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Museum Library Division News

Edited by Stephanie Moye / posted: 8 February 2005

Thanks to the enthusiastic support of forty-plus members of the Museum Library Division--and others--who have volunteered their time and expertise, the planned Handbook of Art Museum Librarianship is off to a tremendous start. Joan Benedetti, who will edit the handbook, has signed up museum librarians from all regions of the U.S. and Canada, and representing the largest and the smallest libraries, those broadest and those most focused in subject scope. The handbook will include contributions from museum librarians working in a variety of venues. Chapters will be devoted to administration, public service, automation, collection development and acquisitions, cataloging, visual resources, special collections and institutional archives, ephemera, public relations, development and grant-writing, space planning, professional development, solo librarianship, and working with interns and volunteers. All of these topics will be discussed through the special lens of librarians working in art museum libraries. The Handbook of Art Museum Librarianship is planned to be published as an ARLIS/NA Occasional Paper in late 2005.

The Detroit Institute of Arts Research Library & Archives is closed to the public and most of the collections are in storage because of the major museum renovation project. The construction is scheduled to be completed in 2007. The Library & Archives has digitized a number of early DIA publications, which are now available on the library's web page. These publications include bulletins, annual reports, and early exhibition publications. These items may be viewed at http://dia.dalnet.lib.mi.ud/#focus.

Anyone interested in the art and history of glass can now turn to the Internet to review the extensive resources of the world's largest and most comprehensive library on these subjects. The Rakow Research Library of the Corning Museum of Glass, which includes an outstanding collection of primary documents as well as traditional library materials, has placed its catalog of holdings online. At the library's new web site, http://rakow.cmog.org, a single search can retrieve information from both the library's online catalog and its index of glass-related articles. Users may search in the library catalog, the article index or both databases simultaneously, including holdings in all formats. The article index that is now on the online site is the same database that was formerly used for the annual production of printed check lists in the Journal of Glass Studies and New Glass Review. The placement of these online eliminates the wait for annual printings of the check list. It will be possible to search multiple years back to the first printed lists in 1959.

Hillwood Museum & Gardens is pleased to announce the acquisition of a unique collection of more than 2,300 items from the personal library of Edward Kasinec, presently chief of the Slavic and Baltic division of the New York Public Library. Kasinec is internationally renowned as one of the foremost Slavic bibliographers and librarians of his generation. Kasinec's collection deepens Hillwood's current holdings on imperial Russian culture. The collection also expands Hillwood's current scope by adding holdings in the areas of Eastern European avant-garde art, the art and culture of Slavic books, Soviet decorative arts, among other subjects. Hillwood is in the early stages of cataloging and processing the Kasinec collection, with the goal of making it fully accessible to the public by the end of 2005. In the meantime, scholars may periodically check the catalog at www.dcdata.com/hillwood for materials that have become available for use.

On January 27, the Yale Center for British Art opened the exhibition: William Hodges, 1744-1797: The Art of Exploration. The center is the only U.S. venue for this first-ever retrospective of works by this eighteenth-century landscape painter, whose career as a painter took him on various expeditions with the renowned explorer Captain James Cook.. The Yale University Art Gallery continues its comprehensive restoration of its Louis Kahn building, which opened in 1953. In addition, the Gallery's expansion project includes the 1928 gothic-style Swartwout building and the 1866 Street Hall. The gallery will remain open through the construction.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) formally established the VMFA Archives in February 2004 as part of its long-term plan to transform the archives from an institutional-only resource to a state-of-the-art facility that will be open to researchers all over the world. VMFA is in the midst of a massive expansion campaign, the plans for which include an entirely new library, rare books room, and archives. The archives is currently home to 850 cubic feet of largely unprocessed institutional records, including records from over 25 departments within the museum and spanning almost 70 years, from the museum's opening in 1936 to the present. The archives has also begun to actively collect the papers of Virginia artists.

The Philbrook Museum of Art Chapman Library was selected to participate in the 2004-2005 Models of Archival Administration program. The museum archives were placed in the care of the library in 1979. At the conclusion of the 20-month program, the Chapman Library will be designated a Model Archival Organization, an indication that it is applying the highest archival standards to the historic records entrusted to its care. Scholars and researchers use the archives as a resource for Native American and Oklahoma artists and exhibitions, as well as for the history of Villa Philbrook, Waite Phillips, and their roles in Oklahoma history. Special funding has been provided to facilitate preservation and access for two collections: the Exhibition Files (1939 to present); and the Waite Phillips Collection. (1926-1964). The archives is receiving a resource library, supplies and materials, as well as assistance and training for staff in archival management and techniques. The Models of Archival Administration program is supported by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the Oklahoma Department of Libraries.

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