ARLIS/NA
30th / VRA 20th
Patricia Siska, Frick Art Reference Library, Coordinator
Cara List, University of Oregon, Co-Coordinator
Sunday, March 24, 2002
Minutes
Patricia Siska opened the meeting with a welcome, which was followed by introductions of those present. Gisele Guay, Canadian Centre for Architecture, was announced as continuing editor of the Update column.
Board representative Kay Teel, Stanford University, defined the new movement away from session sponsorship for next year's conference to a more open format where anyone can present a session. The reminder of the May 1st deadline accompanied these comments.
The next agenda item was a brief review of the previously held seminar at this conference on online journals entitled "Negotiating Power: Online journals and the art librarian".
Cara List stated that the motivating factor for putting this seminar together was the fact that online journals have not proliferated in art and architecture as in other fields of study. It was noted that of those e-journals that do exist, many still do not have images. Charlie Bauer of OHIOLINK approached the problem in his presentation as a sceptic wondering if there really is a problem with images, the common problem encountered when publishers choose the format. Ron Miller of H W Wilson mentioned in his presentation that of the 120 full text journals available, 26 have images. The question was posed to the SRT attendees of whether something else could be done to help solve the problem of permissions for using images. Someone brought up the possibility that ARLIS/NA should be a bigger voice to the publishers. Also, the pursuit of permissions from Museums concerning back issues was mentioned. Cara List stated JSTOR involvement in the bundling of back issues and presenting them to institutions for purchase.
Serials swapping on ARLIS-L was revisited as a problem for some members. Evidently the digest version of the List shows all spaces and returns which take up more space. The posting of these lists on individual library's web sites was proposed, however, it was thought of as a less savvy method to reach the List members who regularly benefit from the online swaps. Management of these lists either as an entity of the ARLIS/NA web site or a separate listserv was suggested as a problem the group was unwilling to pursue. The commitment of a moderator to such a list was considered too great of an undertaking. The only solution presented was to offer the title lists in a concise text-based format rather than html to eliminate unnecessary spaces and returns.
After defining the role of the Coordinator and Co-coordinator as those propositioning sessions and writing reports to the Board, Cara List became next year's Coordinator and Nathaniel Feis, Art Institute of Chicago, volunteered to be Co-coordinator. In addition to these business affairs, the issue of the SRT Archive was brought up. It was stated that the Archive should remain at Head Quarters but any useful material could be copied and passed along from Coordinator to Coordinator.
It was noted that the ARLIS/NA Web site page includes a list of E-journals. By clicking from the Contents page on the Art Information Resources on the Web link, users can find first the ARLIS/NA Guide to the World Wide Web and then E-Journals in Art, Architecture, and Allied Disciplines. The direct web address is http://www.arlisna.org/journals.html. In the past, Jonathan Franklin of Ottawa maintained this list but no one could identify the current editor. Cara List offered to contact Jonathan Franklin and to e-mail SRT participants concerning any ideas for reorganizing or recategorizing the list by table of contents vs. full text.
Joy Kestenbaum, Pratt Institute, also noted as her responsibilities in the Collection Development Committee that she and Paula Gabbard, Columbia University, will be posting an out-of-print dealer list for dealers worldwide including contact information.
Member projects were then announced. Lilah J. Mittelstaedt, Philadelphia Museum of Art, wrote a chapter on Periodicals, Abstracts and Indexes in the K. G. Saur publication "Information Sources in Art, Art History and Design", 2001. Alexandra DeLuise, Queens College, is in the beginning stages of a writing about aggregators and e-journals.
Although next year's conference does not require sponsorship to sessions, Evalyn Stone, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Nathaniel Feis agreed to work on a proposal concerning unique cataloging problems for non-traditional formats or multiple formats. The possible title "The Brave New World of Serials" will also address management issues. Suggested format was an informal Open Forum and ideas for speakers are welcome.
Evalyn Stone announced North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) and the SERIALS-L as other avenues to pursue for tackling serials problems. Kay Downey, Cleveland Museum of Art, suggested we further discuss e-journals at next years SRT meeting.
Closing comments included the need for longer meeting period next year and posting the minutes of the meeting to ARLIS-L.
Respectfully submitted by,
Lilah J. Mittelstaedt
Philadelphia Museum of Art