and 
accomodate 100-150 people for receptions.

The Centre was opened on September 4, 1996 with much fanfare and is 
well-known locally. It has an almost non-existent collection, and the 
Broward Public Library itself was only created in 1984. Mr. Findlays 
charge is to create awareness of the Center and build up the collection 
through financial donations and other gifts. To this end he has created a 
very active program of four to six exhibitions a year. Some of the 
exhibitions held to date have been devoted to pictorial covers, leather 
bindings, alphabet books, modern rare books and most recently, the work 
of Duane Hanson. Some of the shows are loan exhibitions from other 
institutions, others are the result of cooperation with other 
institutions, and some are undertaken with private collectors.

Funds are available to document each exhibition and the resulting 
publications are useful for reaching the public. Public awareness in turn 
generates offers of materials to exhibit.  For each exhibition the 
following documents are produced: a press release for the major and minor 
newspapers (Mr. Findlay writes the text and the publicity department 
distributes it); an invitation to the opening (which generally includes a 
special program featuring a scholar in the field), which is sent to 
Broward Public Library donors and museum members; a catalogue which may 
be a brochure or a booklet; posters, which are placed in the museum and 
flyers which are distributed to shops, coffeehouses and the like; and a 
special section devoted to the exhibition on the website.

Mr. Findlay concluded by recounting his experiences preparing the Duane 
Hanson exhibition which he worked on with Mrs. Hanson and in which he was 
able to include interesting archival materials.

Panelist: Karen Lightner, Reference Librarian, Rare Book Department, Free 
Library of Philadelphia.

The free Library of Philadelphia was founded in 1891 and opened its first 
branch in 1893. The building it currently occupies on Logan Square was 
built in 1930 and is rather outdated at this point.

In 1899 the Library received its first gift of incunabula; today it has a 
"collection of specific collections" ranging from cuneforms through 
medieval manuscripts and literary manuscripts to a collection of modern 
illustrations.  The Rare Book Department is on the third floor and the 
exhibition cases, which are located throughout the library, help to 
attract people up to the collection. Of course, since it is a public 
library, there is the eternal question of how much access to provide to 
non-scholars and the value of such access. The Library offers tours of 
the Rare Book Department to try to satisfy public interest. Exhibitions 
are a form of outreach and they must achieve a balance between being of 
interest to the scholar and at the same time accessible to the public. 
Ms. Lightner finds that using a lot of illustrated materials helps to 
achieve this.

Highlights of the collection include many Edgar Allan Poe manuscripts; 
two collections of Dickens materials: first editions in original parts, 
and letters and theatrical items; a number of European and Oriental 
illuminated manuscripts and also leaves of miniatures from Oriental 
manuscripts (the illuminated manuscripts are popular with scholars and 
readers, who come from all over the world to consult them; there are also 
many requests for publication). There is also a large collection of early 
children's books printed in the United States before 1837, which the 
Library has been able to add to through purchase. A Pennsylvania German 
Fraktur collection was acquired, as were collections of works by 
illustrators such as Howard Kyle, Elizabeth Shipping Green, N.C. Wyeth, 
Maxwell Parrish, Robert Lawson, Kate Greenaway, Arthur Rackham and the 
largest collection of Beatrix Potter illustrations held outside of Great 
Britain.

Ms. Lightner is also the preservation librarian for the collection. In 
1995 the Library received an access and preservation grant from the 
National Endowment for the Humanities for the Greenaway and Potter 
collections. Collection level records were entered in RLIN and the more 
popular items which were endangered by handling were treated. A 
conservation technician was hired to create housings for the books. 
Future plans include an exhibit.

Currently the Library does three to four exhibitions a year and Ms. 
Lightner does one of these. She tries to plan an exhibition which she 
will enjoy doing and which the public will like. She is provided with 
support which allows her to spend the time to do the exhibition properly. 
Initially there was almost no publicity for the exhibitions; subsequently 
the library began sending simple black and white postcards; now there is 
a budget for cards with colour images.

Ms. Lightner described her experiences curating "Painted Saints", an 
exhibition of iconography in illuminated medieval mauscripts. The 
exhibition cases were arranged by type of martyr: apostles, virgins, etc. 
and included the saints' attributes and scenes from their lives. Matted 
items were simply laid in the cases, books were placed in cradles 
(custom-made in some cases).

Since exhibitions attract people who otherwise do not use the Rare Book 
collection, the library offers tours at 11:00 o'clock every day; the 
tours are informal and visitors are shown more or fewer items depending 
on their level of interest. Tours are also available at other times by 
appointment. Ms. Lightner also gives lectures on the theme of the 
exhibitions and receives school classes.

Ms. Lightner ended her talk by extending an invitation to ARLIS/NA 
delegates to come and visit the Rare Book Department.

Barbara Mathé, Senior Special Collections Librarian, Department of Library Services, American Museum of Natural History

Barbara Mathé began by saying that while curating an exhibition is a 
worthwhile endeavour she does not recommend it as a hobby. Her experience 
included working full-time at one museum and spending much of the rest of 
her waking time curating the exhibition at another museum. She especially 
acknowledged Ross Day, her boss at the time, for his patience and 
encouragement.

While working at an earlier job in an archaeology museum she had agreed 
to collaborate on a paper relating to archival resources for the the 
Jesup expedition, which was organised to demonstrate the theory of the 
Bering Strait crossing. After presenting the paper she and her 
collaborator were asked to curate a small photographic exhibition about 
the expedition; the exhibition was subsequently moved to a larger venue 
and they were given a six-week deadline for the catalogue. By this time 
Ms. Mathé had moved to another job, but she knew  the exhibition venue 
well and, in a stroke of good luck, an intern had just created a database 
of the photograph collection relating to the Jesup expedition. However, 
most of the photographs were not catalogued and there was very little 
information on them; as well, other photographs were interfiled with the 
Jesup ones, so that it was often difficult to select the appropriate ones.

The curators found it very hard to pin down a single idea since the 
subject encompassed myriad concepts and they did not want to approach the 
exhibition only from the anthropological museum point of view. The 
gallery in which they were to mount the exhibition was configured like a 
bowling alley with four potential entry points; they had to choose one 
main entry point in order to provide coherence. They decided to show 
larger photos and mounted them without matts. They chose dramatic 
photographs to start the exhibition and to show that the cultures 
depicted were alive and rapidly evolving. Since Franz Boas, who led the 
expedition, considered photographs to be of no use without objects and 
text (Barbara referred to him as a multimedia man ahead of his time) 
these  were also used to complement the photographs, as were sounds that 
had been collected during the expedition. Contemporary photographs and 
sounds were also included. A whaling ceremony was recreated through 
photographs, letters and other archival documents; a series of 
"mug-shots" and plaster casts collected on the expedition were presented 
in a rather stark and arresting fashion. A facsimile of the original 
scrapbooks was also made available for visitors to look through.

At the end of the exhibition computers were provided which were linked to 
a website giving access to digitised parts of the collection which were 
not on view in the gallery. Although there was not enough time to produce 
the sophisticated searching access the curators had originally intended, 
the computer link served to illustrate the possibilities that exist. The 
website was up for the duration of the exhibition and can be viewed at 
http://www.amnh.org/Exhibition/Jesup/index.html.

Question Period

The presentations generated many questions. In answer to a query about 
publicity Jim Findlay replied that he organised all the publicity for his 
exhibitions, working with the marketing division and a free-lance graphic 
designer. He enjoys having the responsibility because he can control 
quality and also has personal contact with the press.

Rochelle Elstein was asked how she balanced the usual enormous amount of 
library work with her duties as curator. She replied that the difficulty 
of doing both contributes to the fact that she does not curate large 
exhibitions too often. For the Haggadot exhibition she had resources from 
two other departments, and the fact that she loved doing the exhibition 
helped stave off exhaustion.

Karen Lightner was asked if she had staff to do the preservation work 
which is part of her mandate. She replied that although the department 
has a freelance technician who does regular library preservation work, 
they sent out the designated material for treatment when they received 
the NEH grant. They do all the installation for exhibitions themselves 
and Ms. Lightner has done installation for outside exhibitions.

The speakers were asked to comment on vertical versus horizontal cases, 
and commercial versus custom-designed cases.  Jim Findlay replied that 
even though all his cases were custom-designed by an architect they are 
not good. They do have humidity and temperature control and security, but 
access is only provided through the back of the case, the plexi-glass 
shelves tip easily and installation is a nightmare. The cases are wooden, 
which in itself is not good and there is a lot of glare off the glass. In 
his opinion the best idea is to hire a museum expert to design cases (he 
noted that exhibition cases from library equipment companies tend to be 
very expensive and badly designed). 

Karen Lightner noted that her library has forty-year-old cases, but they 
still work quite well, especially because the library does not exhibit 
too many three-dimensional objects. Many libraries are stuck with the 
cases they inherited. One member of the audience noted that UV filter 
film could be put onto the glass of old, plain glass cases.

A question was asked about whether library exhibitions are supported by 
the various institutions. Barbara Mathé replied that she received support 
from her institution but she no longer has time to curate. The American 
Museum of Natural History has a library gallery, but they are so 
short-staffed that they only do one exhibition a year.  Karen Lightner 
noted that the exhibitions are a major part of the library program. Each 
librarian has to do one a year and a lot of the work is done on overtime, 
even though there is support.  Rochelle Elstein noted that the six large 
cases in the library entrance have to be filled. However, her exhibit was 
sui generis because it was not an exhibition of Northwestern University 
materials. It also cost the university quite a lot of money (and did not 
attract the hoped-for donation). The only other non-university exhibition 
held at the library is the Chicago Bookbinders exhibit which is hosted 
every August.  Jim Findlay noted that exhibitions can also come from 
other institutions; this can save a lot of work while still permitting an 
active program.  Co-moderator Deirdre Lawrence mentioned that at the 
Brooklyn Museum she is expected to include library items in exhibitions 
and she has been asked to develop a lecture series in conjunction with 
the 175th anniversary of the museum.

In reply to a question about how the Internet will affect exhibition 
programs, Rochelle Elstein replied that the online exhibition on the 
Great Chicago Fire received more hits than anything else on the 
Northwestern University website.  Barbara Mathé noted that some museums 
tend to see the Internet more as a competitor than an ally.  Karen 
Lightner said that for the moment her library advertises its exhibitions 
on the Internet, but nothing more and she feels she is behind.  Jim 
Findlay has made contacts all over the world through his website and 
received a donation of over 3,000 books from a person who saw an exhibit 
on the site.

Deirdre Lawrence and Rosemary Haddad thanked all the speakers and 
mentioned that any suggestions for a follow-up session would be welcome.


Renata Guttman
Centre Canadien dArchitecture/
Canadian Centre for Architecture
renata@cca.qc.ca