ARLIS/NA Western Regional Conference Portland, Oregon July 31 - August 2, 2003

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Program

Chair's Report   Ed Teague

Report ARLIS/NA Western Regional Conference Portland, Oregon July 31 - August 2, 2003 Artworks/Booksworks: Craft and Documentation in the Digital Age

Thursday, July 31, 2003

The ARLIS/NA Western Regional Conference kicked off its activities on Thursday, July 31 with a tour of the Art Institute of Portland. The afternoon began with a welcome and outline of the Institute’s history from Nancy Thurston, the librarian at the AIP, and from her fellow AIP colleagues.

The Art Institute of Portland’s mission is to prepare students for professional careers in design, management, and industry. It offers a range of technical and academic degrees in advertising, apparel design, digital media production, game art & design, graphic design, interior design, media arts & animation, and multimedia & web design. The AIP admissions staff led us on lively tours of the complex and guided us through the halls to the various classrooms and studios. Impressive work by the Institute’s students lined the hallways.

Afterwards, our group headed to the Western Chapters Welcome Party, which was held at the Pacific Northwest College of Art library. PNCA librarian Rachel Mendez was our host. We were able to mingle with our colleagues and enjoy the refreshments spread out before us. It was a pleasant way to meet our colleagues from the Northern California, Southern California, and Northwest chapters and to catch up with old friends.

Submitted by Eumie Imm Stroukoff

Saturday, August 1, 2003

Program Sessions.  Location:  US Bank Room, Central Library, Portland

The program sessions were divided into two themes:  The Crafts of Digitization and Artworks/Bookworks.

The Crafts of Digitization

Christine L. Sundt, University of Oregon, moderated a session on recent digital developments in the West. Speakers included:

Leslie Abrams, Head, Arts Libraries, University of California, San Diego. UCSC’s Mellon Foundation Grants: Collaboration & Exploration.

Leslie discussed the UCAI (Union Catalog of Art Images) project at the University of California-San Diego, and partners Cleveland Museum of Art and Harvard University. UCSD is among the significant early contributors to ARTstor, an upcoming comprehensive online resource for the teaching of art history, humanities, and social sciences. The first phase of the project ended in September 2003, and produced bibliographic metadata and thumbnail images for over 500,000 records describing art works. The emphasis was on the metadata of the images, and challenges included data mapping, record clustering, and merging of records. The metadata standard used was VRA Core 3.0, and each image ended up with its own MARC record in the library catalog. The UCSD Art & Architecture Library’s Visual Resources Collection includes over 300,000 slides, with 5-8,000 slides added annually. The image collection online now supports all of humanities and social sciences, and is accessible to all faculty, students & staff throughout campus. Lessons learned from this project: allow a lot of time on administering the grant, planning, training, and supervising; communicate effectively, and pull in essential key partners from information technology and human resources.

Websites:
UCAI (Union Catalog of Art Images): http://gort.ucsd.edu/ucai/
UCSD slide digitization project: http://orpheus/ucsd.edu/slide/arts.html
ARTstor: http://www.artstor.org/

Kate Cunningham-Hendrix, Arts & Humanities Librarian, Colorado State University. The International Poster Collection Digital Project.

Kate presented an overview of the poster collection, which included works by Milton Glaser, Vladimir Chaika (Russia), Mieczylaw Gorowski (Poland), Antonio “Niko” Perez (Mexico), and Luba Lukova (Bulgaria), among others. The objective of this project was to create a searchable image database indexing the majority of the printed posters back to 1995 or earlier. The database had to be affordable, easy to use and to update, and accessible to the public at large. Kate discussed rights issues related to the digitization of the images, collection use, and the software ContentMD. Collaboration benefits include avoiding duplication, saving time, and sharing resources. Some of the roadblocks were implementation, lack of standards, time, ownership issues, rights management, and changing environment. Lessons learned: create a team of unique talents, don’t do it alone; educate yourself by looking at comparable institutions and attend workshops on the subject, and make sure to examine the project’s cost/benefit and the actual value of the physical collection.

Websites:
Colorado State Poster Collection: http://lib.colostate.edu/posters
Carnegie Mellon Swiss Poster Collection: http://swissposters.library.cmu.edu/Swiss/
Northwestern University’s Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies Poster Collection: http://www.library.northwestern.edu/africana/collections/posters/
Colorado Digitization project Digital toolbox: http://coloradodigital.coalliance.org/toolbox.html
Harvard University Guide to Image Digitization: http://hul.harvard.edu/ois/systems/guide_images.html

Lorna Corbetta-Noyes, Research Libraries Group – Books, Arts, Book Arts, Artists’ Books, All That and More in RLG Cultural Materials.

Lorna talked about the digital preservation of artist books included in the RLG Cultural Resources database. This is a valuable resource that can also be used in the study and research of artist’s books and books arts. Examples of interesting searches included: k= artists books, k=art education scrapbooks, k=gedney and subway (Duke collection), and k= cha earth among others.

Submitted by Chris Ramsey

A box lunch was served, then the program resumed at Central Library.

Artworks / Bookworks

Turn of the Crank: Creative Journey of Knight Library Press
Sandra Tilcock, University of Oregon
http://libweb.uoregon.edu/klp/index.htm

Book Arts: Northwest Perspectives
Jim Carmin, Multnomah County Public Library
Tour of John C. Wilson Room, Central Library
http://www.multcolib.org/about/mcl-wilson.html

Sandy Tilcock, Director of the recently created Knight Library Press (and proprietor of the lone goose press) discussed the history and mission of this fine arts press. The Press is located in a converted warehouse of artists' studios, but is organizationally part of the Library, within the Division of Special Collections and University Archives. The Press publishes about one book each year, along with several literary broadsides. A well-established and highly regarded artist in book arts, Tilcock brings together known authors and artists and collaborates to create a unique book form. She uses the words and images (calligraphy, engravings, woodcuts, etchings, monotypes, and collotypes), hand-sets the text, prints on manufactured or handmade papers, and designs and executes bindings and slip cases to complete the work. The press produces limited editions that are collected by individuals and by important institutions across the country: Tilcock shared recollections of some of these collaborations and showed examples of recent work including: The Letters of Heaven, (Short Story by Barry Lopez, Five Hand-Colored Etchings by Robin Eschner), Oregon Pilgrimage in Green: A Forest Journal for My Brother, (Prose Poem by Kim Stafford, Engravings by Margot Voorhies Thompson) and a selection of broadsides.

Following the Knight Library Press presentation, session participants visited the John C. Wilson Room at the Central Library where special collections include major holdings that emphasize the Pacific Northwest, history and natural history and early printed books. Special Collections Librarian, Jim Carmin, displayed highlights from the artist books collection. The library actively collects the work of artists from the region, including unique and limited editions by Carmin Mare Blocker (M Kimberly Press), Inge Bruggeman (INK-A! Press), Amber Gayle (Evil Twins Publications), Catherine Michaelis (May Day Press), Barbara Tetenbaum (Triangular Press), as well as personal work by Sandy Tilcock (lone goose press).

Submitted by Eumie Imm Stroukoff

August 2, Saturday

Tour: 8:15 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Columbia River Gorge and Mt. Hood
The bus tour traveled along the historic Columbia River Highway (highway 30) with docent Isabel and driver Mac.  Stops were made at the Crown Point Vista House (still undergoing renovations), then Wahkeena Falls where some walked the short distance to Multnomah Falls.  We continued to Mt. Hood (stopped for picture-taking) and Timberline Lodge.  Lunch was served at the lodge.  Before having a tour of the lodge we saw a movie about its history.  There was a little bit of time to explore the lodge on one's own.  Mac promised a surprise for that afternoon.  He took the bus off the highway and we drove down a dirt road where we saw some sites associated with the Oregon Trail and the Barlow Road.

Submitted by Susan Koskinen

Art Libraries Society of North America - Northwest Chapter
Updates to hnear@cornish.edu