Full Title:

Modernizing the Modern Art Museum: A Collaboration Between Librarians and Museum Professionals to Improve Access to Collections

Abstract:

At art museums, curators and registrars traditionally have been considered the principle stewards of the fine arts collections held within their care. In terms of the intellectual management of these art objects, special collections librarians within museums can play a crucial collaborative role.

Librarians and museum professionals have historically worked in divergent traditions -- with differing ideas about the uniqueness of, and access, to their collections. Today, visitors’ expectations, particularly with regard to online access, are forcing museums to reconsider how they provide information to their audiences about their collections.

In a project initiated in May 2009 at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, a modern and contemporary art museum located in Buffalo, New York, two museum librarians are leading a collaborative effort to improve access to art objects in the museum’s collection information management systems and to rethink related processes. The project capitalizes on librarians' expertise to bring minimal level cataloging and local practices up to recognized external standards.

The proposed paper will describe a unique collaboration between librarians, registrars, and curators at the Gallery in order to improve description of, and access to, the museum’s collections. Prior to this collaboration, the very basic nature of records for art objects in the Gallery’s collections database impeded access for both staff and external users.

Our paper will address the successes and failures to date of our project. Particular attention will be paid to involving the right partners; garnering “buy in;” addressing actual needs from a collaborative, interdepartmental perspective; and addressing long-term goals through concrete, short-term solutions.

Presenters:

 
Susana Tejada, Head of Research Resources, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY

     Susana Tejada is head of the Department of Research Resources at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, where she is responsible for managing a reference and research library that fulfills the needs of its curatorial, education, and publication departments, and provides staff, visitors, and scholars with accessible, comprehensive information on contemporary visual culture, the museum’s collections, and the history of the institution. Susana also serves on the Albright-Knox’s curatorial team and has organized a number of exhibitions that integrate and draw from the museum collections—both art and archival—to include: The Brave Buffalo: Abstract Expressionism and the City, Clyfford Still: Selections from the Gallery Archives, and Cover to Cover: Works and Words from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

Susana’s professional and research interests lie at the point where contemporary art and archives intersect, more specifically how archives and special collections can enrich our critical engagement with contemporary art and how the museum library and archive can be an ideal entry point for the public to question, embrace, and explore diverse artistic forms and traditions.

     Susana received her B.A. in Fine Arts and Medieval and Renaissance Studies from New York University and her Masters of Information and Library Studies from the University of Michigan. She has held previous positions with the University at Buffalo Libraries, the New York State Documentary Heritage Program, the University of Michigan’s

Bentley Historical Library, the University of Southern California’s Department of Special Collections, and the New York Public Library’s Manuscripts and Archives Division.

Gabriela Zoller, Technical Services Librarian, G. Robert Strauss, Jr. Memorial Library, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY

     Gabriela Zoller has served as the Technical Services Librarian at the G. Robert Strauss, Jr. Memorial Library, Albright-Knox Art Gallery since Fall 2006. There, she is responsible for original and copy cataloging of materials in all formats, maintaining the library's online catalog and ILS, preservation and maintenance of the library's collections, as well as reference work.

     Gabriela's professional and research interests center around issues of cataloging & classification, and understanding how description can best provide access to a library or museum’s resources, particularly with regard to new technologies that offer innovative ways of connecting users to resources. She is especially interested in emergent new metadata schemas, and how librarians’ skills and techniques can be adapted and applied to the unique challenges posed by describing cultural artifacts.

     Gabriela received her B.A., summa cum laude, in English from the University of Colorado. She holds an M.A. in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.L.S. from Drexel University, Philadelphia.  She has previously held positions with the Othmer Library of Chemical History, Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia, and the Historical Medical Library, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Session Info

• Type: Individual Paper
• Keywords: metadata, cataloging, classification, collections management, information, access, collaboration
• Relevance: Our target audience members are museum professionals responsible for, or with a strong interest in, the intellectual control of, and access to, museum resources -- including registrars, curators, web administrators, and collection information managers. We hope that our expertise and training as librarians who work in a museum environment can help MCN conference goers gain both conceptual and practical knowledge of how to increase access to their collections via databases and the Internet.