Submitted by Carole Goldsmith
wisdom@sfu.ca
TEL: 604-291-3268 / FAX: 604-291-3023
Incoming Chapter Officers 2001
Carole Goldsmith, Chair
wisdom@sfu.ca
Paul Chenier, Secretary/Treasurer
pchenier@cca.qc.ca
Ilga Leja, Atlantic Region Representative
ilga@nscad.ns.ca
Rosemary Haddad, ARLIS/MOQ (Montreal-Ottawa-Quebec)
Representative
rosemary@cca.qc.ca
Cheryl Siegel, ARLIS/NA NW Representative
casiegel@vanartgallery.bc.ca
Lynda Barnett, ARLIS/NA Ontario Representative
lbarnett@toronto.cbc.ca
Liv Valmestad, Prairie Region Representative
liv_valmestad@umanitoba.ca
Marilyn Berger, Past Chair
Berger@library.mcgill.ca
ARLIS/Canada Activities:
Approximately 24 members from across Canada and the U.S. attended the ARLIS/Canada business meeting on March 21, 2000 at the ARLIS/NA annual conference in Pittsburgh. The meeting was chaired by the outgoing Canadian Representative, Marilyn Berger. Carole Goldsmith was introduced as the new ARLIS/NA Canadian Representative, and Chair of ARLIS/Canada. Reports were given from the individual Canadian chapters. Ms. Goldsmith later arranged to have flowers and a card delivered to Marilyn Berger, outgoing Canadian Rep., on behalf of all Canadian members.
An official website for ARLIS/Canada was launched this year by James Rout, fine arts librarian at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta. The website provides links to ARLIS/NA and the individual Canadian Chapters, and provides a conduit for disseminating news and reports from Canadian members. The ARLIS/Canada website may be found at: http://www.banffcentre.ab.ca/library/carlis
The final issue of the Canadian Art Libraries (CARLIS) Newsletter was distributed to Canadian members in June 2000, when the long time editor, Melva Dwyer, decided not to continue publication. The newsletter was first published in 1971 as a CARLIS publication, and served as a valuable source of information on Canadian artists and publications for almost 30 years. After extensive discussion among our members, it was agreed that portions of the newsletter could be mounted on the ARLIS/Canada website.
As incoming Chair, Carole Goldsmith sent a thank you letter to Melva Dwyer, acknowledging her dedication as editor of the CARLIS Newsletter for many years. She also thanked Cheryl Siegel for assisting with production of the newsletter for the past few years.
Carole Goldsmith submitted an article on the history of ARLIS/Canada for a special issue of the ARLIS UK newsletter. The article was published in the ARLIS UK & Ireland News-Sheet Special International Issue, no. 148, 2000. Background information was supplied by Peter Trepanier, National Gallery of Canada Library and Cheryl Siegel, Vancouver Art Gallery Library. Ms. Goldsmith reported on ARLIS/Canada Chapter activities in the August issue of ARLIS/NA Update.
Cyndie Campbell and Sylvie Roy were the winners of the 1999/2000 Melva J. Dwyer Award, for the publication Artists in Canada : a Union List of Artists / Artistes au Canada : une liste collective des dossiers d'artistes. The winners were announced at the ARLIS/NA annual conference in Pittsburgh and presented with the award at the ARLIS/MOQ meeting on May 5 in Montreal. Marilyn Berger gave the presentation at the convocation ceremonies at the annual conference.
Jury members for the 2000/2001 Dwyer Award are Daphné Dufresne, Université du Québec à Montréal; James Rout, Banff Centre for the Arts; and Cheryl Siegel, Vancouver Art Gallery. A call for nominations was posted in November on both carlis-l and arlis-l, and copies of the nomination form were mailed to all Canadian members of ARLIS/NA. The winner will be announced at the 2001 ARLIS/NA annual conference in Los Angeles.
ARLIS/Canada supported two proposals for conference sessions at the ARLIS/NA 2001 conference. One session, proposed by CHIN, would have examined the MetaCollector, a cataloguing tool that allows museums to create metadata for new or existing websites. The other session, co-sponsored by ARLIS/Canada and ARLIS/NA Academic Libraries Division, and proposed by Ray Anne Lockard, was to have been a panel session on the history of art libraries. Unfortunately, neither proposal was accepted by the 2001 Los Angeles conference programming committee.
In September 2000, Jo Beglo, Bibliographer at the National Gallery of Canada Library, issued a call for papers for a research publication on the history of art librarianship in Canada. Editors and contributors from across the country are contributing to the project. The publication will bring together information from published and unpublished documents, and is intended to serve as an authoritative reference source.
ARLIS/Canada and ARLIS/NA NW Chapter received special funding of $500 from ARLIS/NA to support a joint regional meeting in Banff, Alberta. The meeting was originally proposed to take place in fall 2001, but has now been postponed to June 2002, to allow more time for planning. The current Chair of ARLIS/Canada is working closely with Cheryl Siegel (Vancouver Art Gallery) and James Rout (Banff Centre for the Arts) on plans for the regional meeting.
C. Goldsmith, ARLIS/Canada Chair, met with Margaret English, the Chair of ARLIS/NA Ontario, following the mid-year ARLIS/NA Executive Board meeting in Toronto. Ms. Goldsmith prepared reports to be read at the annual fall meetings of ARLIS/NA Ontario and ARLIS/MOQ.
News from the Canadian Chapters and Regions:
All three chapters within Canada developed new web sites over the past year. They may be found at:
ARLIS/MOQ: http://library.concordia.ca/arlismoq
ARLIS/NA NW Chapter: http://www.halcyon.com/hnear/arlisweb/
ARLIS/NA Ontario: http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/people/affiliated/arlisont/
ARLIS/NA Ontario Chapter members gathered last spring for a meeting at the venerable Arts & Letters Club in Toronto. The fall meeting was held on the campus of the University of Toronto, in late October. This 2-day event included a workshop on fundraising and working with a "Friends" group. The Ontario chapter inaugurated a new travel award, and was able to sponsor a member to attend the ARLIS/NA annual conference in Pittsburgh. Funds for the award were raised from an enterprising sale of art monographs to ARLIS/NA members. The Chapter generously donated a basket for the silent auction and $75 toward the welcome party at the Pittsburgh conference.
ARLIS/MOQ also met twice in 2000. The spring meeting was held in May at the Cinémathèque Québécoise in Montreal. Sylvie Roy and Cyndie Campbell, from the National Gallery of Canada Library, were presented with the 1999/2000 Dwyer award for their publication, Artists in Canada : a union list of artists' files/ Artistes au Canada: une liste collective des dossiers d'artistes. The fall meeting took place in November in Quebec City, and included guided tours of the Museum of Quebec, and the Museum of Civilisation. ARLIS/MOQ sponsored a membership in ARLIS/NA, as well as a travel award for a member to attend the Pittsburgh conference. The chapter also generously donated $100 toward the welcome party and a basket for the silent auction.
ARLIS/MOQ received $500 in funding from ARLIS/NA for the Vertical File Collections Project. The chapter intends to publish a report on the state of vertical file collections represented in MOQ, as well as a revised edition of the 1989 Directory of Vertical File Collections on Art & Architecture. The report and directory will be made public on the new chapter website.
Cathy Donaldson, ARLIS/NA NW Chapter Chair, organised a summer picnic and tour of Pilchuk Glass studios. NW Chapter officers met during the summer in Vancouver, to discuss future activities. The chapter plans to hold a meeting in Vancouver in early May 2001, and is working with ARLIS/Canada on the proposed joint regional meeting in Banff. The NW Chapter donated $100 toward the welcome party in Pittsburgh, and has committed funds to support the Banff regional meeting.
NW Chapter members were saddened to learn of the loss of Peter Grewenow, slide curator in the College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Washington. Peter was co-chair of fundraising for the 1999 ARLIS/NA annual conference in Vancouver, and will be sadly missed by his friends and colleagues in ARLIS/NA.
ARLIS/Canada members in the Prairies, Pacific and Atlantic regions are working with other libraries and institutions to provide broad access to resources through networking, resource sharing and collaborative ventures.
The Atlantic Scholarly Information Network (ASIN) promotes shared use of library resources in the Atlantic region. Through ASIN, the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design (NSCAD) has formed partnerships with other university libraries to provide reciprocal borrowing privileges to all students and faculty. In Manitoba, Liv Valmestad, at the University of Manitoba, has been forging partnerships with the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Through COPPUL (Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries), faculty and students from participating institutions have access to direct interlibrary loans and reciprocal borrowing privileges. In British Columbia, shared access to databases such as the Art Index and Humanities Index, is provided on behalf of college, institute and university libraries through the provincially funded Electronic Library Network (ELN).
Many university libraries across Canada are participating in the Canadian National Site Licensing Project (CNSLP). This is a federal/provincial project to provide funding for joint access to licensed databases. The Web of Science, one of the first databases licensed under CNSLP agreements, includes the Arts & Humanities Citation Index.