ARLIS/NA 53rd Annual Conference

Ensuring that our work is accessible and inclusive is central to all types of libraries. Without a focus on accessibility, many patrons can be excluded from equitable participation in the community, whether in a classroom, a library, an archive, or a museum. Our conference theme this year is Together: Activating Community, and any focus on activating community must have at its core a commitment to addressing the needs of all members of that community, including disabled individuals.  

But, at the same time, because accessibility is such a broad topic, it can be difficult to know where to start and how to keep up with the latest developments, particularly with limited resources. The challenges around accessibility can be particularly difficult for art libraries as they work with visual materials and nontraditional library collections. It is easy to feel overwhelmed and unsure how to maximize impact and create meaningful inclusion for patrons with a range of types of disabilities.

This panel will highlight accessibility projects being undertaken at a range of institutions with a focus on how we can all maximize the impact of our work in this area. Panelists will discuss how this work is integrated into library workflows and offer tips on bringing these ideas to other libraries. They will also discuss the ways that library workers can come together in community with one another to collaborate on improving accessibility in libraries. Attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions and will leave with ideas that can be applied at their own institutions.

The panel brings an art librarian, a media-arts professor, a graphic designer and an artist into shared dialog around the chain of contemporary digital publishing as it relates to art pedagogy: from artists experimenting with new formats, to the complexities of collecting and archiving those formats, to their circulation in the library system, and their ultimate inclusion into curricula and course work. Common to all these speakers is an engagement with a particular library-oriented digital humanities tool, functioning as access platform, commissioning publisher, research database and file archive. This digital humanities toolkit uses the library as a grounding point for experimental publication, by combining unruly digital resources from the open internet alongside its own content initiatives, all of which are distributed through the WorldCat and other commercial databases to both public and academic audiences. Speaker 1 leads the art library at a large university, and will speak about digital collections development for advanced programs in computer science, digital arts, and media theory. Speaker 2 is a university professor in a Media Arts and Design program, and will speak about using library-centric digital humanities tools for both undergraduate and graduate courses, chiefly on visual intelligence and data visualization. Speaker 3 is a design professor with a commercial graphic design practice. They will speak about two recent digital books: one on using AI in typography, and the other an exhibition catalog from a major Asian art museum on artistic responses to personhood and identity against a background of AI. Speaker 4 is a queer performance artist and type designer. They will speak about archival research in queer subcultural histories, and publishing across multiple (frequently open-access) formats.

Since its founding in 1972, the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) has strived to serve art information professionals across North America. However, for much of its history, this "North American" designation primarily referred to the United States and Canada, with little involvement from or strategic approach to building connections with art information professionals in Mexico until the early 1990s.

The 1991 ARLIS regional meeting in conjunction with the Guadalajara International Book Fair and the geographic expansion of the ARLIS/NA Texas-Mexico Chapter in 1997 marked key milestones toward ensuring better geographic representation across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. These efforts culminated in the 2023 ARLIS/NA Annual Conference in Mexico City, a landmark event that symbolized the fruition of more than three decades of engagement between ARLIS/NA members and Mexican art information professionals. ARLIS/NA now stands at a critical moment in society history to determine how engagement with and representation by Mexican art libraries and librarians can and should occur in the future.

This panel and roundtable discussion will explore the long history of ARLIS/NA's initiatives to foster greater collaboration with Mexican colleagues by examining the persistent challenges while exploring possible pathways forward. The panelists are professionals from the U.S. and Mexico who have been engaged in these efforts for decades and were organizers of these key events; their perspectives and experiences will inform the future of engagement for ARLIS/NA in Mexico. The discussion will emphasize how sustained, meaningful interaction across borders serves ARLIS/NA's core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. By understanding the society's history, panelists will offer insights into the roadblocks faced and recommend strategies for overcoming them, ensuring that ARLIS/NA continues to expand its reach and invite greater collaboration and build community across the entirety of North America well into the future.

Details coming soon.

Masters in Library and Information Studies (MLIS) programs teach students technical skills related to the field like the Library of Congress classification system, cataloging, and how to contest book bans. Unfortunately, not all programs prepare students for the job application and interview process. The interview process can be especially intimidating, with its full-day schedule, situational questions that can be hard to prepare for, and the tacit social element with its unspoken rules. Despite best intentions in preparing students for the roles they seek to fill, this gap in education can disproportionately impact first-generation students, students of color, and other marginalized groups entering art librarianship. Professional organizations like ARLIS/NA play a crucial role in fostering diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility within the field by offering targeted professional development opportunities to address this gap.

This panel will address these challenges by featuring a group of speakers of diverse voices and experiences, including newly hired early career librarians and experienced leaders involved in recruitment. Panelists will represent a wide array of art librarianship contexts, including an academic fine arts library, a museum library, an art and design school library, and public library special collections. They will share their insights into the interview process and offer valuable advice on preparation and self-advocacy. Particular emphasis will be placed on response strategies, including the STAR method, as well as balancing behavioral and skill-based questions. This discussion will be followed by a Q&A session where attendees have the opportunity to seek personalized advice. Participants will then engage in breakout sessions where they will be given mock interview questions and receive constructive feedback from peers and panelists. These interactive sessions will help early career professionals refine their interview skills, gain confidence, and demystify the interview process.

As hierarchical systems are being challenged across institutions, including academia and librarianship, many professionals are evaluating what it means to be a leader. Although management may be the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about leadership in their library, true leadership is not intrinsically bound to formal structures of power and authority. Thus, leading can be found at any level of one's organization, but it is often the mid-career librarian who is best poised to think deeply about what it means to lead and how they want to leverage their early career successes into future opportunities for personal and professional growth. This panel will bring together mid-career arts librarians offering insight and reflection on their leadership journeys. Panelists will specifically engage with the concept of leading from where you are, which emphasizes looking inward to identify skills, knowledge, and abilities that foster innate leadership qualities that some librarians may not have considered they possess. Speakers will also discuss ways to hone leadership skills formally and informally at the institutional, local, and national level.

This session focuses on sustainable leadership within academic arts librarianship, with the intention to de-center traditionally administrative or formalized positions of power as the status quo of library leadership. Attendees of this session will hear from leaders across the visual and performing arts working in academic libraries who represent a wide range of leadership roles and opportunities. Each speaker will offer individual strategies for successful, sustainable leadership while collectively fostering a discussion with attendees about the opportunities and challenges of leading from where you are. Speakers for this session will come from university libraries of varying size and ranking, from different regions and backgrounds, and will speak to issues of leadership regarding gender, race, and other identifiers.

Some questions panelists may address include:
-How can one be a leader who does not reinforce or affirm institutional or hierarchical structures?
-What are different ways of getting involved in formal leadership roles within service groups and professional organizations?
-Why is it important to function as a thought leader in your institution or at a national level?
-How does someone identify opportunities to serve as a thought leader?
-Why is it important to pay it forward and lead as a mentor to early career librarians?
-When did you realize you had become a leader and not just an employee or manager?
-How can arts librarians hone their leadership skills and approaches?
-How can informal leadership approaches foster EDI in the workplace or profession?

Panelists will present their thoughts and recommendations on these topics and allow time for questions from the audience to engage in a discussion. Although focused on academic libraries, the advice given by the panelists is anticipated to be broad enough to be applied to several types of libraries.

This panel is co-organized by members of the ARLIS/NA Academic Libraries Division and the ACRL Arts Section.
 
Panelists 

• Sarah Ward, Hunter College - City University of New York
• Maggie Murphy, UNC Greensboro
• Courtney Stine, University of Louisville
• Jamie Vander Broek, University of Michigan

Touching the Past: The Power of Medieval Manuscript Facsimiles - Giovanni Scorcioni
Facsimile editions of medieval illuminated manuscripts provide students and enthusiasts with access to works of art in a close approximation of the experience of their original viewers. For non-specialists in North America, facsimiles open a window into a world otherwise inaccessible, the originals often being of restricted access in European collections. This paper explores the transformative experience of engaging with facsimile reproductions and discovering the value of physical objects in an era of digitalization. Through presentations at North American universities, I have observed the power of facsimile editions to ignite curiosity and develop an appreciation for art in diverse audiences.

My presentations to students have focused on the pivotal role of quality reproductions in the preservation of original material, the reproduction technologies employed, and the market for facsimiles. I have demonstrated that the production of convincing replicas by printing technicians parallels, in terms of creativity and skill, the work of the artists and craftspeople who produced the original objects.

During my presentations, I have noticed the spark in the eyes of students and librarians when confronted with high-quality reproductions of invaluable manuscripts. The initial reverential awe often transforms into joy and wonder once I explain that facsimiles can and must be handled to be fully appreciated. This tactile interaction allows users to connect with the experiences of those who commissioned and owned the original objects centuries ago, a vital component for a deeper understanding of the history and culture of the book.

The power of facsimile editions to inspire and instruct is becoming ever more valuable as the public is increasingly bombarded with images from medieval books presented in digital form, often without any indication of their manuscript context. The proliferation of easy access to digital surrogates of entire manuscript codices is a valuable aid to research, but the ability to intelligently analyze those images comes only from experience away from the computer screen.

The meanings of all images are contextually derived, and the physical and textual contexts of manuscript images are driving forces in their comprehension. The preservation of facsimile editions and the use of facsimiles in library instruction offer a unique haptic experience that transcends digital consultation.

Bookwork in Art as Contemplation of Information Literacy Concepts - Kendall Faulkner
Artists of various mediums have long had a strong relationship with the book: artists' books, books about art, and books as the vehicle for research and inspiration. However, in recent years, the book has emerged as a raw material from which art is created, encompassing all of the complicated symbolism inherent in the book as an information technology. Books and libraries are at once the distributors and gatekeepers of knowledge and culture. Removing or retiring books from the library is a controversial subject at best, from the standard practice of periodic deselection by librarians or the banning of certain books deemed "unfit" by individuals. Using books in their work allows artists to comment on these structures of knowledge and acceptability. Furthermore, the act of taking published books and painting, cutting, ripping, and even pulping them elicits a visceral response, be it a sense of blasphemy or nostalgia. This presentation will discuss artists such as Jodi Harvey-Brown, Thomas Allen, Brian Dettmer, and others who have used published books in their artworks, with a particular emphasis on Samuel Levi Jones. Jones uses old reference books (encyclopedias, textbooks, legal books, etc.) to focus the viewer's attention on what is left out. Two works, 48 Portraits (underexposed) and 736 Portraits, highlight the staggering lack of Black representation in the Encyclopedia that makes up their source material. While the encyclopedia may be from the 1970’s Jones invites viewers to consider what is still missing in how we currently consume information.

Let’s Get Physical: Course Reserves and a Communal Space for Creative Practice Research - K. Sarah Ostrach and Martha Hernandez Galvan
This case study explores the development of an alternative course reserve system for senior art students at a small, private research university in the southern United States. The library's standard reserves practice is e-preferred, offering digital access to required texts through Canvas. Physical books on reserve are on the first floor, near the main circulation desk, and are restricted to two-hour, in-library use only. The Fine Arts Library is located on the third floor and no longer has a service desk, removed in a 2019 renovation. The physical distance between the fine arts collection and the physical reserves shelf, and the e-preferred reserve policy are impractical in meeting the needs of faculty and students hoping to engage with fine arts materials in a dedicated space. Furthermore, students in art-related disciplines have provided feedback that the Fine Arts Library does not feel like "their" space, as it is often full of students from other disciplines studying. The current floor maps also designate a large portion of the Fine Arts Library as a quiet study zone, which is antithetical to the faculty's and Art Librarian's hope to encourage social and communicative engagement with the collection.

In Fall 2024, four Art faculty approached the Art Librarian to create a physical reserves display in the Fine Arts Library. Their goal was to provide students with hands-on access to contemporary art texts in a social space that encourages creative exploration. To address logistical challenges such as managing book circulation without a service desk and preventing the items from being reshelved the Art Librarian collaborated with the Access Services Associate to identify creative solutions. The project included modifying item policies, creating custom wrappers for the books, and designing a visually prominent, accessible display area using underutilized space where the former service desk once stood.

This presentation will outline the unique spatial and logistical considerations involved in establishing a decentralized reserve system, strategies for maintaining collection integrity, and the role of space in supporting research for creative disciplines. By the conference date, the project will have been fully evaluated, allowing for discussion of its successes, challenges, and potential for adaptation in other settings. Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of how to support creative research through flexible reserves/display policies and purposeful use of library spaces.

Library as Site: Experiential Learning Within the Physical and Conceptual Space of the Library - Ann Holderfield
Inspired by discussions of site within the landscape architecture discipline, and thinking of site as grounding place of research, an art & architecture librarian and first-year branch library director shares how the library can be metaphorically considered as a pedagogical site that centers experiential learning for art and architecture students. She will share projects in which she has collaborated with faculty and students that take place within the library, such as a design build project for library furniture and an art book and zine fair in which graphic design students created marketing material, or through a book artist exhibit, as well as projects that she was not a part of, but discovered that faculty were teaching that related to the idea of library and/or books. These projects reinforce interest in the concept of the library, whether it relates to the physical space, books, experience of and community aspects of the library.

Diversity Forum Sponsored by the Diversity & Inclusion Committee. Speakers forthcoming.