Our Fall 2020 meeting will be a joint virtual meeting in partnership with our colleagues in the Ohio Valley Chapter on November 13.
Registration Required (Free) — Registration closes November 11.
Conference Program (all times listed are EST)
10 am: Greetings
- Caitlin McGurk, ARLIS/NA Ohio Valley Chair
- Christine Mannix, ARLIS/NA Ohio Valley Vice-Chair
- Sarah Carter, ARLIS/NA Midstates Chair
- Mackenzie Salisbury, ARLIS/NA Midstates Vice-Chair
10:15 – 11:15 am: Lightning Round Presentations
- Flip It! Adapting In-Person Instruction to the Online Environment, Courtney Hunt, Art & Design Librarian/Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University
Responding to a new all-virtual environment during a pandemic has required flexibility and increased collaboration with faculty members of liaison departments. It has also required increased outreach, to remind faculty that we are still available for synchronous and asynchronous library instruction. For the Art & Design Librarian at The Ohio State University, numbers of instruction sessions have decreased for the fall 2020 semester, but other opportunities have also presented themselves, with effects that will outlast the current pandemic.
This lightning talk will outline a flipped instruction model for an introductory course in Contemporary Art, with 80 students enrolled. Working with the faculty member teaching the course, we were able to create an interactive synchronous experience for students resembling a workshop using breakout rooms, after they viewed an asynchronous pre-recorded library demo. The advantages revealed in teaching library resources this way can be applied to future library instruction sessions, even when we are back on campus. This talk will briefly outline the main assignment for the course and how we went about designing the library session based on the aims set forth by the faculty member.
- Filling Gaps and Building Bridges: BIPOC-centered Collection Development in the Visual & Performing Arts, Leah Sherman, Visual & Performing Arts Librarian, Florida State University
In summer 2020, the Visual & Performing Arts Librarian at Florida State University undertook a two-fold review of their Fine Arts collection in consideration of BIPOC titles and authors. Partially in response to contemporary Black Lives Matter protests and also as a complementary project to the recent overhaul of the Library’s domestic approval plan, the Arts Librarian approached this review in two-phases. During the first phase, the librarian assembled a selection of visual and performing arts titles related to BIPOC topics and reviewed the current library holdings to determine trends in collection gaps. In the second phase, the librarian presented these findings to their faculty colleagues within the College of Fine Arts as a means of soliciting BIPOC-centered materials suggestions for future collection development. The results of this initiative confirmed the Librarian’s suspicion that FSU Libraries’ general collection requires more strategic attention in building up its visual and performing arts research holdings with the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion in mind. This project also revealed that gaps remain in the Arts’ collection development process, despite a robust approval plan being in place. In addition to this knowledge, another positive outcome of this review derived from new partnerships and more open lines of communication with departmental faculty, not only about their role in FSU Libraries’ collection development but also in respect to their teaching and research needs and interests. This lightning talk will describe the Visual & Performing Arts Librarian’s methodology in greater depth, including a discussion of the feedback received from the College of Fine Arts. Attendees will also hear the Arts Librarian’s plans for next steps on this project and several takeaways for how to implement similar work at their own institutions.
- Art of Images in Premodern Books: an Inaugural Symposium of Two Chicago Special Collections, Stephanie Fletcher, Technical Services & E-Resources Librarian, Dominican University and Christopher Fletcher, Assistant Director, Center for Renaissance Studies, Newberry Library
On November 14th, 2019, the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries hosted a daylong symposium entitled The Art of Images in Premodern Books, co-organized with the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library and colleagues from the Department of Printmedia at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). The symposium highlighted the libraries’ complementary collections by presenting premodern and early modern woodcuts and engravings from the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries along with medieval manuscripts from the Newberry’s extensive premodern holdings. The day also featured a printmaking demonstration in the SAIC printmaking facility and a hands-on session about medieval manuscript illumination at the Newberry.
This pre-pandemic event was a landmark for the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries for several reasons. First, in an effort toward equity, attendees gained free admittance to the library (which is situated beyond the ticket counter at the Art Institute of Chicago). Second, this collaborative event was the first to offer a staff-guided comparison of collections from both libraries over the course of a single day, effectively introducing attendees to two major special collections in Chicago. Finally, the demonstrations by SAIC printmakers and Newberry conservators allowed symposium attendees to learn about printmaking, vellum production, and manuscript illumination firsthand and immediately apply this knowledge to the prints and illuminations in the libraries’ special collections.
This ten-minute lightning talk will explore the libraries’ efforts to introduce their special collections to new audiences and to establish an institutional relationship that promotes the study of art in printed books and manuscripts in Chicago and the greater Midwest.
- Shared Reflective Practice in the Early Days of the Pandemic, Kate Joranson, Head Librarian, Frick Fine Arts Library, University of Pittsburgh and Alison Langmead, Clinical Associate Professor and Director, Visual Media Workshop
For the past five years, we have run a series of face-to-face “Toolshops” for members of our academic community that were designed to bring us together in semi-structured settings to explore our individual and collective relationship to technology. As art historians, artists, digital humanists, and librarians, this community has come to value these toolshops as a space that cultivates the social practice of shared metacognitive reflection.
The abrupt transition to emergency remote teaching in early 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic prompted us to consider how we might transition the core of our metacognitive Toolshop work to the online environment via the development of a series of Co-Learning Encounters (CLEs) that would facilitate problem-solving alongside open-ended inquiry. We wondered together, how can we support one another as we redefine our expectations, approaches, and identities as both teachers and learners?
Using the topics of critical digital pedagogy, archival studies, and “thinking like a computer,” we were interested in expressing thoughts in, through, and about technical systems while also exploring issues such as trust, authority, grief, and temporality. During this 10-minute presentation, we will share reflections on the transition from Toolshops to Co-Learning Encounters and also on the production and presentation of the CLEs in the early days of the pandemic, offering questions and resources for continued study.
11:15 – 11:30 am: Break
11:30 am – 12:30 pm: Business Meetings
- Midstates: Agenda Forthcoming
- Ohio Valley: Agenda Forthcoming
12:30 – 2:00 pm: Lunch Break
2:00 – 2:30 pm: Poster Sessions
- Supporting Librarians With Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs), Natisha Harper, Howard University
According to a Center For Disease Control report, in 2014, 2.87 million people sought emergency medical treatment stemming from a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Additionally, between 2006 and 2014 this diagnosis grew by 53%. As traumatic brain injuries become more prevalent in American workplaces, coworkers should be equipped with ways to support colleagues through this process of healing. Though symptoms may vary widely, this presentation will outline symptoms, techniques for calming and frustration, and skills that help make everyone’s day a bit easier.
- DPOE-N: Relaunching the Digital Preservation Outreach & Education Network, Erin Barsan, DPOE-N Program Coordinator and Hilary Wang, DPOE-N Graduate Assistant, Pratt Institute
“DPOE-N: Relaunching the Digital Preservation Outreach & Education Network,” will introduce the work underway at Pratt Institute and New York University (NYU) on the Digital Preservation Outreach & Education Network. In 2018, the Library of Congress entrusted its pioneering Digital Preservation Outreach & Education (DPOE) program to Pratt and NYU to further develop it into the future and foster a professional network that will endure. To build on this promise, the schools are building DPOE-Network (DPOE-N). DPOE-N is a network of training resources available to cultural heritage professionals nationwide to enhance their digital preservation knowledge with a significant focus on outreach and recruitment. In July 2020, DPOE-N received a $600,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, allowing it to continue development.
DPOE-N is motivated by the pressing need for cultural heritage institutions to collect, preserve, and provide access to born-digital materials. This poster will highlight DPOE-N’s efforts to provide microfunds to librarians, archivists, conservators, and other professionals for digital preservation training. It will also discuss DPOE-N’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic—allocating funding for emergency hardware support to small institutions in need of new hardware to ensure the persistence of their digital collections. You can learn more online at dpoe.network
- When You’re Forced to Go Digital: Zine-making Online, Stefanie Hilles, Arts and Humanities Librarian, Miami University
In spring 2020, universities found themselves navigating an unprecedented and sudden shift to online learning. Librarians have played a crucial role in connecting students and faculty with digital tools and resources during this challenging time. However, it can be difficult to envision how hands-on, object-based, or maker workshops can be transitioned to online formats. This poster will detail how an art librarian translated her in-person zine workshops, usually a tactile, object-based experience, into the online world where students no longer have the benefit of interacting with physical zines as part of the workshop. Three different approaches will be discussed: a purely asynchronous creative writing class that took place soon after colleges closed their campuses, a synchronous graphic design class that was part of a larger month-long zine assignment, and a synchronous maker event put on in collaboration with the university’s Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion. Each of these examples required different solutions and tools to effectively move their content online and still meet learning outcomes.
3:00 – 4:00 pm: Keynote Address
- Black Lunch Table: The People’s History
Jina Valentine, she/her, co-founder of Black Lunch Table, Printmedia Faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Kevin Whiteneir, he/him, project manager at Black Lunch Table, MLIS student
Black Lunch Table’s (BLT) primary aim is the production of discursive sites, wherein artists and local community members engage in dialogue on a variety of critical issues. BLT mobilizes a democratic rewriting of contemporary cultural history by animating discourse around and among the people living it. First staged in 2005 at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture artist residency, the project has grown by way of contributions from and collaborations with artists, digital humanities researchers, and Wikipedians. BLT currently includes two roundtable series, an online oral history archive, and a Wikipedia initiative. Much like its creation of physical spaces that foster community and generate critical dialogue, BLT creates a digital space for art, Black studies, and social justice issues.
For those who are interested in Jina Valentine’s recent publication, please see her chapter in: Reagle, Joseph M., and Jackie L. Koerner. 2020. Wikipedia @ 20: stories of an incomplete revolution.
4:00 – 4:15 pm: Closing Remarks