ARLIS/NA New England is pleased to announce this year’s recipient of the chapter’s Elmar W. Seibel Scholarship is Carolina Quiroa. Carolina is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science at Simmons University, with a focus in Archive Management.
In her application letter, Carolina wrote about an internship experience that has strongly influenced her intended career path. In summer 2018, Carolina worked as an intern at The Center for MesoAmerican Research in Antigua, Guatemala. Working in the center’s photo library, she helped process a collection of photographs by Johnathan Moller that document the genocide of indigenous peoples in Guatemala in the 1980s. Carolina explains that Moller’s photographs of grave exhumations that occurred between 1990 and 2000 serve as evidence of the mass killings that many people in Guatemala continue to deny. She wrote, “This is an example of one collection’s critical role in preserving a people’s culture and history in the face of oppression.”
Carolina’s interest in the preservation of cultural heritage emerged from her undergraduate studies in art history and Spanish language and culture. Those studies, combined with her lived experience as a Latina, have prompted Carolina to pursue a career as a museum or archives professional who is dedicated to preserving the cultural artifacts of marginalized peoples.
Join us on October 11, 2019 at the Mystic Seaport Museum for the chapter’s fall meeting! We’ll hold a business meeting, hear updates and news from ARLIS/NA New England colleagues, and explore the museum (including the J.M.W Turner exhibition!).
RSVP by Tuesday, October 8th at 5pm. You have the option to attend the meeting online or in person!
The Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard is a working shipyard that engages in historic vessel restoration and maintenance. Photo credit: Mystic Seaport Museum
Post by Bonnie Vigeland, ARLIS/NA New England member
On July 22, 2019, a joint group from the ARLIS/NA New York and ARLIS/NA New England chapters met in New Canaan, CT for a guided tour of Philip Johnson’s Glass House and its extensive grounds and outbuildings. The iconic house, completed in 1949, is one of the best known – perhaps the first – Internationalist style residence in the U.S.
The Glass House. Photo by Bonnie Vigeland.
It is sited on a small promontory, with exquisite Mies Van der Rohe furnishings inside, and four glass walls that connect to the landscape outside. The landscape is intentionally a sculptural element of the site, carefully constructed and populated over the years with plantings and outbuildings, both functional and decorative: the Brick House (for guests), separate galleries for painting and sculpture, the pond pavilion, a ghost house.
The Sculpture Gallery. Photo by Bonnie Vigeland.
We explored the house and the grounds, and visited both the painting and the sculpture galleries, filled with the collection curated by Johnson’s partner, David Whitney. It includes works by artists who also became personal friends of the couple – Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Julian Schnabel, Bruce Nauman, George Segal, among others. A perfect walking tour for a gorgeous summer day!
Please save the date for ARLIS/NA New England’s Fall meeting at Mystic Seaport Museum on Friday, October 11th. The agenda for the day is forthcoming, but you can expect a guided tour of the Collections Research Center and an opportunity for a self-guided tour of the entire museum campus. We hope you will join us!
Mystic Seaport Museum at sunset. Photo credit: Mystic Seaport Museum
Read on to learn about Lyndsay’s conference experience…
I was so grateful to receive the New England Chapter’s travel award this year to attend the Art Libraries Society of North America’s 48th annual conference in Salt Lake City. In addition to benefiting from the wealth of knowledge shared in a wide variety of sessions and enjoying the fantastic tours and receptions at local arts institutions we have all come to expect at our organization’s annual meetings, it was also important that I attend the conference in my third and final year as Media Editor on the Society’s Editorial Board. Besides being able to capture and share the conference events on ARLIS/NA social media channels, it was an opportunity to work with the incoming Media Editor for a seamless transition.
The highlight of the sessions I attended this year was the It’s About Time: Open Educational Resources and the Arts panel with speakers Shira Loev Eller of George Washington University Libraries and John Hilton III of Brigham Young University (co-moderated by Ian McDermott of LaGuardia Community College Library and Emily Coxe, RISD Librarian and ARLIS/NA New England Chapter’s treasurer). The speakers shared useful statistics and resources on the benefits of OERs, where to find them, and how to promote them on our campuses. Of particular note, George Washington University Libraries is achieving faculty buy-in for OERs by asking liaisons to have a conversation about them with at least one professor per semester and contribute to a shared spreadsheet to document these outreach efforts and identify interested faculty with whom to follow up. The interest has all been garnered without grants or stipends, although the library is now hoping to develop an incentive program to build capacity in this area. During the break-out portion of the session, I was part of a discussion about the potential for ARLIS/NA to develop a resource guide to OERs in the arts. Given the financial need for and pedagogical benefits of increased OER adoption throughout higher education, such an effort would be a great contribution by the organization.
Lyndsay at the site of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty.
Outside the sessions, the conference provided a great opportunity for representatives of participating institutions in Yale University Press’s Art & Architecture ePortal pilot this past year to meet with representatives of the database project at a breakfast event. We heard about next steps, as well as new features and publications in development, and we had the chance to meet with other participating members. I was also lucky to snag a spot on one of the two Spiral Jetty tours with guide extraordinaire Hikmet Loe. This perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the famed earthwork did not disappoint. Furthermore, the poster sessions and exhibitors were outstanding this year. At these and other meetings and events during the conference, I met new colleagues and learned about some exciting initiatives in the field.
I would like to thank the New England Chapter and the travel award committee for this opportunity to attend the annual conference on a travel award. I look forward to reconvening at this year’s chapter events and in St. Louis next spring.
About Lyndsay: Lyndsay is the Assistant Director for Digital Scholarship and the arts subject librarian at Connecticut College.
About the ARLIS/NA New England Chapter’s Annual Conference Travel Award: The Travel Award is intended to encourage the professional development of ARLIS/NA New England Chapter members by supporting travel to the ARLIS/NA annual conference. Money for this award is generously donated by ARLIS/NA New England Chapter members.
