We regret to inform you that ARLIS/NA will not be holding its 48th Annual Conference in St. Louis, MO because of the serious health risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photobooks continue to evolve as a genre. At this panel presentation sponsored by the ARLIS Photography SIG, you will hear from colleagues who are interacting with photobooks in innovative ways via exhibits, cataloging and collection building.
Starting a Photo Book Club Tess Colwell
During spring 2019, Yale University’s Arts Library formed a small group of library colleagues to develop a photobook club, geared as an outreach opportunity to School of Art students. The Arts Library has been collecting books by photographers for decades as part of its mission to document trends in the art world to support teaching and research at Yale. Each month, the club meets in a casual lunchtime setting to discuss a unique theme or topic about photobooks. This presentation will detail the process of forming the group and takeaways from the meetings and program so far.
Cataloging Exhibition-Specific Photobooks Deidre A. Thompson
In 2014 and 2016, the Phoenix Art Museum mounted the INFOCUS Juried Exhibition of Self-Published Photobooks. After its run, the photobooks displayed in the exhibition were transferred to the library at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona. The backlog consisted of photobooks by established photographers as well as novices, and as a result required a mixture of copy and original cataloging. In this presentation, I will detail how I enhanced existing records in WorldCat to reflect the specific exhibition and created original MARC records, emphasizing LCSH, exhibition specific fields, and LCGFT.
Collection development that reimagines the use of primary photographic books and prints Deborah Ultan
Developing a primary research collection on photography that narrates the history of photography’s techniques and aesthetics in a way that bravely preserves cultural icons from people to architecture, from image to poetry, led to the acquisition of the complete 21st Editions publications and publisher’s production archives at the University of Minnesota. Acquired in 2018, 21st Editions now serves as a vital study collection. Collection goals in tandem with this acquisition profile photography research materials that support historic inquiry about artists, technique, process, media, and the imagination. This presentation will focus on collection development that reclaims the use of primary photographic books and prints in a way that integrates curricula and class projects, and more widely, becomes a meaningful draw for community study, events, exhibitions, and symposia.
The exhibition “Various Library Books,” on view during the summer of 2019 at the Arts Library, University of California, Los Angeles, celebrated the power of the photobook medium, but primarily sought to redistribute it. With intentional acquisition and curation, we can highlight more recent and historically overlooked works worthy of our collective attention. This presentation acknowledges the saturation of photobook publishing and offers suggestions for how to support independent presses.
