ARLIS/NA 48th Annual Conference

This panel will include both presentations and demonstrations, focusing on the use of data visualization and digital humanities tools in art libraries to elaborate on institutional narratives through existing or new data.

One presentation will explore how libraries can begin leveraging their data to create meaningful visual narratives and gain new insights about themselves. Through an examination of Watson Library’s use of Power BI – a powerful data visualization tool provided by Microsoft – at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it will investigate the way a library's data can be used to create visualizations that stakeholders can engage with, providing the context necessary for a compelling story. These visualizations allow one to see the evolution of a library over time, transforming numbers into narratives and giving stakeholders a deeper insight into the impact of the library.

Another presentation will give a brief overview of Ensemble@Yale, a crowdsourced transcription project using Zooniverse’s Project Builder that enlists volunteers to generate structured metadata from digitized theatrical performance programs in Arts Library Special Collections at Yale University. The ultimate goal is to create a database of people involved in these productions, which will be used to make the images and data searchable within the library’s digital collections interface. The data produced will enable new approaches to illuminating and researching this institutional history, and the presentation will also explore creative visualizations using samples of the final database.

These presentations will be followed by a demonstration of various data visualization and digital humanities tools that can be integrated into different stages of a project workflow. Drawing on the tools from the first two presentations—including Power BI, Project Builder, OpenRefine, Gephi, and Tableau—the demonstration will highlight out-of-the-box options for data collection, cleaning, visualization, and sharing.

Recent years have seen a growth in collaborations between art librarians, special collections curators, and other academic partners to enhance and reimagine student interaction with and creation of visual materials. Collaboration, visual literacy, active learning, critical thinking, and student engagement are key to the success of these endeavors.
In Exhibiting STEAM: Engaging Art Librarianship in the STEM Narrative, Hilles and Boehme will discuss two exhibitions they spearheaded which created dialogues between arts and sciences. In one, they highlighted the photographs of microscopic subjects created by faculty and students, and, in the other, they curated an artist books’ exhibit where science served as inspiration and subject.

In Polaroids from Heaven: Experiential Learning with Special Collections, Ewalt will present on the methods and pedagogies she employs in visual literacy instruction to help students analyze and draw inspiration from photographs of Marian apparitions and supernatural phenomenon.

Leousis and Schmidt will discuss their collaboration, in Reimagining the Special Collections Classroom: Creating an Active Learning Laboratory for Art, Architecture, and Design Students, where they use a flipped classroom approach and hands-on activities to create student-centered and student-led workshops, in which students analyze and engage with visual materials from special collections.

In Hybrid Symbols of Identity and the Royal Chicano Air Force: Integrating Information Competencies in an Intermediate Studio Art Class Using University Library Archives and Special Collections, Harper and Ventis will present on a project in which printmaking students evaluate how Chicano identity was created and constructed in the RCAF poster collection, and students then create images incorporating symbols related to their own hybrid identities.

The relationship between the librarian and artist should be mutually beneficial and productive. By the library preserving ephemeral material made both in the studio and classroom, creators and librarians ensure future access, reflection on pedagogical progression, and artistic longevity. It should be incumbent upon librarians, who, through their affiliation with institutions, generally wield more power, to build authentic, gladdening relationships with creators. This is because an informed, engaged librarian’s actions can impact creators, institutions, and researchers for the better.

We propose a workshop on the topic of librarians and artists planning, building, and sustaining dynamic dialogue, with an emphasis on the way open dialogue affects collections over time. Participants will interact with pre-selected ephemeral objects by [one printmaker], as an avenue to engage in discussions surrounding collecting ephemera, developing relationships with art faculty, and the importance of getting ephemera into the hands of students.

The workshop will build upon [the authors’] conversations with [an artist] and special collections librarians to discuss the development of collections at [three large institutions]. Particular attention will be given to the relationship between [the artist] and the librarian/collector, as well as the importance of ephemeral work at [one particular major research institution].

The authors will first present, then lead group discussions. Conversations and topics will include issues like (but not limited to) the ephemeral objects and the ACRL Framework, critical pedagogy with ephemeral materials, collaborating with art faculty, and reflecting on past relationships with studio art faculty and planning for the future.

Participants will leave the session with an understanding of the importance of ephemeral works in their collection and strategies for both creating and building ephemeral collections and building lasting relationships with studio art faculty and community artists.

Bring an item of ephemera with you for this interactive panel!

Art librarians new to their position, whether in the beginning of their career or established as mid-to-late career librarians, are tasked with developing a rapport with their constituents. This often involves negotiating the fall-out of the various strategies utilized prior to their arrival at an institution; updating programming, instructional, or collections policies; and simply absorbing and synthesizing a seemingly staggering amount of information. In cases of positions with long vacancies, it can be imperative to fill in the gaps and nurture existing relationships before embarking on new projects or reaching out to additional stakeholders. While time is the most important and ineffable part of building a presence with and deep understanding of the faculty, students, and researchers you serve, this panel explores strategies that help this process along--keeping the best parts of existing practices while maximizing your own expertise, addressing new and emerging needs in your department(s), and deepening your engagement and embeddedness with your constituents.

Papers on this panel include:

“Not Yet Embedded: Building Effective Liaison Relationships”
Courtney Hunt, The Ohio State University
Building liaison relationships in an academic library takes time. In a climate where subject specialists are no longer primarily responsible for collection building, but also relationship building, what are some strategies that can cultivate effective partnerships? This paper addresses how a new art librarian is tackling some of these issues in a position was that was vacant for about four years. Some tactics include setting up office hours in departmental offices, collection open houses, and a new program for library instruction that engages with students through active learning strategies and assessment. This paper will examine the presenter's intentional and targeted programming, events, and collaborations to analyze what has worked and what hasn’t, after a year on the job.

“Order Up: A Teaching Menu to Engage Art and Design Faculty”
Michele Jennings, Ohio University
Teaching menus are commonly utilized by instruction librarians in academic libraries in order to give teaching faculty a sense of “what is possible”--namely, what pedagogical strategies or specialized materials are at the librarian’s disposal beyond one-shots or database demos. This paper details the process of developing a teaching menu aimed directly at studio art, design, and art history classes--from lesson planning and designing adaptable slides and worksheets, to integration of critical pedagogy practices and determining appropriate assessment techniques. While the creation of the presenter’s teaching menu is student-centered, there will also be discussion of the strategic use of the planning process and deployment of the teaching menu in reaching new faculty (or faculty new to the presenter) as well as enriching existing relationships.

"Strategies for Developing Trusting Relationships with Museum Professionals"
Beth Owens, Ingalls Library, Cleveland Museum of Art

Establishing trust with art museum professionals can be a daunting task for a newly appointed librarian, especially one in a position recently vacated by someone with a thirty-year tenure. In order to be effective, it is critical to build rapport as quickly as possible. Research into a potential acquisition of artwork cannot happen if the curator doesn’t have trust in your abilities. A conservator might not reach out for help locating a resource if a connection has not been formed. A faculty member may not request library instruction if they haven’t become acquainted with you. This paper will address some of the strategies utilized by the presenter to develop relationships and build trust with curators, faculty and students, as well as several other departments within the museum, during the first eighteen months in the position.

"Deeply Embedded: A Joint Faculty Position"
Lindsey Reynolds, University of Georgia, Lamar Dodd School of Art
Ever been to a job interview where the hiring committee wanted you to describe your vision for the position? Ever been to a job interview where that was not merely a conceptual exercise? In 2016 the University of Georgia hired an art librarian to turn an under-used visual resources center into a full-service art library branch within the Lamar Dodd School of Art. This paper addresses setting expectations, maintaining existing relationships, and creating new ones with a particular focus on research in the studio arts.

Art librarians are always looking for ways to engage patrons in inventive learning opportunities around information and visual literacies outside of the classroom instruction structure. This panel brings together three librarians who will share projects intentionally designed to create these opportunities using a range of innovative approaches. The panelists will share their insights into how they have successfully implemented new ways of reaching out, as well as best practices for those who would like to try something similar. David Greene will discuss how art librarians can employ design thinking to create information literacy video tutorials that best suit the unique needs of their patrons. Participants will learn strategies that will help keep their tutorials clear, succinct, visually appealing, and easy to maintain as the need for edits and modifications inevitably arise. Maggie Murphy will explore the idea of interdisciplinary visual literacy instruction for undergraduate students outside of art and design disciplines through co-curricular programming on memes. Using a grant-funded project she developed with colleagues Jenny Dale and Brown Biggers as a model, she will discuss how memes can serve as a lens for talking about information ethics, creativity, rhetorical strategies, critical evaluation, and more, in relation to artistic practice, everyday visual culture, and digital communication. Katy Parker, former Research and Instruction Librarian at the Savannah College of Art and Design, will share methods for tying information literacy, collection development, and outreach planning into one project to benefit the diverse needs of art and design students through a project to develop the tabletop RPG collection at the Jen Library.

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.

As institutions that support communities for whom intellectual freedom and expression are paramount, art libraries face unique challenges in protecting their patrons’ privacy and confidentiality, both of which are “essential to the exercise of free speech, free thought, and free association.”¹ These ethical responsibilities have long been an integral part of the intellectual mission of libraries, but as political uncertainty threatens already vulnerable communities, art library users increasingly engage in their own forms of activism, and pressure grows on librarians to demonstrate value through assessment tools that invade patron privacy, there is an increasing urgency for art librarians to enhance and reimagine their outreach to cover the tools and strategies necessary for patrons to take control of their digital lives.

The ARLIS/NA Advocacy & Public Policy Committee presents a workshop that expands upon the Privacy section of our monthly news alerts and enacts ARLIS/NA’s growing commitment to advocacy. Led by a prominent privacy activist with extensive experience leading educational programs for librarians, attendees to the workshop will have the opportunity to discuss what are the threats to privacy in art libraries today, learn about the available technical tools and best practices, and consider how ARLIS/NA members could contribute to broader movements to enact privacy protection at the policy level. Possible topics will respond to current events at the time of the conference and might include: facial recognition, data leaks, use of social media, and the disproportionate impact of surveillance technology on vulnerable populations that use art libraries (such as activists, immigrants, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and people of color).

1. “Privacy: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights,” American Library Association, July 7, 2006.

Presented by the ARLIS/NA Advocacy & Public Policy Committee.

Fee: $50