Meeting Minutes Highlights, 2005-2017

2017 Meeting Highlights – 23 attending

  • Samantha Deutch (Frick) and Sally McKay (Getty) published the paper presented at CAA on a panel called Documenting artists: creating, collecting, and preserving ephemeral material. The paper is titled “The Future of Artist Files: Here Today Gone Tomorrow” and can be found in the Spring 2016 issue of Art Documentation. The paper provides an overview of the activities of the Artist Files SIG, the Artist Files Online Directory, and the pilot-project currently being conducted with the Internet Archive’s Archive-It service by four members of the Artist Files SIG who are Deutch (Frick), McKay (Getty), Anne Simmons (National Gallery of Art (NGA)), and Heather Slania (National Museum of Women in the Arts).
  • Sally McKay (Getty) noted that the Artist Files SIG must migrate the Artist Files Online Directory … suggested that the form which feeds the existing database could be altered (fewer fields?) or moved to different platform (Google form?) as part of the migration.
  • Deutch suggested conducting an updated survey of Artist Files SIG members to answer the question of how professionals are managing their collections. Abby Bridge (SFMoMA) volunteered to help with this, but would like to see the survey conducted by a larger committee from within the Artist Files SIG.
  • The question was asked as to how many libraries have loaded to OCLC? And what is the best method to do this? Deutch suggested referencing Francine Snyder’s survey from 2010.

2016 Meeting Highlights – waiting for minutes

2015 Meeting Highlights

  • No notes, just the agenda

2014 – No Meeting

2013 Meeting Highlights – No count for attendance

  • This meeting mostly about the Archive-it pilot project … challenges, where do we go from here, etc.?
  • database no longer corrupted.
  • Presentation by Kristine Hanna, Archive-it.
  • The Artist Files SIG collection is publicly available.
  • Discussion of challenges related to the pilot capturing project.

2012 Meeting Highlights – No count for attendance

  • “The Guggenheim’s – digitized artist files were mentioned and are online http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/library-and-archives/archive- collections/A0008/ The material is low-resolution, lists use/publication restrictions, and includes a “take-down” notice.”
  • “It was decided the SIG would concentrate on four main issues: 1) Updating the Directory, with more added value and content, & migrating it to another software program. 2) Investigate methods for capturing Born Digital material. 3) Investigate a pilot project with Archiv-IT and web archiving. 4) Digitizing/reformatting analog materials. “
  • “We collected names of individuals who’d be interested in participating in a pilot project and the following attendees signed up: Heather Slania, Anne Simmons, Cyndie Campbell, Jonathan Franklin, Lea Whittington, Barbara Rominski, Samantha Deutch, Jessica Shaykett. Joyce Weaver of the Mint Museum and Eric Wolfe from the Menil later expressed an interest in learning more about the project.”

2011 Meeting Highlights – Approximately 30 attending

  • “Art Library Journal Review of Artist Files Revealed: An Online Directory and its documentation. Overall, potential changes mentioned in the article have not been made yet, pending discussion.”
  • Lots of discussion of promoting the online directory
  • “Archiv-IT will do a pilot project with the Artist Files Working Group, without charge, because they want our input. They want to involve cultural institutions and librarians.”
  • Decapod [Mellon funded found through Gunter Weibel] to establish affordable copy stand system standard for digitizing artist files at the Guggenheim. The vendor had a problem with the variety of formats in their files! They can only truly streamline if they have a consistent set up. http://sites.google.com/site/decapodproject/
  • Francine asked about the Artist Files Online Directory statistics of users vs. contributors.
  • Jon Evans is stepping down as head of the Artist File group
  • “Goals: The coming year is about promotion and foregoing concerns. • Work with the IRC to promote the information and online directory internationally. • Research born-digital information and resources.”

2010 Meeting Highlights – Approximately 45 attending

  • “Anne Simmons, National Gallery of Art & Linda Psomas have drafted guidelines on the maintenance of Artist Files, which upon completion will be incorporated into the wiki.”
  • “Mr. Evans complimented Barbara Rominski, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Sally McKay, Getty Research Institute, Directory Coordinators on finalizing the Directory.”
  • “Mr. Evans commented that the Directory is not meant to provide access to individual artist file records, but rather to point to broader institutional records of holdings.”
  • “It was suggested that Best Practices for born digital content relating to Artist Files would be beneficial, including a definition of the notion of “born digital.”
  • Discussion of Decapad digitization tool
  • Discussion of JSTOR auction catalog digitization: auctioncatalogs.jstor.org
  • “Major goal for the next year is to encourage institutional contributions to Artist Files Directory and its use. [and] to begin developing Best Practices for born digital and digitally stored Artist Files.”

2009 Meeting Highlights – No count for attendance

  • “The idea to create some kind of artists files database began in 2004, since then the committee has been meeting annually at ARLIS/NA conferences.”
  • ” The wiki Directory and documentation is meant to be utilized on an international level.”
  • ” Monday April 20th (10:15 am) session Where Libraries and Archives Converge: Artists Files. The session will reveal why artists’ files are maintained and its importance to facilitate research.”
  •  ” The committee has developed the document Artists Files Revealed: Documentation & Access that is posted on the ARLIS/ NA web site … under the category of All Online Publications. It includes “best practices” and recommendations to create a MARC record for an artist entry. Also includes a Statement of Purpose and Project Parameters. It would be useful to eventually create a Table of Contents for the documentation, as well as a list of contributors has been produced, which will make their way to the online version as well. It was noted that the documentation recommendations of how to establish, manage, and maintain an artist files is still lacking.”
  • ” There was an attempt to request that the AAT (Getty’s Art & Architecture Thesaurus) consider establishing the term “Artist File” but currently not successful due to the inconsistent term used in the literature.”
  • Very active marketing outreach for new digital directory
  • Acknowledgement went to Allan, a database consultant from the Getty who gave pro bono assistance to develop the wiki.
  • Detailed discussion of digital director functionality.
  • ” Commented about “born digital” items (such as gallery invites, online auction catalogs, and other examples of ephemera) and how these items are being archived. Perhaps a group of volunteers can begin to investigate “born digital” material (Francine Snyder volunteered to work on this with Linda Psomas from CA). Mr. Waibel volunteered to investigate the Decapod Project.”

2008 Meeting Highlights – No count for attendance

  • – “Evans distributed documents for review pertaining to Best Practices, Project Parameters, Statement of Purpose; Directory Statement; MARC Recommendations”
  • ” The Additional Resources Related to Artist Files document is a list of printed and online resources that relate to the project. It is hoped that they will enable readers to explore other research and activities in the field.”
  • There is an effort to provide guidelines for loading records from local OPACs to OCLC and RLG.
  • “Evans gave a preliminary look at the Best Practices documents that only recently have been mounted on the ARLIS/NA website”
  • Evans and McKay worked on “artist files” term for AAT
  • ” They first began with MediaWiki but learned that the software could not absorb as much data as desired. So they began to experiment with Tiki Wiki which can be browsed and easy for institutions to contribute data”
  • ” Phase II will also review aspects of digitization, and investigate the management and preservation of artist files. Copyright issues need to be addressed.”

2007 Meeting Highlights – 35 attending

  • – Distributed approved statement of purpose: ” The first document, the Statement of Purpose, summarizes the value of artist files, recognizing that most collections have limited visibility. The statement is intended to be very broad in definition.
  • ” The Online Directory explains that the directory will act as a centralized tool to promote collections of artist files. The directory will not be a means to locate individual artist files, rather a place for institutions to create a profile for their collection. The idea is to provide an overview of the collection and create a link to the institution from the directory profile. In response to a question, Mr. Evans stated that the directory will not replace the necessity for OCLC bibliographic records in any way.”
  • ” Project Definition, Scope and Material Types That Commonly Constitute Artists Files, gives the definition of what an artist file is for this project. It states: “Collections of small or ephemeral documents relating to the visual arts that are collected and arranged for the purposes of research. Or otherwise stated, materials that are not normally cataloged or would potentially end up in the garbage.” The scope of artist files ranges from individuals to non-profit institutions to for-profit institutions. The material itself may be comprised of announcements, artist catalogs, artists’ statements, brochures, checklists, clippings, mail art, press releases, scripts, slides, etc.”
  • MARC record template discussed.
  • Filemaker Pro 8 software for artist file directory not approved by society.
  • In light of that, MediaWiki was proposed as a platform by McKay and Rominski

2006 Meeting Highlights- No count for attendance

  • Artist files listserv create
  • Sally McKay (Getty Research Institute) and Barbara Rominski (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) for their work on creating an online directory profile form (to be reviewed)
  • SIG had a publicity committee!
  • ” Artist Files Working Group Site Structure (docs distributed)”
  • Group was optimistic that software purchase for directory would be funded by the ARLIS/NA publications committee
  • Artist files directory: ” This online directory is based loosely upon the University of Southern California’s L.A. as Subject site, which is an “online directory of less visible archives and collections that preserve historical materials related to the Los Angeles region.” http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/lasubject/”
  • Discussion about fields to be used and meaning of those fields.

2005 Meeting Highlights – 25 attending

  • – Diverse group representing various levels of access to artist files, ” Ultimately though, one common factor that united attendees was a desire to provide broader access to these rich collections that are heavily used and treasured
  • Independent databases, ie those hosted by individual institutions
  • Entries in local catalogs
  • Entires in Worldcat
  • Digitizing – ” the issue of digitization was raised to which Evans responded that at present this would not be an issue addressed by this working group, as this posed a myriad of issues and problems that could easily consume the efforts to simply provide better access to files.”
  • Increasing name authority records
  • Jon Evans noted group has been active since 2003
  • Artist files were the focus of the spring 1995 issue of Art Documentation. The lead article by Paula Baxter, New York Public Library, was entitled “North American Vertical File Database: Dream or Possibility” and posed the questions: “Is ARLIS/NA ready to take on such a project?
  • Pursue ways to provide better access with a limited amount of institutional effort, such as encouraging the adding of records to the major bibliographic utilities or even producing a rather low-tech Web directory of collections with files.
  • Milan cited: Daniel Starr’s paper given at IFLA several years ago, which was devoted to cataloging artists’ files [added to “Artist Files Resource” document]
  • “Linda Seckelson, Metropolitan Museum of Art, suggested that a statement of purpose be written, outlining the goals and objectives of this group. She agreed to draft such a document.”
  • “It was agreed that a message would be sent out to ARLIS-L asking for statements about institutional holdings of artist’s files that would then be input into the directory.”
  • ” Ultimately, it was agreed upon to produce a double-pronged approach: encourage the future addition and migration of minimal level artists’ file records to bibliographic utilities, while simultaneously creating a Web-based directory of institutions and their holdings that would ideally be mounted on the AWS.”