Leadership Update
Coordinators 2017-2018: Samuel Duncan, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Research Library; Alexandra Reigle, Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library
Activities
- At the end of 2018, SIG had 342 members
- Worked with ARLIS/NA Cataloging Advisory Committee and OCLC to approve Best Practices for Cataloging Artist Files Using MARC; worked with OCLC to determine approaches for normalizing artist files cataloging in WorldCat to improve access
- Made progress toward reconstituting/republishing Artist Files Revealed: Online Directory on the SIG’s website
- Presented annual meeting of SIG in New York (33 members attended) and published minutes
- Continued development of SIG’s website, including:
- Added new browsing and search capabilities
- Added new site icon
- Published twelve blog entries
- Migrated Maintenance Recommendations for Artist Files from PDF to WordPress post
- Organized two 2019 ARLIS/NA conference programs: co-organized workshop Data In Sight: Leveraging MarcEdit To Bring (Better) Data To Light and session Better to Receive?: Approaches to Building, Managing, and Promoting Artist Files Collections.
Strategic Directions
Artist Files SIG Mission Statement: The Artist Files Special Interest Group, part of the Art Libraries Society of North America, recognizes the unique characteristics and research value of artist files and serves as a professional forum for advancing all aspects of their management, including access, acquisition, cataloging, digitization, preservation, promotion, and scholarship.
Organizational Advancement
• The Artist Files SIG has significantly increased its membership and has developed better accounting procedures for keeping track of membership.
• The Artist Files SIG has outreached to OCLC to advocate for improved metadata representation there.
Art Information Professionals
- The Artist Files SIG continues to provide and improve its ability to facilitate professional improvement through its website and conference events.
- Ongoing: The Artist Files SIG has developed an energetic blogging program to facilities its members’ sharing information about their artist files collections and professional practices.
Innovation and Technology
- The Artist Files SIG commits itself to developing its website to be a major resource for sharing information about artist files collections and professional practice.
- Ongoing: a reimagined directory of artist files collections: Artist Files Reveals: Online Directory
Collections and Access
- The Artist Files SIG celebrates the diversity of artist files content and practices while seeking to harmonize professional practices to improve all aspects of their management.
- Ongoing: continuing to work through instituting new cataloging best practices in coordination with WorldCat to improve access.
Issues for the Executive Board
- Need to upgrade server environment so WordPress can run optimally – move from Windows-based server to Unix
- Better membership support on AWS – SIG coordinators should NOT have to maintain their own lists (it takes an extreme amount of time to keep them up to date); it makes sense to rely on ARLIS/NA for updated contact info and membership in SIGs, divisions, etc.