Showing papers in "Art libraries journal in 2020"
TL;DR: The PHAROS consortium is adopting the Linked Art data model to make its descriptions of photo archives collections available as Linked Open Data to further support scholars in their research.
Abstract: The PHAROS consortium is adopting the Linked Art data model to make its descriptions of photo archives collections available as Linked Open Data to further support scholars in their research. Linked Art is both a community and a data model. As an international community, it works together to create a shared data model to describe art. As a data model, it is a data profile of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model and using Linked Open Data techniques. The goal of Linked Art is to enable museums and developers to engage in LOD initiatives more easily by providing them with shared data modelling decisions and consistent design principles.
4 citations
TL;DR: By empathizing with the authors' patrons and clearly articulating what the problem is, it is possible to anticipate user needs, address them by utilizing the design-thinking process, and prototype solutions like a graphic designer.
Abstract: Librarians and graphic designers have a lot in common. Both are information professionals that offer means or cues to help users navigate, understand and solve a problem within a certain space. Without the librarian, the library space itself becomes the interface where users are offered signage to problem-solve intuitively. Because of this, effective communication via signage and wayfinding becomes imperative to the library user experience. By empathizing with our patrons and clearly articulating what the problem is, it is possible to anticipate user needs, address them by utilizing the design-thinking process, and prototype solutions like a graphic designer. However, this is not a permanent, one-time process, and it will need to be repeated whenever the needs of the patrons evolve and new problems emerge.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this article, critical librarianship can provide a response in the form of library-based edit-a-thons and Wikipedia workshops, which show how the power of Wikipedia can be used responsibly not just for enabling critical information literacy, but as an instrument for activism.
Abstract: Is the internet a tool for democracy or the manifestation of the global digital divide? Using the colonization of the internet as a starting point, this article outlines some current issues with knowledge equity, asking if democratic open access products like Wikipedia are the solution or another manifestation of the systemic bias of society. Whilst acknowledging librarianship has its own colonial legacies to address, the suggestion is made that critical librarianship can provide a response in the form of library–based edit-a-thons and Wikipedia workshops. These show how the power of Wikipedia can be used responsibly not just for enabling critical information literacy, but as an instrument for activism. In considering librarian interventions done so far at the University of the Arts, London, the article outlines future practical possibilities for decolonization, as well as looking more widely at how to democratize information in open access products and the Western publishing that sits behind them.
3 citations
TL;DR: Some of the prospective research directions stimulated by modern technologies are indicated, with the aim of exploring the epistemological potential of photographic archives and challenging the boundaries between the analogue and the digital.
Abstract: The PHAROS consortium of fourteen international art historical photo archives is digitizing the over 20 million images (with accompanying documentation) in its combined collections and has begun to construct a common access platform using Linked Open Data and the ResearchSpace software. In addition to resulting in a rich and substantial database of images for art-historical research, the PHAROS initiative supports the development of shared standards for mapping and sharing photo archive metadata, as well as for best practices for working with large digital image collections and conducting computational image analysis. Moreover, alongside their digitization efforts, PHAROS member institutions are considering the kinds of art-historical questions the resulting database of images could be used to research. This article indicates some of the prospective research directions stimulated by modern technologies, with the aim of exploring the epistemological potential of photographic archives and challenging the boundaries between the analogue and the digital.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the process of decolonizing libraries within the wider context of colonial legacies in the societies in which they were born and where they now live.
Abstract: Chance encounters, some several years apart, form the basis of this article between 2 librarians and an artist, all 3 considering the process of decolonizing libraries within the wider context of colonial legacies in the societies in which they were born and in which they now live. The librarians Regina Vogel and Erica Foden-Lenahan have been friends and colleagues for many years, and their personal conversations over the years have often involved discussions of equality and injustice. The overlap in their professional interests led to this article proposal. A serendipitous meeting between Vogel and decolonial artist and curator Nistiman Erdede at an event2 organized by Abendschule Import in co-operation with the famous Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich and later when he visited the Kunsthalle Basel where Vogel is the librarian, changed the original direction of the article, but presented an opportunity for a 3-way discussion of decolonization in the context of a Swiss and a German art library and a refugee artist's experience. The Covid-19 border and workplace lockdowns necessitated that some of these encounters happened virtually.
3 citations
TL;DR: A selection of the psychological research on creativity and inspiration, as well as four information behaviour theories that help in finding inspiration are discussed in this paper, i.e., browsing, information encountering, satisficing, and serendipity.
Abstract: ‘Inspiration’ is a concept that comes up frequently in the Library and Information Science literature on artists and designers. But what do we mean by ‘inspiration’? This article discusses a selection of the psychological research on creativity and inspiration, as well as four information behaviour theories that help in finding inspiration - browsing, information encountering, satisficing, and serendipity.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reflect on the ongoing work at the University of the Arts London (UAL) to preserve and provide access to the university's growing digital collections, and what progress have we made so far and what does the future hold for our digital collections?
Abstract: Digital technologies are affecting all aspects of modern life, with both art and libraries becoming more digital. This presents new opportunities for engagement, but also creates significant challenges to the long term future of our collections, due to the rapid changes in technology and the threat of digital obsolescence.This article will reflect on the ongoing work at the University of the Arts London (UAL) to preserve and provide access to the university's growing digital collections. Digital preservation is an emerging area of practice. What progress have we made so far and what does the future hold for our digital collections?
2 citations
TL;DR: The Digital Cicognara Library as mentioned in this paper is an international initiative to recreate in digital form the private book collection of Count Leopoldo Ciconcognara (1767-1834), which includes a diverse range of publications in all areas of the visual arts.
Abstract: The Digital Cicognara Library is an international initiative to recreate in digital form the private book collection of Count Leopoldo Cicognara (1767–1834). His collection of five thousand early imprints comprises foundational literature of art and archaeology, and includes a diverse range of publications in all areas of the visual arts. Our partnership's 21st- century effort advances Cicognara's Enlightenment-era ideals by making digital copies of his library available through an open access web application, where they will be fully searchable from a centralized database as well as relevant subject research interfaces. The aggregated images and text offer a potentially transformative opportunity for the discipline of art history and allied disciplines. By offering a new interface for Cicognara's collection, the endeavour allows open access availability to nearly all of the key historical volumes, the illustrations within, and the searchable metadata. The Digital Cicognara Library offers a corpus that will allow scholars to ask and answer new questions in disciplines beyond art history and archaeology, and will offer scholars of early printed books a new access point to study both the individual volumes and their relationship to each other in an accessible digital collection.
1 citations
TL;DR: The second wave of feminism saw a surge in women's publishing that resulted in a women-controlled communications infrastructure within feminist periodicals as discussed by the authors, and as a result of women actively contributing to the ‘letters to the editor’ pages, second wave periodicals offer rich source material for tracing the development of feminist theory.
Abstract: The second wave of feminism saw a surge in women's publishing that resulted in a women-controlled communications infrastructure within feminist periodicals. As a result of women actively contributing to the ‘letters to the editor’ pages, second wave periodicals offer rich source material for tracing the development of feminist theory. Indicative of an invested and participatory counterpublic of readers, second wave periodicals also reveal the internal disagreements and debates which feminists were grappling with during the 1970s and 1980s. Spare rib, Trouble & strife, Revolutionary/radical feminist newsletter and Outwrite were feminist periodicals that all published coverage of the 1982 Lebanese war, and discussed the subsequent implications of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Conflict over how correctly to cover the disagreements, both editorially and ideologically, dominated the correspondence pages of these periodicals. However, mediating conflict was uniquely suited to the medium of a periodical, as it allowed for less outspoken women to see themselves as contributors and add to a plurality of opinion. The visual mapping of these debates by means of Social Network Analysis highlights how the circulation of feminist periodicals enabled communication in the form of a webbed network of debate. The periodical format, and in particular the letters pages, offered a much-needed forum for criticism and disagreement to play out, and in turn the advancement of feminist discourse. As historical source material, they tell the story of a complex and diverse movement, unsettling the notion of a neat chronology of distinct decades of feminist history.
1 citations
TL;DR: Goldsmiths Library, University of London as discussed by the authors used critical race theory (CRT) as a means to dismantle racial inequality and its impact on higher education, and used critical librarianship as a guide for decolonisation.
Abstract: Library work now has a role to play when it comes to decolonisation. This article outlines what Goldsmiths Library, University of London is doing, through the Liberate our Library initiative, to diversify and decolonise its collections and practices against the backdrop of worldwide movements for education and social justice led by both students and academics to challenge the dominance of the ‘Westernised university’.2
Examples of how we are doing this work are explained using critical librarianship as our guide, whilst recognising that we are still developing expertise in this evolving field of practice. This decolonisation work also uses critical race theory (CRT) as a means to dismantle racial inequality and its impact on higher education.
Here, I would like to acknowledge the excellent and inspirational content of ALJ, Critical Librarianship: Special Issue (v.44, no.2) and I see this article as an ongoing companion piece.
Goldsmiths Library's liberation work endeavours to empower its users with critical thinking and study skills whilst conducting their research using hierarchical systems and resources which in themselves are in the process of being decolonised.
Decolonising a library collection and a profession must of course always begin or at least happen in tandem with the self, through a process that Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o describes as ‘decolonising the mind.’3
1 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a narrative framework is used to present an information literacy interaction with an INVC course from the perspectives of a librarian from the Canadian settler population and an assistant professor, who is a member of the Metis Indigenous nation.
Abstract: Located on Treaty #13 (Toronto Purchase) territory, OCAD University offers an Indigenous Visual Culture (INVC) program that leads to a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree or an interdisciplinary minor. The curriculum combines courses in the cultural, social and political history of Indigenous peoples, preparing students to engage in global discourses in contemporary art practice through a profound understanding of story-telling as the foundation of visual culture.
A narrative framework is used to present an information literacy interaction with an INVC course from the perspectives of a librarian from the Canadian settler population and an assistant professor, who is a member of the Metis Indigenous nation. Research and evaluation models are presented; ones that emerged from traditional information literacy concepts informed and transformed by Indigenous knowledge systems. Finally, student learning outcomes from the course are presented through an exhibition of artworks and artist statements that display their visual story-telling skills.
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TL;DR: As I learn more about Indigenous epistemologies in my work at OCAD University through the Indigenous Visual Culture program, I feel a complex state of excitement, hope, and frustration: hopefulness due to a vision that the fusion of Indigenous and Western European knowledge systems holds such promise for creating a new, equitable and truly democratic society for all Canadians, yet profound frustration knowing that we have had hundreds of years and countless treaties, reports, and governmental commissions to build this society but have failed to do so;a failure that is to the detriment of all in Canada.
Abstract: As I learn more about Indigenous epistemologies in my work at OCAD University through the Indigenous Visual Culture program, I feel a complex state of excitement, hope, and frustration: hopefulness due to a vision that the fusion of Indigenous and Western European knowledge systems holds such promise for creating a new, equitable and truly democratic society for all Canadians, yet profound frustration knowing that we have had hundreds of years and countless treaties, reports, and governmental commissions to build this society but have, so far, failed to do so;a failure that is to the detriment of all in Canada By my presence in Toronto as a member of the settler population, I must accept my implication in the injustices of cultural genocide, but I can also view myself as a participant in the treaty obligations symbolically encoded in the wampum belt agreements and other treaty documents signed with First Nations across Canada Decolonising has been termed as ‘knowledge work’4 and I will do everything in my power to meet this challenge and, through my work as librarian, spread knowledge about how our country can be re-envisioned Indigenous knowledge systems are grounded in thousands of years of living on the land in North America and it is now time for us in the settler populations to sit down and listen and learn I want Canada truly to be my home and Native land and not a home on Native land As we try to navigate through the current Covid-19 pandemic situation, I am firmly convinced that many of its disruptive and devastating effects could have been avoided if we had only embedded the principles of the Dish with One Spoon alliance into the fabric of our Canadian society
TL;DR: This article reviewed the context of the UC San Diego Library's digital collection including the tools leveraged to create a successful digital library environment and the importance of cultivating relationships with content donors, including challenges and opportunities.
Abstract: Through a close examination of the UC San Diego Visual Arts and Architecture Digital Collections, this article reviews the context of the UC San Diego Library's Digital Collection including the tools leveraged to create a successful digital library environment and the importance of cultivating relationships with content donors, including challenges and opportunities. Marketing and publicity of digital collections as part of the project lifecycle will also be discussed, as well as the importance of advocating for arts content within the library's digital collection.
TL;DR: In this paper, illustrative material found within the Paris Commune Collection held in the Special Collections of The University of Sussex is discussed, focusing on how values and opinions were communicated through the use of sartorial cartoons and caricatures.
Abstract: This article discusses the illustrative material found within the Paris Commune Collection held in the Special Collections of The University of Sussex, and focuses on how values and opinions were communicated through the use of sartorial cartoons and caricatures. Approaches from a range of disciplines including art, librarianship, archives and education have been employed, highlighting the value of cartoons as both pieces of art and valuable communication devices, alongside the importance of the collection for teaching, and wider importance of using archive material within teaching.
TL;DR: In this paper, the Shields Trade Card Collection at the University Archives at Miami University is used as a case study to demonstrate the need for art librarians to advocate for art specific methodologies throughout the lifecycle of a digital collections project while identifying specific areas of compromise key to sustaining future collaborations.
Abstract: Advocating for art disciplinary methodologies in collaborations with digital collections librarians, especially in academic libraries, is a vital skill. While art librarians have refined and transformed their relationship to art disciplines in practice and through professional organizations like ARLIS, communicating the importance of art methodologies to their generalist colleagues in digital collections can be challenging. This disciplinary disconnect can result in collaborations and digital projects that fail to meet the needs of the art community because they do not include the necessary information used by art researchers and, thus, thwart discoverability. However, successful collaborations are possible with compromise and negotiation. The Shields Trade Card Collection, housed at Walter Havighurst Special Collections and University Archives at Miami University, serves as a case study, demonstrating both the need for art librarians to advocate for art specific methodologies throughout the lifecycle of a digital collections project while identifying specific areas of compromise key to sustaining future collaborations.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the subjective nuances in the archival structure, which every archive preserves even if these are not intentionally recorded, and provide glimpses into an intellectual construction that is otherwise hidden.
Abstract: In this article, the documenta Archive is read ‘against the grain’, that is, not in search for art-historically relevant information, but, instead, so as to find traces of subjective biases in its structure and/or emotional contents in its records. The aim of this exercise is to examine the subjective nuances in the archival structure, which every archive preserves even if these are not intentionally recorded. These nuances provide glimpses into an intellectual construction that is otherwise hidden.
TL;DR: The photography collection of the German documentation centre for art history, Deutsches Dokumentationszentrum fur Kunstgeschichte - Bildarchiv Foto Marburg (DDK), comprises more than 2.8 million objects.
Abstract: The photography collection of the German documentation centre for art history, Deutsches Dokumentationszentrum fur Kunstgeschichte – Bildarchiv Foto Marburg (DDK), comprises more than 2.8 million objects. These include roughly 500,000 glass negatives, of which nearly 3,000 were made by the first Hessian state conservator Ludwig Bickell between 1870 and 1901. These early glass plates show a large number of retouchings and traces of their production and usage. This makes them rich sources for photographic and art historical or cultural historical research as well as conservation studies.