ARLIS/NA 49th Annual Conference

This panel will explore emerging and evolving patterns in collection development and management. The presentations highlight the importance of situational responsiveness at all stages of collections' life cycles – from sourcing and acquisitions, to processing and discoverability, to deaccessioning. Joey Vincennie considers the art book fair as a powerful site for collection development and community building and shares the results of a survey he conducted on how art librarians utilize art book fairs. Simone Fujita discusses her approach to critical library collection development for the Getty Research Institute’s African American Art History Initiative. Hannah Marshall presents an archival implementation case study from the Chinati Foundation, exploring the team’s pandemic response through its adapted project plan and redefined notions of equitable access. Anna Flinchbaugh examines the community ramifications of different deaccessioning strategies. Taken together, these presentations provide a holistic view of how to create, nurture, and maintain a thriving research ecosystem.

Moderator: Amy Ballmer

The Other Side of the Archives: Multifaceted Library Collection Development for the African American Art History Initiative

The Getty Research Institute’s African American Art History Initiative is an effort to support advanced research and new scholarship on Black American artists. Press coverage of the Initiative has focused on archival acquisitions (including those of Betye Saar, Paul R. Williams, and the Johnson Publishing Company); however, collection development efforts are not solely within the realm of special collections. The Getty Library has considerably expanded its holdings on multidisciplinary Black American art and artists through the acquisition of print materials and electronic resources. Simone Fujita (Bibliographer, African American Art, Getty Research Institute) will discuss her work leading library collection development for the Initiative, share the ways in which the Getty’s resources can serve as a complement to existing African American art research sites, and provide helpful suggestions for colleagues in the field who are looking to broaden their own library collections in a critically inclusive way.

Speaker: Simone Fujita

Building Roots from Dead Trees: Community-Centered Deaccession Practices

Librarians across the profession are navigating the apparent contradiction of meeting an increased need for connection and engagement with decreased budgets and other resources. This presentation uses the often-dreaded task of weeding to illuminate the ways in which library choices can either further exacerbate the negative issues created by neoliberal policies and austerity measures or resist them. Data-driven initiatives – including OCLC's GreenGlass, Baker & Taylor's Sustainable Shelves, and homegrown machine learning projects – are contrasted with community-based solutions like weeding parties, book sales, and programming structured around deaccessioned materials. This presentation recognizes all weeding decisions to be a matter of complex negotiation to suit individual library's resources, including available space, labor, time, community engagement, and funding. Rather than attempting to suggest a one-size-fits-all solution, it instead highlights the importance of including externalities and secondary impacts in decision making.

Speaker: Anna Flinchbaugh

“How Do Art Librarians Art Book Fair?”: Art Book Fairs As Collection Development

Strategies for collecting in libraries require multiple modes and methods. Over the past decade, art book fairs have emerged as an exciting and worthwhile venue for collecting artists’ books and other special collections materials. Occurring internationally and across the United States, the attendance of librarians at art book fairs continue to rise with the overall popularity of these fairs. Despite this growth, there is a lack of professional literature in the field that examines how and why art librarians utilize art book fairs especially in relation to collection development.

After observing this gap, Joey Vincennie created a survey as an attempt to provide data to further this research. In the fall of 2020, Vincennie distributed an online survey and conducted a literature review. This presentation considers what makes an art book fair, shares the findings of the online survey and literature review, and finally reinforces the important social aspects that art book fairs offer to librarians and the art community.

Speaker: Joey Vincennie

Processing During the Pandemic: A Case Study

This presentation will explore the pandemic's impact on the two-year project to process the archives of the Chinati Foundation, a contemporary art museum in Marfa, Texas founded by the artist Donald Judd. Like many arts institutions, the foundation closed to the public in March 2020 and staff shifted to remote work. However, archival processing cannot be done from home, so the pandemic created significant logistical challenges to this project. This presentation will explore the Chinati Archives' pandemic response in two ways: First, through a discussion of tools and workflows used to keep the project on schedule. Second, by exploring how the team redefined “equitable online access” in response to the pandemic’s impact on remote work, online education and its disproportionate impact on specific communities. Ultimately, the project team revised our plan for collection management and dissemination in order to align with that expanded definition.

Speaker: Hannah Marshall