ARLIS/TXMX - Lois Swan Jones Award

2007 Lois Swan Jones Professional Development Award Recipient Report from Beverly Mitchell

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:43:12 -0400

TX/MX Chapter Report

Thank you to chapter members of ARLIS Texas-Mexico for the Lois Swan Jones travel grant award. The opportunity to attend the conference was a rewarding professional experience. Over the course of the two and a half days I attended the ARLIS/NA conference in Atlanta, I went to several sessions and meetings. As a whole, I found it very helpful simply to go to these scheduled events to learn about their purpose and function, and the First-time Attendees Orientation session on Thursday evening helped to orient me and make me feel welcome at the conference. On Sunday, before my departure back to Texas, I attended the Wittenborn committee meeting chaired by the outgoing chair Terrie Wilson. I am looking forward to working with this committee this year, and I feel it an honor to be asked to contribute. In addition, it was my pleasure to meet members of both ARLIS/NA and the TX/MX chapter. Below are the sessions and meetings that I attended.

2007 Lois Swan Jones Professional Development Award Recipient Report from Kathryn Pierce

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:35:18 -0400

I want to begin by expressing my thanks to the Lois Swan Jones Award Committee and to all who made this award possible. This award provided me the opportunity to attend my first ARLIS/NA conference. As a student, attending this conference has strengthened my interest in pursuing a career in the field. This experience opened up my understanding of the real issues at work in art and architecture information positions.

On my first day at the conference in Atlanta, I participated in The Art and Architecture of Death Tour through Oakland Cemetery. The tour, conducted at twilight was a great way to learn about the history of Atlanta, the people, and the built works in the cemetery. It was also an informal way to interact with other conference attendees.

2000 Lois Swan Jones Prefessional Development Award Recipient Report

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 15:37:53 -0400

Diversity, Change, & Connection

After returning from my first ARLIS/NA conference, I realize that I have just participated in a very special event, one that has helped fashion individuals in this field over the past 28 years. What an incredible whirlwind introduction to the national chapter this trip was! So many things to do, so little time, and only so much your feet can take. I was overwhelmed by the hospitable nature of ARLIS members. On several occasions, I found myself being introduced to strangers by strangers, but feeling as if I was part of something in which there were no outsiders. Another aspect of the generosity that pervaded the conference was the sharing of knowledge, not only through sessions and panels, but informally at lunch or in the hall as well. As the beneficiary of a generous chapter, I should have known better.

2000 Lois Swan Jones Professional Development Award

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 10:34:24 -0400

ARLIS/Texas-Mexico is pleased to offer its annual travel award of $500 for the ARLIS/NA conference in Pittsburgh, PA March 16 - 22, 2000.

Purpose: To support and encourage the involvement of an ARLIS/Texas- Mexico member in the ARLIS/NA annual conference by contributing toward travel expenses.

Requirements:

Applicant must be a member of ARLIS/NA for one full year;
Applicant cannot receive full institutional funding for travel to the ARLIS/NA conference;
Preference will be given to applicants who are actively participating in the conference, e.g., speaker, moderator, recorder, or committee member, or to first-time conference attendees.

1999 Lois Swan Jones Professional Development Award Recipient Report

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 12:55:21 -0400

Due to the generosity of the Lois Swan Jones Professional Development Award, I was extremely fortunate to be able to attend the 1999 annual conference of the Art Libraries Society of North America in Vancouver, British Columbia. I was able to profit in particular from the cataloging-related meetings and presentations.

On March 27, I attended the meeting of Art-NACO participants, with whom I plan to make the McNay a contributing member, and later the Cataloging Problems Discussion Group, in which members shared examples of problematic cataloging. The focus of this year's group was mainly with unedited derived records and especially with the newly-implemented form subdivision "v" in MARC bibliographic records, how this implementation affects systems and how retrospective implementation might affect future workflow as well as system designs. That evening, a critical panel discussion was held to discuss the history of Anglo-American Cataloging Rules down to its present (1998) revision, and how these rules apply to cataloging in an art/research milieu. Now that the cataloging record is almost always found in an electronic format, uniform access and stability are major concerns of those responsible for creating and making this information available.

1999 Lois Swan Jones Professional Development Award

Sat, 12 Aug 2006 17:54:35 -0400

Award: An award of $700.00 toward expenses to attend the 1999 ARLIS/NA conference in Vancouver.

Purpose: To support and encourage the involvement of an ARLIS/Texas member in the ARLIS/NA annual conference by contributing toward travel expenses.
Requirements:

Applicant must be a member of ARLIS/NA for one full year;
Applicant cannot receive full institutional funding for travel to the ARLIS/NA conference;
Preference given to applicants who are involved in a conference program (i.e. - presenting a paper, serving as a moderator or recorder of a session, serving on an ARLIS/NA committee), or, to first time conference attendees.

Remembering Lois Swan Jones

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 12:49:09 -0400

On August 7, 2006, our profession lost Lois Swan Jones, a leading light in the world of art information. She was widely known for her work in art research methodology, having authored many essential works in that area, including three editions of Art Information: Research Methods and Resources (Kendall/Hunt, 1978, 1984, 1990). Her last book, Art Information and the Internet: How to Find It, How to Use It (Oryx Press, 1999), was a maverick work providing a road map to assist researchers navigating the morass of art information published on the Internet. In addition, she created an encyclopedic visual resource library made up of photographs that she and her family took around the world. This library of images supported her teaching efforts at the University of North Texas for some twenty years. It also helped illustrate the video series, Development of Christian Symbolism, that she produced with her son, Preston.

2006 Lois Swan Jones Professional Development Award Recipient Report

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 18:54:28 -0400

First, let me thank the Lois Swan Jones Committee for granting me the 2006 award. Thanks to the generosity of the membership, I was able to take full advantage of the Banff conference's professional development opportunities, including workshops and tours. Here is a summary of my conference experience.

I attended the workshop on Digitization Strategies for Preservation and Access led by Howard Brainen, Digital Imaging Consultant and founder of Two Cat Digital. Two Cat Digital's clients include many ARLIS/NA, VRA, SAA, and MCN member institutions. After reviewing definitions, we discussed best practices for digitization projects and the components of such projects. Next we reviewed ideal vs. real world digitization strategies and whether the methods we use for small projects are scalable for larger collections. We reviewed the scanning systems currently available for books, prints, and film, and Howard Brainen generously shared the results of his tests on a variety of book scanners, including robotic books scanners, book scanners on a sliding table, DigiBook overhead scanners, flatbed scanners, and direct digital copy. He evaluated quality, productivity, cost, and special features, and concluded that the real difference between the least expensive systems ($4,000; flatbed and direct digital copy) and the most expensive systems ($250,000; robotic scanners) is in productivity. Scans from either system can "look as good" but robotic scanners never get tired and can scan from 1,200 to 3,000 pages each hour. Scanning operators can achieve 120 pages per hour on a flatbed or up to 600 pages on an overhead system, but they cannot work for more than a few hours at these rates. We ended the workshop by discussing examples of commercial and non-commercial projects and discussing how these projects impact future funding for digitization in libraries. There was also ample time for questions and for sharing of project management strategies among workshop attendees. Two Cat Digital's web page includes useful documents, including: a decision tree, information on color management, tips on hiring a photo shop tech, and more. My goal to have a better understanding of digital project management prior to seeking project funding was more than realized.