Submitted by: Paula Gabbard
e-mail: gabbard@columbia.edu
phone/FAX: (212) 854-6745 / (212) 854-8904

Activities of the year:

Members remained unchanged throughout the year.

After discussion at last year’s conference, we revised ballot (attached), but we did not have the opportunity to use it.

I prepared the last ten years of committee material for archiving, but was discouraged from submitting it. Terry Keenan (Special Collections, Syracuse University) believed that the board was soon going to revise submission procedures, and he felt it best if I waited until this was completed.

On September 15 I sent copies of a flyer, an announcement, and a cover letter promoting solicitations to the award, to the committee membership and all deans or directors of library schools listed in the ALA directory on the web.

In mid September, I received one e-mail query from a library school student for further information, which was provided, but no paper was subsequently offered by this student.

By Dec. 10, I had received only one paper, but sadly, this paper fell outside the requirements of the award: the student was not currently or ever enrolled in a library degree program. As a result, this year no award will be given.

At the 2001 conference the committee will discuss alternative ways to solicit papers from library school students for future G.M. awards. What might work is to work from a list of all faculty in library schools who teach art librarianship, and contact them personally, with plans for a follow up. I also wonder if the award might not be generous enough to inspire student submissions?

Regarding the ARLIS/NA Strategic Plan (based on Kathryn Wayne’s ARLIS/NA Strategic Plan 2000-2005);

Our committee by definition attempts to further Goal I. A-C, E, but our new challenge will be to successfully solicit papers that fall within the requirements for next year’s G.M. award.

Issues for the Executive Board:

Would you discuss and notify me if and/or when to send the last 10 years of the Gerd Muehsam Award’s materials on to ARLIS/NA archives, and pass on to me the current name and address of where to send this material? If a revision of submission procedures is in the works, could you please let me know the expected timetable?

Is it possible that headquarters or members of the board could help our committee come up with as complete a list as possible of library school faculty who teach art librarianship, which we could use to solicit candidates for this award?

Could you give some thought to increasing the cash award, if not the travel award, which has been held at $200 cash plus $300 reimbursement to attend the conference at least since 1991, if not since the beginning of this award?
 
 

Gerd Muehsam Award Ballot

2000

Final Grade:________

Final Score:________

Paper Number:______

Title of Paper/Project:_____________________________________________

Evaluate this paper according to the criteria listed below. Score each category with the lowest number as the weakest score and the highest number as the strongest score. Please add specific detailed comments justifying your ranking of each of the following. Be particularly sure to add any positive comments on the ballots that receive your highest total score, as they may be incorporated into the awards presentation. After reviewing the history of the Gerd Muehsam Awards I discovered there have been several years when none were given, and it was sometimes because the papers submitted didn’t meet minimum standards. This is an option we should continue to have, and to help with this decision, I ask that after scoring all of the papers, you assign a letter grade (A to F with pluses and minuses) to each. If no paper merits a grade higher than B+ from anyone, then we will communicate by e-mail to decide whether we wish to grant no award. If there is too wide a disparity between our scores, I will want to communicate with you as well.

1. Style and readability (including grammar, punctuation, and spelling):

0 1 2 3 4 5

2. Terminology and vocabulary:

0 1 2 3 4 5

3. Research and scholarship:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

4. Relevance to art librarianship or visual resources curatorship:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

5. Originality:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

6. Other comments:

Total score (please note this on top of front page as well):____________

Reviewer's name:_____________________________________________

Date:____________________