ARLIS/NA Delaware Valley Chapter

Fall 2007 Meeting

Monday, Oct. 22, 2007

at Tyler Hall, on the campus of Temple University’s

Tyler School of Art

MEETING MINUTES [draft]

Twenty people attended—seventeen Chapter participants and three guests.

Chapter President Ann Keith Kennedy called the meeting to order at 10:05 A.M..

Vice-President Andrea Goldstein thanked the administration and staff of the School for hosting our meeting, and introduced Sandi Thompson, Head of Temple University’s Suburban Campus Libraries, who welcomed us. For many attendees, the occasion was a last chance to see the School in its present location. The Tyler campus will be closed at the end of 2008, after more than seventy years of operation, and the School will move to new quarters on the main Temple University campus. Sandi offered assurance that the spirit of the School, and its unique approach to art education, will endure.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Minutes of the previous Chapter meeting, held on May 8, 2007, were officially presented by the Secretary-Treasurer and accepted unanimously by the members.

SECRETARY-TREASURER'S REPORT

Ed Deegan, Secretary-Treasurer, submitted a report on the Chapter's finances and on membership for the year

to date. The Chapter is comparatively well-off at the moment, with a total bank balance of $1,598.35, $1,206.35 of which is unrestricted, and $392 earmarked for the Marietta Boyer Travel Award. The complete report is appended to these minutes.

OLD BUSINESS

Special funding request to ARLIS/NA in support of a Spring 2008 DVC-hosted meeting

Ann Keith Kennedy reported that, as proposed at the Spring 2007 meeting, the Chapter has applied to ARLIS/NA for special event funding. Copies of the application were distributed, and Ann Keith gave a brief overview. The proposal is for an event, which will include the DVC’s Spring 2008 meeting, to be held on Friday, March 28, 2008 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It will include a tour of the Musuem’s new Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building (the much-renovated-and-adapted art deco former headquarters of Reliance Insurance Co., located across Pennsylvania Avenue from the main Museum building). Non-meeting attractions include the Museum’s Frida Kahlo exhibit (Feb. 20-May 18, 2008) and its regularly-scheduled Friday night “Art after 5” event. The meeting’s proposed programming will include one or more presentations by contributors to the recent ARLIS/NA publication Art Museum Libraries and Librarianship (see TOC at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip076/2006100603.html ).

Members of the New England, New York , Western New York, and DC-Maryland-Virginia Chapters of ARLIS/NA will be invited to attend, as will members of the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the Visual Resources Association. We’ll attempt to recruit speakers from tha New York Chapter, and perhaps former DVC President Kraig Binkowski, now in New Haven at the Yale Center for British Art. Mary Wassermann suggested that we also look to the Washington area for possible speakers, even if available funds are short. Some potential speakers may be able to cover their own travel expenses.

ARLIS/NA’s response to the funding request is expected in December. Expect to see reflector list message traffic about the event thereafter.

Ann Keith’s report prompted some discussion about how to provide accomodations for out-of-town speakers. She recommended Club Quarters, in downtown Philadelphia, as very satisfactory. Karen Lightner and Cate Cooney both suggested hosting speakers in the homes of DVC participants.

Ann Keith pointed out that, as ARLIS/NA never contributes more than about $500 in funding, the DVC probably would have to use some of its own funds in staging the meeting. Ed Deegan moved, and Karen Lightner seconded, that the Chapter officers be authorized to spend DVC funds for the event at their prudent discretion. The motion was approved by a vote of 16 to 0.

DVC statement on Assessment Task Force recommendations

Copies of President Ann Keith Kennedy’s 30 May 2007 submission on behalf of the Chapter to ARLIS/NA

concerning the Assessment Task Force Recommendations were distributed. The statement reads:

As a chapter, we agree that the regional representative should become a functional position.

Regarding the Divisions, Sections and Round Tables, we have three points that we would like to make:

1. We see the recommendations being more applicable to Roundtables. Could the Divisions

and Sections stay the same, and only the Roundtables dissolve/change into interest groups?

2. For new interest groups that do arise, we feel that communication and advertising will be

critical to ensure that members know what is going on and what may be of interest to them.

3. The Chapter feels that some parts of the D/S/RT structure may be useful, even necessary, as a justification

for some ARLIS/NA members to receive conference-attendance support from their home institutions.

Web page relationship between DVC and ARLIS/NA

Development of “MemberClicks”, a proposed ARLIS/NA website enhancement which would permit the parent organization to host chapter web pages, is in progress, but delayed. Ed Deegan asked whether MemberClicks, when implemented, also would enable ARLIS/NA to host chapter e-mail lists. Regional Representative Cate Cooney was not certain that this would be possible, but she will check.

NEW BUSINESS

Marietta Boyer Travel Award for 2008

Asked whether existing and anticipated earmarked funds would be sufficient to permit making a travel award for attendance at the 2008 ARLIS/NA conference in Denver, Sec.-Treas. Ed Deegan said that they would. Members were sought for a Travel Award Committee, and Lilah Mittelstaedt Knox, Karen Lightner, and Amelia Nelson volunteered. [All the volunteers have our thanks, but, as the Executive Committee later realized, the Travel Award Guidelines stipulate that the Travel Award Committee must be composed of three members of the previous year’s Executive Committee. For the 2008 Travel Award Committee, Lilah (Past-President in 2007) meets that criterion. Karen and Amelia graciously withdrew from the Committee. The other members of the 2008 Committee will be Ann Keith Kennedy (President in 2007) and Ed Deegan (Sec.-Treas. in 2007).]

Volunteers to help with organizing the Spring 2008 meeting

In addition to the 2008 Executive Committee, all of whom will be involved, Mary Wassermann and Lilah Mittelstaedt Knox have agreed to help with this event.

Chapter contribution in support of the 2008 ARLIS/NA conference

The annual question about conference support was raised. Lilah Mittelstaedt Knox made a motion, seconded by Nicole Finzer, that the Chapter’s Executive committee be authorized to contribute, at their discretion, a sum of $150-$200. A vote was taken, and the motion was approved with no objections.

Election of officers

The Nominating Committee appointed at the Spring 2007 meeting (Laurie Palumbo, Jeremy Blatchley, Katie Eckert) presented a slate of candidates for Chapter offices.

For 2008 Vice-President/President-Elect (to serve as President in 2009 and Past-President in 2010):

Katy Rawdon-Faucett (Archivist and Librarian at the Barnes Foundation)

For Secretary-Treasurer in 2008 and 2009:

Mary Louise Castaldi (Reference Librarian at Univ. of the Arts, and former Chapter President)

Paper ballots were distributed and collected. Both candidates were elected by unanimous vote of the 17 eligible participants.

Report by the ARLIS/NA Northeast Regional Representative

The ARLIS/NA Assessment Task Force’s recommendation that some Executive Board positions be reorganized from a regional to a functional system of representation has been implemented in recent months. Cate Cooney now is serving in a transitional, dual role both as Northeast Regional Representative and as coordinator for all chapters.

The ARLIS/NA Executive Board held its mid-year meeting in Minneapolis early in September. Much time was spent on recommendations of the Assessment Task Force. The President’s report is available on the ARLIS/NA website: http://www.arlisna.org/news/news07/10oct/prezletter.html . Briefly, feedback from ARLIS/NA chapters and members did not support elimination of Committees, Divisions and Sections, so these will be retained. Roundtables will be dissolved, in favor of more flexible, informal discussion groups.

The organization is seeking an adviser to improve its technological capabilities. One improvement will be implementation of MemberClicks, which will be a continuously-updateable online repository for the NA membership list and which also could host chapter web pages. Eight chapters have said that they favor such hosting—it would eliminate the uncertainties of having their pages hosted by other institutions through affiliated chapter members. Initially, MemberClicks will not have wiki and blog hosting capacity. With the advent of MemberClicks, a printed membership directory no longer will be issued. [in response to later ARLIS-L comments in favor of having a printed directory, a compromise was reached. The directory will be online, but a .pdf version will be available]

ARLIS/NA’s budget is sound, but the organization must find a way to better compensate outside speakers for its conferences.

The 2008 ARLIS/NA conference will be held in Denver, and the 2009 conference in Boston.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Cate Cooney reported that the Winterthur Museum and Library is seeking to fill a Library Assistant position.

The schedule is 25 hours per week, and the position includes benefits. No library science degree is required.

Winterthur soon will announce a technical service position—details not yet certain.

Camilla MacKay and Nicloe Finzer reported that the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the Visual Resources Association will meet jointly with the Upstate New York Chapter at Philadelphia Museum of Art on Oct. 26.

Mary Wassermann reported that Philadelphia Museum of Art Library has an open part-time position for a cataloger of Asian-language materials.

Ann Keith Kennedy introduced a guest, Sara Daub. Sara currently works in Drexel Univeristy’s Health Science Library and is starting studies toward a degree at the iSchool.

Lilah Mittelstaedt Knox …reported that PMA has been asked to host (in December 2007) an event sponsored by the New York Chapter of ARLIS/NA. Dan Elliott, head of the PMA Library, wonders if he should encourage the N.Y. Chapter to postpone the event and coordinate it with the planned March 2008 DVC-sponsored meeting.

ADJOURNMENT

The business meeting concluded at 10:45 A.M.

POST-MEETING EVENTS

ARTIST FILES

Andrea Goldstein (Temple Univ., Tyler School of Art Library), Karen Lightner (Free Library of Phila., Print and Picture Collection) and Mary Wassermann (Phila. Museum of Art Library) gave presentations about artist files.

Andrea Goldstein spoke about ARLIS/NA’s Artist Files Working Group (AFWG), which evolved from informal meetings at ARLIS/NA conferences. The Working Group meets only at the annual conference, and its projects are moved forward by individuals, as time permits. One aim is to define what an “artist file” is, and what belongs in such a file. The Group also intends to create an online directory (a wiki) of such files, and aims to create a “best practices” guide--to be posted on the ARLIS/NA website--for managing them. At present, treatment of artist files varies greatly from institution to institution. For example, the Frick Art Reference Library creates particularly extensive descriptions of file items; the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Watson Library provides an online list of items, with minimal cataloging; Temple University Library records some artist-file-type material on the Urban Archives website.

Andrea recounted the history of the artist file at Temple’s Tyler School of Art Library. Ivy Bayard started collecting such material. When Andrea arrived at Tyler in 1989, items in the artist pamphlet file had paper cataloging (using the Library of Congress Subject Headings system), but the University’s library system didn’t want to create OPAC records for items with fewer than 35 pages. Andrea obtained a Mellon Foundation grant to create a database of records, but lack of equipment, lack of steady workers, etc., hindered the project. At that point, Andrea got involved with the AFWG, in order to see what other institutions were doing with such material. Tyler’s file, arranged by artist name, now occupies four large filing cabinets. There is no online cataloging for its contents. The move of the Tyler School to Temple’s main campus may create new opportunities for having OPAC records created for at at least some of the material. With use of the file as a research tool in mind, Andrea hopes to give cataloging priority to material about people with some Temple Univ. affiliation, e.g. to material about Tyler faculty members’ shows. In the longer run, she hopes to be able to digitize some of the material in the file.

A listener suggested that Tyler try to use Drexel Univ. and/or Clarion Univ. students to assist with cataloging—perhaps through internships. Asked whether Tyler was (or will be) willing to lend artist file material via interlibrary loan, Andrea replied “maybe”, with the material restricted to in-library use at the borrowing library.

In reply to a question about copyright issues, Andrea said that the situation is unclear. Waiver of copyright is a requirement for many exhibitions.

Karen Lightner distributed a one-page handout entitled “Vertical Files” (copy attached), which defines the term, explains why such low-tech files may be useful, describes the size, organization and indexing of the FLP’s files,

and explains how they may be used. A short list of examples gives a sense of the richness of the files.

In her remarks, Karen emphasized that much of the material in the vertical files is old. Some items about the Barnes Foundation, for example, date back to 1927. The library stopped adding material to most files about a year ago. An exception is files about Philadelphia artists; they continue to grow, with an emphasis on adding material which isn’t available online--gallery announcements, obituaries from neighborhood papers (e.g. the Chestnut Hill Local), etc. At present, the FLP’s vertical file collection is little-known. The current library website doesn’t permit putting much information about it online, and the Art Dept. has no web page of its own. The Print and Picture Collection now has its own website, independent of the FLP website, at www.friendsofpix.org .

Karen wanted to know what was being done in other institutions. Moore College of Art and Design has a drop-box system for contributing vertical file material, which then is laminated. Katie Rawdon said that the Barnes Foundation has a vertical file for material on minor artists in the Barnes collection, on non-artists who are involved with the Barnes Foundation as an institution, etc. So far, this material has not been cataloged. The BF Library is in the process of switching online library systems from an one which has an intranet-only OPAC to one which will (someday) permit internet access. There is no plan to let materials be used outside the BF library.

Mary Wassermann reported that the library space in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s new Perelman Building includes cabinets for vertical files. The library staff now is considering what to include in the files. The collection consists of exhibition announcements and small exhibition catalogs. Some of it—particularly the exhibition catalogs—probably should be cataloged. Linda Martin-Schaff, Cataloger at the PMA Library, presented a sample MARC record (tentative) for Pablo Picasso vertical file material at the library, intended to serve as a template, and sought suggentions and comments. The old criterion for inclusion in a database, which ruled out items with few pages, probably is obsolete now. Much material of that sort probably should receive MARC cataloging.

TYLER SCHOOL OF ART

With the scheduled relocation of the Tyler School from its Elkins Park campus to Temple University’s main campus in mind, Dr. Jo-Anna Moore, Chair of Temple University’s Art & Art Education Department, spoke about the school’s history. She has a strong interest in art education, and has promoted that program at Tyler. Tyler’s history is part of the course of instruction, and the library’s vertical file collection is an important resource, both for teaching and for her historical research (e.g. for learning which faculty members were using which parts of the buildings, and when). She also draws on vertical file material collected by Marietta Boyer for PAFA’s library, as it includes some Tyler artists among its subjects. Andrea Goldstein, in addition to being Head of Tyler’s library, maintains the school’s archives. Dr. Moore and Andrea hope to have Tyler’s archives integrated into Temple University’s main archives collection at Paley Library. The archivist at Paley is sensitive to the need for vertical files and ephemera collections as a record of fast-receding institutional history. When Tyler moves from its original campus, such material will only become more important.

Tyler Hall, the Tyler School’s original building, was designed by Horace Trumbauer’s firm as “Georgian Terrrace”, and built in 1905 as a wedding gift for Stella Elkins Tyler. Her family used the house for 27 years, but by 1933, with their children grown, the Tylers were preparing to move to Bucks County. Meanwhile, through nearby Oak Lane Country Day School (founded 1916, affiliated by 1931 with Temple Univ.), Stella Tyler had met Boris Blai. Blai was Russian-born, and trained in Leningrad, and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and in Rodin’s studio. He emigrated to the U.S. as a young man, came to Philadelphia, and by 1927 was teaching at the Oak Lane school. Blai also became affiliated with Temple University, and, by 1931, the Oak Lane school also was affiliated with TU. Stella Tyler may have suffered from what now is known as a bipolar disorder. For whatever reason, urged on by friends, Stella studied sculpture under Boris Blai in 1932 (she later taught some courses at Tyler, and Bucks County Community College now owns many of her sculptures). Blai’s teaching philosophy was progressive rather than academic—“learn by doing” as opposed to through lectures, and rooted in the expressive tradition. In 1934, Blai persuaded Stella to donate her Elkins Park house and its extensive grounds--a huge gift at the time--to Temple University. In 1935, the Stella Elkins Tyler School of the Fine Arts opened at the Elkins Park site. Boris Blai was Director, and later Dean of the school until 1960.

As an art school founded in the progressive tradition, and maintaining that emphasis throughout a long history, Tyler is unusual. Most other major art schools began with a strong academic emphasis. Some progressive institutions--Black Mountain College, for example--flourished for a time but then closed. At Tyler, studies were interdisciplinary, not confined to studio art. Tyler faculty taught a variety of subjects, and, under Blai, the school didn’t permit narrow specialization by first- or second- year students. The education of artists and art educators centered around art, but was more broadly based, and crafts instruction was part of the curriculum from the beginning.

New, purpose-built facilities were added to the Tyler campus in the period 1950s-1970s, creating the campus we see today. The faculty expanded greatly in the 1960s, and new programs in applied arts (commercial design, graphic design) were begun. The school’s name was officially changed to Tyler School of Art in 1965. The next step in the school’s history will occur in December 2008, when the Tyler School relocates to a newly-built facility on Temple University’s main campus. Art education and art history will be taught elsewhere on the main campus.

Despite the dislocating move, people associated with the Tyler School are determined to maintain its progressive tradition and to respect its history.

More information about the Tyler School is available at: http://www.temple.edu/tyler

ARLIS/NA Delaware Valley Chapter

Secretary-Treasurer’s Report, 22 Oct. 2007

CITIZENS BANK “Business Money Market” account:

Balance at closing date of last report (7 May 2007 ): $ 1,445.73

Deposits made through 21 Oct. 2007: 152.62

Expenditures through 21 Oct. 2007: 0.00

Net change: + 152.62

Balance at close of business 21 Oct. 2007: 1,598.35

BREAKDOWN OF THE ABOVE BY FUND

GENERAL FUND:

Balance at closing date of last report (7 May 2007): 1,123.73

Deposits made through 21 Oct. 2007 (includes interest on all funds): 82.62

Expenditures through 21 Oct. 2007

None

Total: 0.00

Net change: + 82.62

Balance at close of business 21 Oct. 2007: 1,206.35

MARIETTA BOYER TRAVEL AWARD FUND:

Balance at closing date of last report (7 May 2007): 322.00

Deposits made through 21 Oct. 2007 (member contributions): 70.00

Expenditures through 21 Oct. 2007: 0.00

Net change: + 70.00

Balance at close of business 21 Oct. 2007: 392.00

(over)

PARTICIPATION:

Note: A participant (or lapsed participant) who renews at at any time is recorded as renewing for the then-current calendar year, unless the dues payment is clearly identified as covering a previous or future year. Someone who joins before October is recorded as a new participant for the then-current calendar year, and the dues payment is credited toward that year. Someone who joins during the last quarter of a calendar year is recorded as a new participant for that year, but her/his participation also is recorded as having been renewed through the end of the next calendar year—i.e. an initial dues payment can cover up to 15 months of participation. Beginning with 2007, participants who also are (self-reported) members of ARLIS/NA are recorded as “members” of the DVC, those who are not also members of ARLIS/NA are recorded as “affiliates” of the DVC.