Annual Report (2004)
ARLIS/NA Reference and Information Services Section

February 22, 2005

Submitted by: Ellen K. Corrigan, Moderator

Arts Library, University of California, Santa Barbara

corrigan@library.ucsb.edu

(805) 893-2766

Leadership Update

The officers for 2004-05 have been:

Ellen Corrigan (née Kempf), UCSB, Moderator

Anne Haas, Bowdoin College, Vice-Moderator

Laura Graveline, Dartmouth College, Update Column Editor

For the past several years, elections have been held during the annual section meeting.  The pattern has been to elect the Update editor, who will assume the vice-moderator position the next year and the moderator position the following year.  Additionally, Annette Haines (University of Michigan) took on the position of Web site editor this past year.

Brief Narrative/Activities

RISS modified its statement of purpose to include instruction.  The amended first clause, which now reads, “To study and analyze current issues, trends, and developments relating to the provision of reference and information (including instructional) services to art library users,” was unanimously endorsed by the Executive Board at its July 2004 meeting.  This change will be added to the Policy Manual and to the Handbook for 2006.

At the annual section meeting, the RISS membership decided to continue with two ongoing projects:

Artists’ files working group

Jonathan Evans (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) took over leadership of this group, working toward a web-based directory pointing to institutional holdings of artists’ files.  The group has considered several issues, including the scope of the project, a survey instrument, models for organizing and disseminating the data, and collaborating with the Publications Committee to produce content for the ARLIS/NA web site.  At the invitation of Gunter Weibel (RLG), Jon Evans will be addressing this topic at the AAG meeting at the 2005 conference in Houston to gauge the level of interest and potential support.  The group also plans to reconvene at the conference.

Guide to free Internet resources on the visual arts

Martha Walker (Cornell University) recruited volunteers to investigate the need for and possible development of a guide to free Internet resources on the visual arts.  Future directions for this project, if interest remains among section members, include the creation of a task force to move forward on the guide as well as coordination with the Publications Committee.

Also under discussion at the annual meeting was the continuing series of “They Never Covered This in Library School” workshops, organized under the leadership of Barbara Prior (Oberlin College), that evolved out of RISS.  Given the location of the next conference in Houston, the section strongly favored a workshop on resources for Latin American art, which was selected as the topic for the 2005 session.