ARLIS/NA 48th Annual Conference

To work in technical services is to face a never-ending battle against innumerable foes. Every technical services team in an art library faces the same epic dilemma: how to demonstrate your worth to your institution. You know how ruthlessly efficient your workflows are, but how can you prove it to the world? Without being able to compare against other units in other institutions, your only point of comparison is yourself, which means every success sets the bar higher next time.

In this interactive panel, presenters from technical services units in art libraries of varying sizes and institutions, from large museum libraries to mid-sized academic libraries to solo librarian situations, will present actual data from their libraries, with varieties of data visualizations. We’ll discuss how to create meaningful metrics for core tech services functions that are rarely reported on, to demonstrate activity levels, and some simple visualizations that help tell your tale. Then we’ll talk about how we can find data points for benchmarking activity to compare across institutions, and how session participants and others can plan to do this as a group moving forward. Following that, we’ll open the floor for discussion of how best to present the data you have for your library. Let mortal heroes tell your tale of tech services triumph!

This session will focus on the presentation and discussion of projects that implement linked data. Presentations about practical application of Wikidata, BIBFRAME, and other linked data tools and methodologies will demonstrate the viability of linked data in art libraries and elucidate pathways towards the incorporation of linked data into library activity.

Rather than theoretical discussions of how linked data will impact libraries and discovery, this session will look at how linked data projects have been executed – and the resulting outcomes and workflows. The main intent of this session is to demonstrate viable and realistic ways that linked data has been applied to library projects and metadata. Through the presented strategies, resources, and workflows attendees will have concrete examples of how linked data is evolving and how it can be applied.

Dr. Benjamin Zweig, Digital Projects Coordinator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., will present “Opening Up: Wikidata and the National Gallery of Art, Washington.” This paper describes the National Gallery of Art’s recent contribution of collection records for 120,000 artworks to Wikidata, an open-access structured data knowledge base created and maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation. In early 2019, the National Gallery of Art began contributing basic art object data to Wikidata based on its collection records in TMS. The initiative represents a new direction in the Gallery’s history of open access initiatives, moving into the world of open data in addition to its longstanding commitment of providing open-access images of its collection. Reasons for release of the Gallery’s data on Wikidata, which this paper will discuss, includes the ability to reach large new audiences, enriching collection records with help from the Wikidata community, and merging the Wikidata entities with the 53,000 images of artworks the National Gallery of Art donated to Wikimedia Commons in 2019. In particular, this paper will discuss how contributing the Gallery’s art object data to Wikidata can specifically enhance art historical research, and will also address the challenges involved in the undertaking, notably data remodeling limitations and reconciliation practices required to merge Gallery data with Wikidata.

Mary Seem, Assistant Cataloging and Acquisitions Librarian at the Frick Art Reference Library, will discuss the implementation of BIBFRAME record creation. As a cohort member of the second phase of the LD4P, Mellon-funded grant on BIBFRAME the Frick Art Reference Library draws on its rich collection of historic auction catalogs, web archived material, and monograph collections as a case study for the implementation of BIBFRAME. With the grant less than six months from the end of its two-year timeline, this presentation offers a chance for attendees to see a linked data project in action, the completed steps, and the strategies that have developed thus far. At the core is this presentation is the construction of different metadata application profiles, training materials, and documentation.

RDA and the RDA Toolkit have undergone a substantial revision known as the 3R project (RDA Toolkit Restructure and Redesign). This revision impacts how catalogers apply RDA and significantly alters how they access content and instructions in the RDA Toolkit. Members of the ARLIS/NA Cataloging Advisory Committee will present the updates to RDA and the major conceptual and functional changes made to the Toolkit with a focus on the needs of art catalogers. Panelists will also present on the Cataloging Advisory Committee’s efforts to propose changes to RDA, on the creation of an RDA Toolkit application profile for cataloging art material, and the committee’s ongoing revision of the "Cataloging exhibition publications: best practices" document (published by ARLIS/NA in 2010) to comply with the new RDA standards. Time will be allotted for questions and the opportunity to discuss potential future proposals for changes and additions to RDA our community would like to see incorporated.

Whether through preservation efforts or in aid to class instruction, zines have become a part of library and archive culture. In this panel, presenters will discuss their experiences with zines in the classroom, the library, and the archive, addressing the challenges
these unique materials present.

Autumn Wetli, “Intimacy to Institution,” will discuss the need to think critically about the ethics surrounding the institutionalization and digitization of zines.

Steenz, “Defining and Cataloging Zines,” considers how librarians and educators can provide access to zines, while also staying true to the paradigm of zine culture.

Shira Loev Eller, “Soviet Counterculture, Poison Girls, and Glue Sticks,” describes co-leading a do-it-yourself zine workshop for students at George Washington University. This workshop helped create community through art-making, engaged students with special collections materials, and provided an opportunity to learn about counterculture history.

Stefanie Hilles and Alia Levar Wegner, “The Revolution will be Archived,” discusses a collaborative project which aimed to create a zine archive at Miami University to serve the teaching needs of student and faculty users. The project team sought to reimagine the archive as a student-centered teaching collection that would be used during the art librarian’s popular zine instruction sessions.