ARLIS/NA 53rd Annual Conference

The Value of Their Voice: Curating Student Art Exhibits with Student Employees - Jacob Lackner

Promoting Browsing and Serendipitous Discovery in Increasingly Digital Collections - Laurin Davis

Building Community Through Art Research Workshop Series - Carrie Salazar

What's New at the Library? Re-examining Our Stakeholders to Better Resonate with the Community - Isamar Abreu Gómez

AGAINST AI: Questioning the role of generative artificial intelligence in arts information - Annie Sollinger

Lightning talk descriptions will be available soon.

This roundtable discussion will provide a collaborative space for librarians and archivists to exchange strategies for incorporating DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) into teaching and learning with special collections and archives. Participants will be invited to share personal experiences and approaches in the classroom that address topics such as Universal Design for Learning (UDL), multi-sensorial and neurodivergent learning styles, accessibility for students with disabilities, and strategies to support English-language learners, to name a few examples. The discussion will also invite examples of Feminist and Critical Information Literacy pedagogical approaches to foster inclusive and equitable engagement in special collections and archives instruction. To guide the conversation, the following main questions will be posed:

- Share an example of using a DEIA-approach in your special collections or archives teaching? What worked well and what would you have done differently?
- What are some helpful strategies or tools that you have used to make special collections and archives instruction more accessible and engaging?
- How have you applied Feminist pedagogy or Critical Information Literacy in your special collections and archives instruction?
- What excites you most about using DEIA-informed teaching in special collections and archives? Inversely, what challenges have you encountered when implementing DEIA strategies in special collections instruction, and how have you addressed them?
- Are there any other ideas or approaches to DEIA-informed teaching in special collections and archives instruction that you would like to try but haven't had the opportunity yet?

Additional Questions:
- How do collaboration and community partnerships contribute to advancing DEIA initiatives in teaching with special collections and archives?
- How can we elevate traditionally underrepresented voices within special collections to make them more central in our teaching practices?

In 2016, ARLIS/NA published the State of Art Museum Libraries 2016 White Paper, which detailed the roles, issues, and challenges faced by art museum libraries in the United States. The report highlighted how art museum libraries serve as vital partners in their institutions' educational missions by providing authoritative, relevant, and timely research services to both museum constituents and the general public. Despite their critical role, these libraries were facing increasing pressures and needed to justify their value. The report examined the constraints faced by these libraries and offered strategies for overcoming them.

Now, five years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, an event that has profoundly reshaped practices across the library field, this panel will present new research and case studies that assess the current state of museum libraries in the United States and Canada. In addition to the 2016 report, research was informed by more recent ARLIS/NA reports, including the 2019 Census of Art Information Professionals and the 2022 Report of the ARLIS/NA Presidential Task Force on Art Libraries and COVID-19.

Focusing on the theme of "activating community together," the report's authors will present findings from the field level survey completed by 61 museum libraries and will discuss key findings, including the evolving role of libraries within art museums, institutional support for museum libraries, staffing and hiring practices, work-life balance and workplace culture, the state of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, collection development and management, and emerging trends in user experience. They will also detail their research methodology to guide attendees interested in conducting similar studies or expanding on this work.

Additional panelists will present case studies highlighting changes within their own institutions over the past decade, linking the survey data to illustrations of the broader state of the field at the individual institution level. This panel will equip attendees with a deeper understanding of how the field of art museum librarianship has evolved over the past ten years, fostering effective inter-institutional collaborations and strengthening the network of support within our community of practice.

Flipping through Assembling: a presentation about a one of a kind art and literature magazine and its added value in library collections - Anaîs Grateau

Discourse as Activation: The Publishing of Library Exhibitions Review - Ashley Huot and Emily Eckstrand

Managing Overcapacity: A Case Study on Off-Site Storage Solutions - Joshua Sulser

Preparing Together, Responding Together: Resources for Disaster Planning and Response - Megan Dirickson

Color Film Emergency Project, Phase 2: Advancing an Image Preservation Consortium - Maureen Burns and Sonja Sekely-Rowland

Lightning talk descriptions will be available soon. 

This roundtable discussion seeks to explore the future of art and design schools, with a specific focus on the vital role that libraries play in demonstrating the value of an art education. Participants will engage in conversations around several key themes: showcasing the intrinsic value of art and design programs, strategies for leading library teams during challenging times, and how to support and maintain staff morale and engagement. In addition, the focus will include building strong connections between library services and efforts in admissions and retention.  Additionally, we will examine the evolving landscape of art and design education and its implications for job security within the field. Through collaborative dialogue, attendees will develop narratives that articulate the library's contributions to student success and institutional value, ultimately reinforcing the significance of library services in the broader context of art and design education. Moderators hope to establish an environment where community and support are emphasized and attendees can openly and effectively share struggles and successes.

The Expanding the Study of Performance in Women Artists' Archives project interrogates the historiography of feminist performance art in the collections of our large research institution. Our project team, composed of members from various departments, brings diverse perspectives and expertise to the initiative, currently working toward the organization of an exhibition highlighting the work by a feminist activist art collective, whose archive resides in our institution.

The exhibition is structured around the art collective's aesthetic and conceptual strategies: the use of anonymity in institutional critique; data collection and research; the rhetoric and participatory utility of letter writing; mass media distribution; and performative actions. By focusing on these thematic throughlines in the collectives' work, the exhibition showcases their collaboration, sheds light on the research embedded in their activism and artmaking, and examines their ongoing commitment to public participation. The art collective central to our current investigative activities acted as an institutional entity, with strategies that reflect our own professional practices within a large cultural framework.

Our research team's collaborative model echoes the ethics of the collective we are studying. This proposed roundtable seeks to cultivate a generative dialogue around collective activities within participants' institutions, and to explore how research material and subjects can inform ethical approaches to institutional engagement.

We aspire to foster a conversation where shared collaborative practices lead to creative endeavors and common goals, particularly within feminist methodologies. The discussion will engage participants by addressing the following overarching question: How can the content of feminist collections material or radical artistic practices more broadly be allowed to impact upon our institutional working practices?

Themes that have guided our team's research and exhibition strategies may also be explored in the context of professional practice among discussion participants:
To what extent do feminist methodologies inform your own projects?
How does your personal identity shape your approach to institutional initiatives?
Are there collections in your institution that reflect your own or aspirational collaborative practices?
How do you measure the impact of feminist methodologies on your work?
How can you address and critique inequities within your institution's collection models?

"Decolonizing and Indigenizing Mentorship: Activating Community to Support Northern Indigenous Futures"
Dr. Heather Igloliorte, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Decolonial and Transformational Indigenous Art Practices
Department of Visual Arts, University of Victoria

Dr. Heather Igloliorte, an Inuk-Newfoundlander and Nunatsiavut Beneficiary, is the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Decolonial and Transformational Indigenous Art Practices at the University of Victoria, BC, where she is a Professor in the Visual Arts Department (2023-). Heather has been a curator since 2005, and was awarded The Hnatyshyn Foundation's Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art in 2021. In addition to her curatorial practice, Igloliorte teaches curatorial studies, critical museology, global Indigenous art history and research-creation at the University of Victoria. Since 2018 Heather has directed the nation-wide Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership: The Pilimmaksarniq / Pijariuqsarniq Project, a SSHRC-funded partnership grant which supports Inuit postsecondary students to explore professional career paths in all aspects of the arts, including curatorial practice, film and television, editing, collections management, arts administration and other areas of the visual and performing arts, in order to address the longstanding absence of Inuit in agential positions within the Canadian arts milieu. Heather publishes frequently on Indigenous art and curatorial practice; currently serves as the President of the Board of the Inuit Art Foundation and on the Faculty Council of the Otsego Institute for Native American Art History at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York; has served on the Board of Directors for North America's largest Indigenous art historical association, the Native North American Art Studies Association, and in 2021 she was awarded a Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Medal for her service to Indigenous art and artists.