Meg Klinkow, Co-Moderator
Megklinkow@aol.com
708-383-3533 (w)
708-383-3561 (f)

Officers:

Ken Soehner, Co-Moderator (replacing Toni Reese)
Ksoehner@interport.net
212-570-3934

Kaylyn Hipps, Column Editor
KAYLYN@ARL.org
202-296-2296
202-872-0884 (f)

We had a large turnout for the 2000 business meeting in Pittsburgh, with 85 members signing in.  Jolene de Verges submitted an excellent and succinct report on the meeting.  In summary, Nancy Simon, Co-Moderator, reviewed the ARLIS/NA Strategic Plan and targeted four major goals for the division for the coming year.  These included:
    1/  Develop opportunities, awards, grants.
    2/  Develop stimulating conference programs.
    3/  Exert influence on the external forces that affect our profession.
    4/  Develop programs that promote leadership.

Nancy also outlined specific issues that affect museum librarians and some unique characteristics of our division.  Among the issues were a need to be advocates for greater funding, a need for standards in our work, and support for advocacy for smaller libraries.  The unique characteristics of museum librarians include being able to interact easily with other museum professionals and being part of an accreditation process. Yet negative characteristics also exist and include having limited financial resources and
a limited teaching role for the library.

Toni Reese of the Joslyn Art Museum library was also elected Co-Moderator.  Unfortunately, in October Toni changed jobs and resigned that position.  We were very fortunate to have Kenneth Soehner, Chief Librarian, Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, volunteer to fill out Toni's term and run for the position for next year.

A committee of seven was formed after the business meeting to work on the Division Action Steps.  This included Stephanie Sigala, Kathy Corcoran, Grace Reid, Roger Lawson, Mary Graham, Vicky Bohm, and Meg Klinkow. Emails were exchanged. Kathy gave several suggestions about the importance of institutional power accruing to the library and liaisons with other official groups, such as AAM.  Stephanie Sigala suggested working more with RLG, creating internships and providing grants for travel, sharing information on special collections.  Roger Lawson became liaison to NINCH in its conference on museums and libraries. Ken Soehner, when he became Co-Moderator, expressed an interest in finding ways to involve curators more in using the library collections and services.  It is intended that action steps will be presented
at the 2001 business meeting for voting on by the division.

In accord with the second and fourth goals of the Division (based on Strategic Plan for the whole of ARLIS/NA), we supported several programs for next year's conference.  The Division was approached and sponsored the following sessions:
 "Native American Art Now - Reflecting Contemporary Realities" (Joan Benedetti) -- This is now Session 10.
 "Never the Twain Shall Meet?: Museum Systems and Library Systems" (Elizabeth
O'Keefe) - This is ASK ARLIS 4.
"Through Time and Space: documenting museum collecting and exhibition history
on the web" (Jonathan Franklin) - This is Session 4.
-- and two other programs that were not selected for inclusion in the L.A. conference.

Meg Klinkow kept an eye on ARLIS-L throughout the year and responded to questions that arose related to museum libraries.  She also approached Dominican University's Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science about sponsoring an art library (particularly museum library) educational program.  The Dean was open to having a 3-day workshop but not an entire course. Meg could not find anyone among the local librarians who would commit to teaching for no money, however.  This will also be brought up in L.A. in conjunction for the need to develop leadership and educational
opportunities.

There are no issues for the Executive Board of ARLIS/NA at present.