Check out the conference blog for local fun and an insider’s peak at the conference.
http://arlisnaboston.wordpress.com

Please mark your calendars and join us at an ARLIS/NE Roundtable Discussion on Friday, December 18 from 2:30 to 5 pm. The event will be held in the conference room of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, 230 The Fenway, Boston.

The discussion topics will be based on the economic downturn and how it has affected our New England art libraries. It is an opportunity for constructive dialogue and information sharing concerning the budget cuts, staffing changes, and collection development challenges we face. While these changes are naturally very stressful, this will be an opportunity to share with colleagues the solutions, negotiations, and creative or radical proposals being made in the art information field. Amy Lucker, ARLIS/NA President will be joining us for the discussion.

It will also be an opportunity to get together before the winter break and spread good cheer.

Download REGISTRATION FORM

MEETING SCHEDULE

9:00-10:00
Registration, coffee & pastries
Location: Clark Art Institute, lobby

10:00-11:00
Chapter Business Meetings (ARLIS/NE, VRA/NE & VRA/Upstate NY)
Location: Clark Library

11:00-12:30
Tours of Stone Hill Center
Location: Meet in the Clark Art Institute, lobby

12:30-2:00
Lunch
Location: Pick up your brown bag lunch in the Café and enjoy it anywhere on the Clark’s 140-acre campus.

2:00-4:00
View one of the  Clark Library’s special collections
or
Have a Gallery Tour the Institute’s autumn exhibition Steps off the Beaten Path: 19th Century Photographs of Rome and its Environs

4:00-5:00
Coffee & snack for the road

OPTIONAL THURSDAY EVENT

The previous evening, October 15th at 7:00, as part of the Clark’s Monuments in Peril Series, our ARLIS colleague András Riedlmayer will present “Killing Memory: Cultural Heritage under Fire in the Balkan Wars of the 1990s”

We hope that many of you will be able to attend the meeting on Friday, and will also consider coming the day before in order to hear András’ lecture. There are plenty of hotels and motels in the area to accommodate participants during what will be one of our peak foliage weeks.

Revolution and Innovation: At the Hub of Discovery

The ARLIS/NA 38th Annual Conference will explore revolution and innovation within art librarianship and visual resources librarianship as new technologies, economic changes and other factors transform our profession.  Rapid change creates opportunities to embrace new ways of exploring the issues librarians face daily.  How have you responded to the changes in the information landscape? What innovative methods have you developed to resolve the problems that have arisen from all these new developments? How have collaborations amongst colleagues, peers, institutions and more changed how you work?

Individuals are invited to submit proposals for papers that provoke critical exchange and debate as well as practical advice and solutions in relation to the broad thematic areas referred to below. Submissions are encouraged that support opportunities for interaction between participants and enable the conference to engage in a truly interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and viewpoints.

Individuals wishing to contribute paper abstract proposals for the ARLIS/NA 38th Annual Conference must submit a 250 word abstract for review by the Conference Program Committee. All abstracts must be submitted electronically using the online form available below.

The abstract submission deadline is July 24, 2009. Abstracts received after the submission deadline will automatically be placed on the waiting list

Abstract guidelines can be found in the online submission form. Incomplete abstracts will not be reviewed.

Thematic Areas

The following themes have been identified as the main interests of conference attendees from the conference evaluation and planning surveys.  The themes are purposefully broad.  The questions have been written to prompt and suggest possible platforms for discussion and debate. The Program Committee welcomes responses that extend and develop these themes in areas that will engage attendees in sharing different perspectives and provoke speculation about the future direction and development of art librarianship in the twenty first century.

Future of Art and Visual Resources Librarianship

• As academic institutions look to cut their budgets, will art/architecture/visual resources libraries become merged with main libraries? Is this an opportunity?
• Digital libraries and repositories will begin taking advantage of full text searchability. Where do catalogers fit into this new view of access?
• Considering today’s tight budgets, how much metadata is enough when working with less support?
• How do you increase your visibility on campus?  What novel ways do you advocate for your library’s services?
• How have you developed grant proposals for projects in your library?  What were the challenges and what surprised you?
• How do you satisfy customers in an increasingly 24/7 instant access world?  What do you do differently?
• Going beyond statistics, how do you know that you are providing patrons with the services and resources that they want? What are some inventive and successful measures that your library has taken to determine patron satisfaction?
• Do corporate or business customer service practices such as “secret shoppers” have a place in libraries?  Have any libraries used any of these methods successfully?
  

Collection Development

• In light of the current economic climate, what strategies have you developed to provide quality resources for your community?
• How do we provide access to information and ideas that are being created in technologies that have not been traditionally supported by libraries?  How do we preserve that knowledge?
• Is this an opportunity for collaborative collection development? Why or why not will collaborative collection development take root?
• How do libraries balance fulfilling the patron’s desire for digital content with the realities of the heavily print nature of art, architecture and design publishing?
  

Emerging Technologies

• How have you successfully created solutions using emerging technologies such as open source programs, mobile technologies, mashups and more?
• Taking advantage of new technologies, what unique projects have you successfully collaborated on with your colleagues (library, IT, etc.)?
  

Reference and Instruction

• With reduced staffing, who should be answering questions at the reference desk?
• What are some strategies being employed by libraries to provide reference and instruction to distance students/faculty?
• How have libraries developed instruction that integrates into the studio culture?
• How are information and visual literacy programs being successfully integrated into curricula?
  

Visual Resources

• The value of visual resources libraries is being questioned in some institutions.  What are the strategies that can be employed to educate institutions and administrators about the value of such collections?  How do you promote these collections to faculty and students who prefer Flickr databases and web searching?
• Are there new paradigms for the building of and access to visual collections that we should be moving towards?
  

Please submit your abstract by following this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=yzQS2txK78auP5kfgmiIjQ_3d_3d.

If you have any questions, please contact the Program Co-Chairs:  Jennifer Friedman, MIT (jrfried@mit.edu) and Ann Whiteside, MIT (awhites@mit.edu).

With regards,

Jennifer Friedman, on behalf of the Program Committee

Program Committee

Jennifer Friedman, MIT, Program Co-Chair
Ann Whiteside, MIT, Program Co-Chair
Susanne Javorski, Wesleyan University
Kathy Ritter
Deb Verhoff, Art Institute of Boston at Lesley College
Whitney Vitale, Boston Architectural College

Revolution and Innovation: At the Hub of Discovery

The ARLIS/NA 38th Annual Conference will explore revolution and innovation within art and visual resources librarianship as new technologies, economic changes and other factors transform our profession.  Rapid change creates opportunities to embrace new ways of exploring the issues librarians face daily. How have you responded to the changes in the information landscape?  What innovative methods have you developed to resolve the problems that have arisen from all these new developments?  How have collaborations amongst colleagues, peers, institutions and more changed how you work?

Individuals are invited to submit proposals for half day or whole day workshops to take place on either the first or last day of the conference (to be determined).   Workshops provide an opportunity to discuss current and emerging topics in a smaller, interactive atmosphere. Workshops that bring together professionals from different library communities as well as from researchers and other outside practitioners are especially encouraged. Each workshop should be well-focused, aim to be hands-on and participatory, and encourage collaboration and discussions among the participants.

Proposals should contain the necessary information for the Conference Program Committee to judge the importance, relevance, quality and community interest in the proposed workshop. Proposals should include the following:

• Name of the workshop
• Workshop description
• Workshop length
• Maximum number of people best served by the workshop
• How the workshop relates to the theme of the conference
• What the learning objectives are for the workshop
• Possible format of the workshop
• Technical and space needs for the workshop
• Information about previous offering(s) of the workshop, if applicable: attendance, structure, feedback
• Names, affiliations, and research interests of the workshop proposers
  

The workshop proposal submission deadline is July 24, 2009. Proposals received after the submission deadline will automatically be placed on the waiting list.  Incomplete workshop proposals will not be reviewed.

Workshop Topics

The following topics have been identified as the main interests for workshops from the conference evaluation and planning surveys, and the topics are purposefully broad.

• Emerging technologies
• Grant research and proposals
• Instruction and visual literacy
• Collection development and management
• Metadata and cataloging
• Visual resources
• Administrative and management issues
• Reference
• Fundraising
• Academic library issues
  

Workshop proposers are encouraged to think of ways that workshops can take advantage of the rich resources of the Boston area. The Program Committee welcomes ideas and will work with approved workshops to explore the resources of the area that can be incorporated into the workshop.

When drafting your proposal please keep the following in mind:

• Target Audience – This conference will include library professionals and students from academic, art and design school, museum, public and special libraries and visual resources collections, among many others.  Attendees work with collections that include architecture, art, landscape architecture, planning (city and regional), dance, theatre, photography, visual resources and more.
• Educational Objectives – Workshops should have stated learning objectives so that those attending come away with information to assist them with their own career.
  

Applicants will be notified by August 20, 2009, via email, as to the status of their proposal.

Please submit your workshop proposal by following this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=3pM2PfyOC1_2bVoepIwEpXGQ_3d_3d.

Responsibilities of Program Committee and Workshop Organizers

For all accepted proposals, the Program Committee will be responsible for:

• Providing logistical and technical support and a meeting place for the workshop.
• Liaising and coordinating between the Program Committee and workshop organizers.
  

Workshop organizers will be responsible for the following:

• Handouts for participants
• Communicating technical needs to Program Committee
  

The Publicity Co-Coordinators will provide publicity for the workshops.

ARLIS/NA does not provide financial support to the organizers and presenters of workshops. If accepted, workshop organizers and all presenters are responsible for their own registration, travel and hotel accommodations.

If you have any questions, please contact the Program Co-Chairs:  Jennifer Friedman, MIT (jrfried@mit.edu) and Ann Whiteside, MIT (awhites@mit.edu).

With regards,

Jennifer Friedman, on behalf of the Program Committee

Program Committee

Jennifer Friedman, MIT, Program Co-Chair
Ann Whiteside, MIT, Program Co-Chair
Susanne Javorski, Wesleyan University
Kathy Ritter
Deb Verhoff, Art Institute of Boston at Lesley College
Whitney Vitale, Boston Architectural College 

Congratulations to the following 2009 recipients:
Sarah Burke for the Elmar W. Seibel Scholarship
Sarah Dickinson for the Wolfgang Freitag Professional Development Award
Gabrielle Reed for the ARLIS/NA Travel Award

A special thanks goes to Gabrielle Reed, Public Services Librarian at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, for our viral marketing.

If you were in attendance at the ARLIS/NA conference in Indy last week, it’s probably that you left with a temporary tattoo of our 2010 logo. The logo was designed by a student at U Mass Dartmouth.

Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island

The Preservation Society of Newport is a small venue so space will be limited to 40 people. Please send in the registration form as soon as possible.

Morning meeting only ($8)
Full Day which includes a tour of one of the mansions ($20)
Full Day registration fee for Library Students ($15)
Note: the single tour ticket does not include tours of Breakers or Hunter House, so if Breakers is what you want to see, only register for the morning meeting and purchase Breakers & Hunter House tickets on your own.

The schedule:
9:45 am registration and Coffee in Newport at 424 Bellevue Ave
10:30 Greetings from Preservation Society of Newport’s Archivist Linda Eppich
10:45 ARLIS/NE Business Meeting
11:45 Preservation Society of Newport’s Conservationist Jeff Moore Speaks
12:30 Lunch on your own in Newport. A list of local restaurants will be provided.
2:00 Mansion Visit.
4:00 End with Tea and Snacks at the Benoist Cottage at 53 Walcott, Jamestown, RI . RSVP through the registration form.

Benoist Cottage was built in 1895 and is a traditional New England “Summer Cottage”. It sits on Narragansett Bay with stunning views of Newport and the surrounding areas. The house was built by British architect Charles Bevins.