As Summer arrives, news starts to fly. Some think of a vacation to get away from the heat in Texas and others may want to work on projects that they have been putting off for a long time. Of course it is also a good opportunity to move ahead to new challenges.
I am delighted that Jacqui Allen, Vice President/President Elect, has become the Head of Libraries and Archives for the Dallas Museum of Art. Houston's loss is Dallas's gain. We welcome Jacqui to the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
Things are changing very rapidly in the Fort Worth Cultural District. We are extremely excited and share our joy for our long time Texas member and supporter, Milan Hughston, who is going to challenge the New York City library world. Milan will be the Chief of Library and Museum Archives at the Museum of Modern Art. We will all miss him and we wish him the best. Congratulations, Milan!
The ARLIS/Texas Chapter Archives Project is finally resolved. I am pleased to let you know that Lorraine A. Stuart, Archivist of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has agreed to store our chapter archives. I would like to especially thank Bonnie Reed, Jeannette Dixon, Jacqui Allen, Lorraine A. Stuart, and many others who made the project possible.
Our upcoming ARLIS/Texas annual meeting will be held on October 7-9, 1999 at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. Due to Milan's departure, another tasty Tex-Mex dinner at Joe T. Garcia's will replace the "Hot Tamales" dinner. I would like to draw your attention to the annual meeting information including the Chapter's membership renewal that is enclosed in this issue's The Medium. The meeting registration deadline will be September 24, 1999. If you require accommodations, please remember to reserve your room at the Courtyard by Marriott-Fort Worth Downtown-Blackstone no later than September 7, 1999.
On behalf of the Fort Worth Annual Meeting Planning Committee, we sincerely hope you can make it to this year's meeting. I am looking forward to seeing all of you.
Have a good and productive Summer!
It seems like only a moment ago that we were returning from Vancouver, and now here it is July. The Executive Board has been busy in the interim, and I would like to give you an update on some of their activities, as well as those of the other chapters in the ARLIS/NA South Region.
As you probably saw on ARLIS-L, the Board has chosen a management company, Adler Droz, Inc. (ADI), based in Laguna Beach, California. The Board interviewed several prospects, and it was a long and difficult decision. ADI will assist ARLIS/NA in such areas as Membership Services, Publications, Finance, Web Management, Conference Planning, and Marketing. Howard Adler, Chairman of the Board at ADI will be our Executive Director. We look forward to working with Mr. Adler and his staff, and we hope that you, the members, will find their company both accommodating and effective.
The by-laws changes for the Texas Chapter were presented to the Executive Board, and voting has taken place. You should hear some good news in the very near future.
The Board will hold its mid-year meeting in Berkeley, California from October 1st to 3rd, 1999. Chief among agenda items, of course, will be conference planning for the 28th Annual ARLIS/NA Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, March 16-22, 2000. Check the ARLIS/NA website for more details. If you have additional items that you would like to have brought before the Board, please let me know, PLynagh@nmaa.si.edu.
Meanwhile, the Southeastern Chapter is planning a 25th Anniversary Regional Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, from November 4th through 7th, 1999. The official conference hotel is The Grenada Suite Hotel which is within walking distance of the High Museum of Art and the Atlanta College of Art. Speakers include Elizabeth Meredith Dowling, author of American Classicist: the Architecture of Philip Trammell Shutz; JoAnne Paschall, Director of Nexus Press; Deanne Levison, co-author of Neat Pieces: The Plain-style Furniture in 19th Century Georgia; and, Elizabeth Spurlock Horner, Education Director of the Michael C. Carlos Museum. It looks like an outstanding program. If you would like information on registration, contact Kim Collins, Librarian, High Museum of Art Library, 1280 Peachtree Road, NE, Atlanta, GA 30309.
The ARLIS/DC-MD-VA Chapter held a meeting at the Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library, University of Virginia on June 12th. Jack Robertson was the host, and attendees participated in a group discussion about electronic access to their collections. A tour of the Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library and virtual tour of the UVA Library's digital initiatives was provided, as was a tour of Jefferson's "Academical Village."
Finally, I am very impressed by the program that you have planned for the ARLIS/Texas Annual Meeting. I am going to make every effort to attend this meeting while I am "out west," following the Mid-Year Executive Board Meeting in October. I look forward to getting to know all of you, and I hope to learn more about your outstanding chapter and its activities.
I have had a request for information about copyright. The following sites will help answer most questions that librarians and library users might have about the issue:
Copyright Crash Course is an online tutorial from the lawyers at the University of Texas. It even offers an ask a lawyer section that is restricted to UT System employees, but perhaps if you were very nice to Janine or our other UT members, they'd ask for you.
The Cyber Space Law Center offers good information on copyright and other issues facing Internet users. Covered are freedom of expression, commerce, privacy (including workplace privacy) and more. In addition to the cases that set legal precedent in the copyright area, the actual statute, recent Congressional testimony, and various Digital Millennium Copyright Acts (H.R. 2281, 106th Congress, 105th Congress) are just a click away.
The Copyright Website is a site that offers information regarding specific contested copyright cases. Under the Visual Arts Link, look for Robert Rauschenberg's run-in with Time Magazine. The contents of the site break into the following categories: Visual Arts, Audio Arts, Digital Arts, Basic (which is then broken into Registration, Forms, Notice, Protection, Fair Use, and Public Domain), and News.
Hope these help you with your copyright headaches and free up some time for everyone to have a great summer! On that note, let me direct your attention to The Greentree Travel Network. Whether you are actually planning to go to Alaska to kayak with killer whales this summer or just need a few minutes "away from your desk," this is a fun site to visit. Be sure to sign up for Your Daily Escape. Every day I get a picture postcard in my e-mail (the whole postcard, I don't have to click on a link and visit a website) from some exotic locale. This week I've been to Wyoming, Nepal, Utah, the Virgin Islands, and cycling in West Virginia.
We know all of our ARLIS/NA colleagues will want to join us in congratulating Milan Hughston on his appointment as the new Chief of Library and Museum Archives at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Excerpts from the text of the MoMA press release follow. For the full release select 28-Jul-99 at http://www.moma.org/docs.cfm/press/1999
Glenn D. Lowry, Director of The Museum of Modern Art, announced the appointment of Milan R. Hughston to the newly created position of Chief of Library and Museum Archives effective September 7. Mr. Hughston, who comes to MoMA after twenty years at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, will lead the centralization of the Museum's research resources, consisting of the Library and Museum Archives. He will report to Patterson Sims, Deputy Director for Education and Research Resources.
Mr. Lowry said: "The Museum has searched widely for an individual to oversee, consolidate, and re-envision its extraordinary research resources. In Milan Hughston, we have found a gifted leader and articulate spokesperson for the Museum's expanding role as the preeminent research facility for modern art in the world."
Mr. Hughston began his career at the Amon Carter Museum as Assistant Librarian in 1979, following a period of postgraduate work in Art Gallery and Museum Studies at the University of Manchester, England. In 1983, he was promoted to Associate Librarian, a post he held until 1989, when he was named Librarian.
Rick Stewart, Director of the Amon Carter Museum, commented: "Milan Hughston is a consummate art librarian, one of the finest I have ever known. Over the past twenty years he has developed the Amon Carter Museum's research library into one of the finest and most comprehensive American art resource centers to be found anywhere. His effective leadership, most recently demonstrated with the establishment of the Cultural District Library Consortium, has greatly benefited us all. Milan is very well-known and admired in the professional research library community, and our loss will assuredly be MoMA's gain."
Mr. Sims said: "The selection of Milan Hughston gives the Museum a seasoned librarian with a strong commitment to and knowledge of the benefits and importance of art museum archives. While long based in Fort Worth, Hughston is nationally well respected and has many connections to New York City. Given the unusually gifted staff already in place, Milan's responsibilities will focus on the Museum's new scholarly opportunities, the upcoming major building program, and attracting the additional funding needed for research support."
Tara Carlisle, art librarian at the University of North Texas, received a Teaching with Technology grant from the University of North Texas provost to create a database that will provide access to the Texas Fashion Collection via the World Wide Web. The Texas Fashion Collection (TFC), which consists of approximately 10,000 garments and accessories created by leading designers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is international in scope and a rich learning resource for those who are studying costume, theater, fashion design, merchandising, history, and the arts in general. However, because of the delicate condition of the garments, and the lack of exhibition space, the collection has been practically inaccessible. Viewing the collection is restricted to students enrolled in fashion history classes or to a few outsiders on an appointment-only basis. The database, which serves as both a curatorial and public online catalog, will provide virtual access to the collection for researchers and the public at large. At this time, 250 of the 8,000 records include digitized images of the object, some of which can be rotated virtually. Plans are underway to create digitized images of a majority of the collection's objects.
Margaret Culbertson, Art and Architecture Librarian, University of Houston, has a book that is finally out from Texas A & M University Press as of May 1999. The title is Texas Houses Built by the Book: The Use of Published Designs, 1850-1925. Look for it at your local bookstore or order it from your favorite supplier! Margaret recuperated by spending the first two weeks of May in Southern England, enjoying gardens, historic buildings, art museums and plays.
Karen DeWitt, Architecture Librarian, Texas Tech University Libraries, attended a conference in Boulder, Colorado in May. Architecture librarians from the Big 12 are planning a shared online database of architectural images. A report of the meeting is included elsewhere in this issue.
J. Brandon Pope was recently appointed as the Fine Arts Librarian at the Hamon Arts Library, Southern Methodist University. He submitted the following report: This is my first professional position since I graduated this past May from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Additionally, I have an undergraduate degree from Southern Methodist as well as extensive Art History graduate experience at this institution. I am very excited to be getting back to Dallas in general and SMU specifically.
Jet Prendeville, Art and Architecture Librarian, Rice University, who spent some vacation time in New Mexico earlier this summer sends the following report of library news from Rice: For the past year Fondren Library's University Librarian, Dr. Charles Henry, and a number of librarians have been working with the architectural firm of Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott to develop a master plan for a new wing for Fondren Library. The results of the planning process were presented to the Rice University Board of Governors in late spring 1999. The Board has approved a new wing and we are in the fund raising stage of the process. Before renovation and building can begin, a temporary building will be erected to house a significant portion of the collection as well as staff. The building process will also impact the Brown Fine Arts Library, but at the present time, no details are available.
New Online Resources for Rice University patrons: In late spring, links to the following online databases were added to the Fondren Library web page: The Grove Dictionary of Art Online, AMICO (Art Museum Image Consortium), RLIN Bibliographic File, Bibliography of the History of Art including the RAA (1973-1989) and RILA (1975-1989). These databases are available to Rice University faculty, students, and staff as well as to visitors to the library.
Bonnie Reed, Art Librarian, Texas Tech University, spent some time in Kentucky earlier this summer and plans to visit New Mexico in August.
Laura Schwartz, Art Librarian, University of Texas at Austin, took a vacation in California this summer and sends the following report from the Fine Arts Library at UT: The Fine Arts Library at The University of Texas at Austin has received a generous gift, $15,000, from the College of Fine Arts to purchase library resources in support of the Suida-Manning Collection. These funds will be used to purchase materials to assist in research of this outstanding collection. Acquired in the spring 1999, this premiere, internationally recognized collection consists of Renaissance and Baroque paintings, sculptures, and drawings dating from the 14th to the 18th centuries.
In other Fine Arts Library news... The General Libraries at The University of Texas at Austin has made some outstanding art purchases this year, both electronic and print. We will be subscribing to The Grove Dictionary of Art Online and the Index of Christian Art. A few large microfiche collections were purchased with UT System Academic Enhancement funds. These collections include Index der antiken Kunst und Architektur (Index of Ancient Art and Architecture), Spanien- und Portugal-Index: Bilddokumentation zur Kunst in Spanien und Portugal (Spanish and Portuguese Index: Pictorial Documentation on Art in Spain and Portugal), and Nineteenth Century Books on Art and Architecture.
News from Hirsch Library Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
This November we christened our new on-line public access catalog, Endeavor's Voyager system. We were very happy to see several major libraries buying Endeavor after we had signed our contract: The Library of Congress, National Library of Medicine, Pierpont Morgan Library, and SMU, to name a few. Since this is our first system, we had some major projects to do: 1. The entire collection was barcoded (38,000+ books) by a volunteer team headed by Jacqui Allen 2. Margaret Ford supervised the linking of the books to the records in the system using part-time staff (We are now 2/3 of the way finished, discovering missing books in the process!) 3. Lea Whittington and Katrina Moorhead input records for each item in the backlog (we are now 1/2 of the way through the 2000+ items) 4. Lea and Mailena Braun input circulation records for each check-out card in the file (over 1,500) 5. Jon Evans, library assistant for reference and acquisitions, has input records for all our vendors, and has been using the system for book orders since May.
Margaret Ford has attended two Voyager Users Group meetings in the past year. She is carrying the major load of systems librarian as well as cataloger, and works closely with our Information Systems staff for the museum in managing the server. Margaret is also tweaking a template for a collections level record for each artist in our artist catalog file of over 20,000 artists. This is in conjunction with the INDOMAT (Inaccessible Domain Materials) cataloging project, started by the Art and Architecture Group of RLG.
Jeannette Dixon gave two papers this spring: one for a panel on international librarianship at ARLIS/NA, and another on U.S. art museums on the Internet for an art librarians' conference in Moscow in May. Jeannette selected the papers for the IFLA Art Section sessions this year at the Bangkok conference, and continues to manage the steering committee and produce bi-annual newsletters for the section. You can read them on the IFLA Website - http://www.ifla.org (click on divisions and sections, then section newsletters). You can also read the conference papers for the upcoming meetings.
Planning continues for the library expansion, with a growing interest from the library trustees in creating additional space for a rare books room. Jeannette is also working with the photography curator and the curator of prints and drawings to develop a working collection/branch library for their print study/storage room in the new Beck Building. The building opens to the public in March of 2000, but the curators are scheduled to move in September. Once the new building opens, work will resume on the library expansion in the Mies van der Rohe Building.
Jacqui Allen has left us to take over the Dallas Museum of Art library and Jeannette is working to fill the expanded position of Reader Services Librarian (see description later in this newsletter). Before she left, Jacqui conducted many bibliographic instruction sessions for museum staff, interns, docents, and some college classes. Her handouts for the Hirsch Library's electronic resources are excellent: Art Abstracts, BHA, Avery, Art Bibliographies Modern, and The Grove Dictionary of Art Online. This spring we gave tours to the Special Libraries Association, Houston Chapter, and another to Ana Cleveland's humanities reference class from University of North Texas. The eight new interns we have at the museum this summer have received some very good orientation and training. This year the library got an intern, Kaitlyn Becker, from Hollins College. She is learning all about reference, subject headings and book processing. One of her main goals is to gain proficiency in reference tools so she can help train the other interns.
Lea Whittington, library assistant for serials, left the museum to move back to California and pursue her art career. Her replacement, Scott Calhoun, joined the library staff full-time in June. He had been working part-time in the records linking project before that.
Our library has "twinned" with the Gulbenkian Foundation library in Lisbon, Portugal. We have had visits from two of their staff: Ana Paula Gordo, Deputy Director, and Ana Barata, reference librarian. Ana Barata stayed in Houston for two weeks, working with Jacqui on reference issues, and with Jeannette as co-author of the Internet paper for the Moscow conference. We hope to reciprocate this winter by sending Margaret Ford to Lisbon.
All the curators are working on new books for the opening of the Beck Building. Therefore, our reference statistics are very high. This year we also broke a record on interlibrary loans. Margaret is managing ILL since Jacqui left. Thanks to all who loaned to us, especially the Kimbell and the Amon Carter!
On July 12, movers began packing and moving library materials to an offsite facility where the staff will work until the Museum expansion is completed in the fall of 2001. Library services will tentatively resume around September 1. The main museum telephone number will remain the same, (817) 738-1933, although extensions may change. Email addresses should also stay the same.
The Dallas and Houston area visual resources professionals have been meeting in their respective cities and talking about forming a chapter of the Visual Resources Association. There seems to be an interest in making the chapter happen, but there are still many concerns about taking on the responsibilities of being officers in addition to everyday professional duties. Jacqui Allen at the Dallas Museum of Art and Marty Stein at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston have issued an invitation to both groups to form an alliance with ARLIS/Texas. As discussed at the last two chapter meetings, this alliance would provide the VRA/Lone Star Chapter to contribute to The Medium, making The Medium the newsletter for both chapters. In addition, both chapters would meet together to alleviate the necessity for separate chapter meetings. This alliance would benefit both professional communities. Many of the issues concerning the art library community are also of concern to the visual resources professionals. Just a few of these issues include the broad use of electronic means of disseminating materials, especially images and information pertinent to them; issues of copyright and intellectual property; site licensing and its associated costs; and, not least, the general interest in fine arts in Texas. This alliance would also bring more readers and contributors to The Medium, helping to make it an even better resource for the art library and visual resources community.
The plan now is to send this issue of The Medium to all of the Visual Resources professionals in Texas. Eileen Coffman at Southern Methodist University is working with Sheryl Garcia of the University of Houston to compile a list of recipients. Marty Stein is preparing a cover letter inviting the Texas VR professionals to subscribe to The Medium and attend this years ARLIS/Texas conference in Fort Worth. We hope that there will be a positive reception to both these invitations and that some sort of plan will be adopted in Fort Worth for the official formation of a VRA/Lone Star Chapter.
Thanks to everyone involved for helping to get this movement started! If anyone has other ideas or comments, please get in touch with Chia-Chun, Jacqui or Marty. The October conference will be very exciting - and it will be even more eventful if the VR professionals can attend!
NEWS FROM DALLAS/FT. WORTH VISUAL RESOURCES PROFESSIONALS
The Dallas Museum of Art was the site of the first organized meeting of the Dallas/Fort Worth area visual resources professionals. The meeting, organized by Rita Lasater, was attended by visual resource curators and managers from area universities and museums. Represented were the DMA, the Kimbell Art Museum, Southern Methodist University, University of Texas at Arlington, Texas Christian University, and the University of North Texas.
Detailed information about professional organizations, ARLIS and VRA, began the conference. Jacqui Allen, Head of Libraries at the DMA and Vice President/President Elect of ARLIS/TX informed the group of the upcoming ARLIS/TX meeting in Ft. Worth, and invited all to attend. Eileen Coffman, Director of Visual Resources at SMU's Lady Tennyson d'Eyncourt Slide Library, presented the opportunity for the group to consider organizing a VRA chapter for the state or area.
The morning session ended with a tour of the DMA's Visual Resource Library, lead by Rita Lasater, Manager. A brief Q/A period followed focusing on the VRL's unique situation of administering the Museum's photographic archives, of being the primary source of all images regarding the DMA, and providing public access, as well.
The afternoon session began with each participant presenting a brief overview of his/her visual resource facility. Completed surveys, filled out by participants prior to the meeting, were provided as reference about each collection.
A discussion session included issues such as: the changing role of the "slide librarian," collection automation, digital imaging projects, copyright concerns, and educational imaging efforts such as AMICO and Image Directory. The meeting ended with a commitment to meet again in six months. Until then the participants agreed to function as a support group for each other and to seek out others in the visual resources profession who are in the area.
Visual resources people from Big 12 architecture schools met in Boulder, CO, May 24th -26th, to plan to create a shared online database of architectural images. Visual resources curators from different schools demonstrated the digital image databases they had created for their schools: Lynn Lickteig of the University of Colorado, Susan Moshman of the University of Nebraska, Michael Millar and Susan Poague of Iowa State University, and Jeff Head of Kansas State University all demonstrated their respective databases.
The next morning began with a video conference with Georgia Harper of the University of Texas at Austin, a specialist on copy issues. Several lawyers and University of Colorado faculty members also attended the session. In the afternoon, attendees met with Charly Bauer of OhioLINK, who discussed the image database that OhioLINK had created for the use of the 70 colleges and universities in Ohio, covering the intended usage, copyright issues, the technical aspects, and security concerns, among other topics.
The next session was a meeting with Kurt Wiedenhoeft of Saskia, Ltd., the slide vendor who supplied the digital images used by OhioLINK. He discussed their concerns with security and copyright, ending with a discussion by the attendees of the day's events. A mission statement was developed, and several committees created to develop different aspects of the consortium.
The Great Plains Image Bank Consortium is an alliance of universities seeking to share their architectural and allied arts image collections and cataloging information in a digital environment for the common purpose of enhanced education and research. Our goal is to provide a higher level educational visual resource for all of our institutions than any one member of the consortium could offer alone.
Through each member institution's contribution towards the resources needed to build and maintain the Great Plains Image Consortium, we will:
An AMIGOS Workshop held May 5, 1999 at the Radisson Central Hotel, Dallas
This was a four-hour afternoon workshop focusing on the concept of large-scale imaging projects undertaken by groups of institutions. Robin L. Dale of RLG's Digital Collections Project was the first speaker. She highlighted a number of issues central to any institutional decision to embark on a digital imaging project and the questions an institution should ask itself before beginning an imaging project.
One of the main points of her presentation was that planning for a digital imaging project is fundamentally different from other institutional projects mainly because of the fact that not many imaging projects have been undertaken and completed to date. As a result, there is as yet no infrastructure of vendors, consultants, and standards in place for digital imaging projects (as opposed to a well-developed area such as a cooperative microfilming project). However, she stated that the advice and expertise is out there, and that an imaging project can be very successful as long as all parties involved remain flexible and are willing to outsource key steps of the operations.
Some of the difficulties involved in an imaging project include conflicts or misunderstandings about funding, local vs. consortial priorities, institutional and/or vendor delays, the steep learning curve inherent in an imaging project, item selection issues, image format issues, and cataloging and user interface issues. Last but certainly not least, she stated that politics and the human element are often underestimated in an imaging project, primarily because it necessitates a level of departmental, institutional, and consortial cooperation not often needed in other daily operations and projects.
The questions that should be asked before beginning an imaging project are:
Finally, she recommended that flexibility be built into the project by employing a distributed storage and delivery system rather than a centralized one. The most important parts of any imaging project are planning, flexibility, and the willingness to seek assistance and advice from outside the institution.
Steve Smith of AMIGOS Imaging Service was the second featured speaker of the day. He reiterated the major points of Robin Dale's presentation, and highlighted the advantages of a cooperative, multi-institutional imaging project. Chief among these pluses are the greater possibilities for grant funding, expanded user base/visibility, and the opportunity to link similar collections into a single interface. He pointed out that advantages of single-institution imaging projects are that they require less planning and that full attention can be paid to the specific needs and priorities of a single institution. However, funding may be harder to obtain and they do not have the aforementioned benefits of a larger consortial project.
He next outlined some of the main reasons why imaging projects fail (or never get off the ground). These include institutions not having established the role or purpose of imaging within their own walls, a reluctance to commit resources (usually staff), the lack of a common objective among participants in the project, and finally, waiting for imaging standards to be put in place. Conversely, he listed the prerequisites for a successful imaging project as being:
Examples of digital imaging projects:
http://www.arl.org/did/
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/
http://coloradodigital.coalliance.org/
http://www.rlg.org/scarlet
DEADLINE EXTENDED
Reader Services Librarian
The Hirsch Library of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is seeking candidates for the position of Reader Services Librarian. This position manages all reader services, including reference and research services, bibliographic instruction, circulation, stacks supervision, and Interlibrary Loan service to the museum professional staff. In conjunction with the head librarian, determines and executes reader services policies and priorities; develops strategies for the provision of services; assists in preparing the annual budget; assists in planning for the expanded library facility; and assists with collection development. The Reader Services Librarian manages the production of necessary reader information resources including signage, web pages, brochures, etc.; trains, supervises and schedules the reader services staff and volunteers; provides reference service at the desk on a regularly scheduled basis; provides research services to museum staff on demand; and responds to written information queries.
Qualifications: A Master's in Library Science from an American Library Association accredited program; 3 - 5 years of public service in a museum or university library; some supervisory experience; knowledge of art history and research methodology (advanced degree preferred); good computer skills for the set-up of on-line resources; experience using the RLIN database for reference and Interlibrary Loan preferred; knowledge of at least one foreign language; familiarity with electronic resources in the field of art; excellent interpersonal and written communication skills; ability to teach bibliographic instruction to both individuals and groups.
The Hirsch Library collection consists of 100,000+ items. The library is open to the public 44 hours per week, and to the museum staff 49 hours per week. The on-line system, installed last November, is Endeavor's Voyager. The library is funded by a generous endowment established in 1981 by General Maurice and Winifred Hirsch. Approximately 6,000 items are added to the collection each year. Within the next year and a half, the library will be undergoing a major expansion that will double its current size. In March of 2000, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is opening a new building designed by the Spanish architect, Rafael Moneo. The library's primary users are the museum's professional staff, which includes 13 curators, and the education department. The library reflects the institution's encyclopedic art collections that range from antiquities to twentieth century decorative arts.
Send resume and cover letter to:
Personnel, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, PO Box 6826, Houston, TX 77265. Closing date September 6, 1999.
This issue has been an enormous pleasure to compile and edit. Thank you to everyone who contributed articles and news. Thank you, also, to the staff at the Kimbell and Mary Leonard at the DMA for proofreading help. I look forward to the annual meeting in October when we can hear about the progress of the projects described here. I invite everyone to contribute member news to column coordinators for the next issue of The Medium. I plan to submit news from Dallas! I think you will agree that the contributions are interesting to read, and keep us connected as a chapter.
FALL/WINTER issue: November 20th
Academic libraries: Margaret Culbertson
Architecture libraries: Janine Henri
Exhibition listing: Phil Heagy
Museum libraries: Steve Gassett
Public libraries: Robert Beebe
Visual resources: Marty Stein
[text available in printed copy]
[text available in printed copy]
Jacqui Allen
Dallas Museum of Art
1717 N. Harwood
Dallas, TX 75201
Carl Close
McNay Art Museum Library
P.O. Box 6069
San Antonio, TX 78209