May 16
Meredith WisnerFrom Our Guest Bloggers archives, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Records
One of my favorite parts of my jobs is acquiring new artifacts, particularly when they come to me out of the clear blue sky. This was the case just recently when I was contacted by a colleague from another institution who discovered an expired loan of two muskets that dated back to the 1930s – back when the Brooklyn Navy Yard was run by the United States Navy. The original records for this loan appeared to have been lost somewhere along the way, so, since picking them up it has been my distinct pleasure to uncover exactly what they are, and how these items connect to our Navy Yard specifically.
Springfield Flintlock Musket, 1830 (top) and Jenks Naval Carbine, 1845 (bottom)
Full disclosure, I know nothing about guns. What I love about archival practice is that it affords so many opportunities to research topics outside my areas of expertise. Having a thirst for knowledge in all subjects is so critical to this line of work. Our job is not to do the scholarship after all, it is to provide the broadest range of access points to our collections. Yes, for some closed or limited access collections having a specialty in line with your users is extremely important, but for institutions who court a diverse user base having a generalist’s perspective is a real asset.
In the case, my art history background has given me a bit of a leg up because ultimately we are dealing with antiques (that and my addiction to the Antiques Roadshow), so the first part of my fact finding mission was to determine how old these muskets are, how common they are in the universe of vintage firearms, and how they are referred to by gun aficionados and auction houses. This would give me a sense of their value, and also help me to understand what about these particular guns is considered unique.
Springfield Model 1816 Flintlock Musket (detail), 1830
Jenks Naval Carbine (detail), 1845
As it turns out, both guns were produced for the United States Armed Forces. The earlier gun is an 1816 Springfield Flintlock Musket (this one produced in 1830), which was billed in its day as a marked improvement upon the 1795 edition; the first American made musket and the one that was used during the War of 1812. The 1816 Springfield was used in the Mexican-American War, and saw some action in the early years of the Civil War as well. From what I’ve read it’s an important gun, but not especially rare. However, the second and later gun, a Jenks Naval Carbine, also known as a “Mule Ear,” was produced in a limited edition of only 1,000 exclusively for the U.S. Navy. Considered an experimental gun type according to James McAulay’s Civil War Small Arms of the US Navy and Marines, only ten of these guns made their way to the New York Navy Yard, and these were delivered in April of 1861.
I wanted to try and match these guns to some early inventories we’ve collected that detail the “tokens of historical value” that once decorated buildings and officers’ quarters around the Yard. Post-decommissioning these items were moved to Washington, which became the primary repository (until recently that is) of artifacts concerning the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s history. Unfortunately, details on rifles once held at the Navy Yard are sparsely drawn, and so my best guess is that these two were part of a lot described thusly:
“10 rifles, old style, flint lock + breech loading. 20 lbs ea.”
Alas, not exactly the kind of detail I had hoped for. Sadly, the story of these guns ends with a lesson on poor record keeping, and the dangers of relying on ones own head as a storage facility for institutional knowledge. As a result, I may never learn if either if these guns had a particular significance to the Navy Yard, though they do remain beautiful examples of early American firearms. Maybe this 1830s flintlock was a favorite of Admiral Perry’s, or perhaps the 1845 Mule Ear saw some action at an important battle during the Civil War. Who knows—I certainly don’t – but what I do know is that I have two new favorite artifacts, a lot more knowledge on gun manufacturing in the United States, and two fully fleshed out catalog records for the next person who sits in my chair!
May 15
Urban Librarians UniteBibliobeat, Events from Other Orgs, From Our Guest Bloggers, Programs of Interest
The UniRead this past Saturday was an incredible, vibrant, and unique event. The weather was gorgeous, the sky was blue, the sun was shining, it was an utterly marvelous day for a library protest. The event hinged on this idea of having multiple readers recite the same text translated into different languages simultaneously. We chose the first chapter of the first Harry Potter as the text as there are so many great translations available and there is a built in audience/fan base both in the library world and in the wider public. The Unisphere is a great backdrop and it could not have been a more Queens event.
Getting the texts was a task in itself and we were fortunate in our contacts there. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone has been translated into over 80 languages. While you would think that the libraries of New York City would offer these up in the blink of an eye we only found about ten languages available on the shelves in circulation. Our good friends the dauntless workers of ILL were able to come up with another half a dozen or so as well. In the midst of the prep we came across a reference to a professor of Russian at the University of Calgary, Nicholas Žekulin who had a complete set. On an outside chance we reached out to him and he leaped to help. He has been an utter delight to work with, furiously scanning languages to match readers for us turning text around overnight. Thank you Professor Žekulin!
On the day we had readers in: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Irish, Italian, Korean, Lithuanian, Russian, Spanish, and Thai. The readers started off together and it was an incredible babel brought to life. It was just a jumble of language, a tumble of tone and inflection. You would hear the words Dursley, or Dumbledore, pop up occasionally but mostly it was just a wonderful welter of linguistics.
This event also marked the first appearance of Bonnie the Bookworm and her nemeses the Budget Birds. Bonnie is a hard working library professional just trying to do her job, help people, and hang out with her boyfriend Carl the Caterpiller (he’s in a band…so hot). Those Budget Birds keep pecking at her, messing with her storytimes, keeping the books away, and generally stressing her out. Bonnie doesn’t want to get a pink slip and neither do you!
This was the first stunt of the season but there are others in the works, big ones, fun ones. We would love to have you come out and join us. Our events are fun, lively, literary activism. We would love to see you there.
Libraries have taken a serious hit in the budget, let’s not forget that. There is a feeling in the air that “the money will be restored”. While we should all hope for the best at all times this is no reason to be complacent. We got cuts restored for the last two years due to a lot of hard work by a lot of people. If we don’t get out there and fight for our slice of the budget pie you can bet that someone else will be trying to take it right off our plate.
Don’t let the Budget Birds peck poor Bonnie. Please join us, get a postcard in, get lots of postcards in, come out, get active.
The third 24 Hour Read In to protest budget cuts will be held on June 9th & 10th from 4PM to 4PM at the Brooklyn Public Library Central Library in Grand Army Plaza. Please join us there.
To volunteer please contact savenyclibraries@gmail.com, or christian.g.zabriskie@gmail.com
May 10
Meredith WisnerFrom Our Guest Bloggers archives, digital libraries, museums
I’m guessing my experience isn’t unique when I say that, as an archivist, I have gotten really familiar with the art of scanning. Prior to embarking on this career I thought of scanners as a slight improvement on the fax machine; an office nuisance that I only used when sending out a completed form or signed document. Now it seems that scanning – or as we archivists like to embellish, digitizing – is my number one priority and perhaps the most powerful tool in my arsenal.
First and foremost, I scan documents for our engineering department’s reference, which requires making our photographs, maps and plans available on the construction site while simultaneously offering them to outside contractors at other locations. Anticipating the needs of this department and digitizing our collections accordingly ensures that the required information is at everyone’s fingertips – greatly improving efficiency for many of our construction projects. Additionally, because the system that manages these collections (CollectiveAccess for those of you in the market) will soon be made available via the web, our staff—as well as our museum visitors—will be able to conduct their own searches, thereby expanding access to our collections exponentially.
Screen Shot of the Navy Yard's Collections Management System
But that’s the basics. It’s in the context of our museum where things get interesting. Digital scans of our collection inhabit all corners of the museum including its exterior walls. The most striking example is the three-story reproduction of the USS Brooklyn etched into the solar screen mounted to museum’s façade. Originally part of a WPA documentation project, this image was likely printed, filed and forgotten. Forgotten, that is, until our archive scanned it as part of a larger digitization initiative with the National Archives. Today this image and 5,000 of its kindred find themselves repurposed as press packets, educational materials, supplements to our tour program, and as reference materials for researchers and artists. The ease of sharing and manipulating these digital scans has breathed new life into this collection, and helped me to prove the archive’s value beyond the needs of the company itself.
Solar screen featuring etching of the USS Brooklyn, photograph by Beyer Blinder Belle
A lot of what we do with our digitized collections boils down to enhancing a 19th century imaging technology using 21st century tools, though there is something to be said for doing the reverse. Our museum’s mutoscopes – essentially hand-cranked viewers like the kind you’d find in a turn-of-the-century penny arcade – allows visitors to see the Yard’s oldest dry dock in action through a mechanism that was developed almost concurrently. By using individual frames of digital video footage and printing them onto heavy cardstock we were able to communicate how a dry dock works through a unique visitor interactive. This touch of 19th century innovation offers visitors not only the information we wanted to convey, but a visceral sense of the era as well.
Brooklyn Navy Yard mutoscope (internal mechanism revealed)
I think the most fulfilling use of our digital images comes from the creative partnerships we forge with our community. One of our partners, Groundswell, is an amazing organization that works with elementary and high school aged kids to create artworks that beautify neighborhoods and encourage social change. For their project with us they are designing a multi-wall mural that tells the Yard’s story as experienced by its workers from 1801 to the present day. Working with these kids, and watching them reinterpret our archival materials into a dynamic and unified piece has been incredibly fulfilling, and something quite different from my usual day-to-day. I think projects like these go great lengths to promote the strength of ones collections, and can serve as a poignant reminder as to why you got into this gig in the first place.
I realize none of you really need to be convinced as to the strengths of embarking on digitization projects, but I do encourage you to think more broadly about how these projects can manifest. Time consuming as they might be from the outset, I found that rewards can pay off a hundredfold.
May 01
Meredith WisnerFrom Our Guest Bloggers
Greetings from the Brooklyn Navy Yard Archive! I want to begin by explaining a little of what I do here, since I think many assume (and rightly so) that the collections I work with are predominantly focused on naval history, and therefore the scope of my work is firmly rooted in the past. It is true, a lot of what I do is gather, preserve and arrange materials that relate to the Yard’s life as a naval shipyard – a period of significant innovation and growth that lasted from 1801 to 1966 – however, many people are surprised to learn that the Brooklyn Navy Yard is still a site of ingenuity and development, and that my archive plays an important roll in those activities as well. In fact, the contributions I make to what’s happening in the Yard of today is pretty much my bread and butter, and so this is what I would like to speak about today.
1810 map showing the United States Navy Yard, Courtesy of the New York State Archives
In a nutshell, the company I work for, The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, is a leasing company that offers the one thing that most people cannot find in New York, the space to do business. From the smallest start-up developing in our Pratt Incubator program, to the green innovations created at Duggal Energy Solutions, our Navy Yard is a center for innovative industrial activity smack in the middle of Brooklyn. My part in that story is to provide access to the 40,000 historic maps and plans our company uses to transform our 300 acre swath of land into the thriving 21st century green manufacturing center it has become today.
Google Earth image of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Courtesy of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Archive
What does my job look like on a daily basis? When Brooklyn Grange was brought in to build a rooftop farm on Building 3, the archive provided the 1918 roof plans that illustrated what loads its roof could handle. When we refurbished the 1858 Commandant’s house, which now makes up the museum and visitor’s center, BLDG 92, it was plans from the archive that identified an unused sewer pipe we later capped off and made into a cistern for the building’s greywater system. This feature along with 63 others awarded us LEED Platinum status in green design. Although this was a group effort, and my role was relatively small, I take a great deal of pride in that achievement.
Subsurface plate showing sewer pipe (pink) used at BLDG 92, Courtesy of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Archive
All of this is to say that no matter how hard we archivists and librarians try to keep the broadest possible audience in mind, the true value of our collections is mostly unknown to us. The only way I’ve found to deal with this shortfall is to remain as open as I can, to seek out innovative mentors to learn from, and to stay current-from the tech side of the profession-so I can continue to provide access to our materials in as many formats as possible. All this looking forward can be exhausting, but I think it’s what makes my job so much more than the finding aids and catalog records I create. It’s a 21st century Navy Yard after all, it deserves a 21st century archivist, no?
Apr 25
Antonio DeRosaFrom Our Guest Bloggers
So, this is what it feels like to say goodbye to a niche group of cyber-surfers and blog fiends. My month has just about come to an end here at The (most beautiful!) Desk Set. I’ll spare you the frowning and tearful emoticons. Instead, I’ll leave you with some advice on becoming a medical librarian.
Know what to expect. Working in a medical library, like any specialty or subject-specific library, is a truly unique experience. Unless you’ve taken a medical librarianship or informatics course in library school, be prepared to learn your sources. I’m still shocked at how well and how often I use resources like PubMed, Web of Science, and EMBASE. You will need to immerse yourself in the intricacies of these tools and refine your technique so that you can recall targeted information for clients in the most seamless of ways.
Be innovative. Don’t be afraid to try something different when it comes to institutional outreach, instruction, or resource development. A huge reason why medical librarianship is such a rewarding and sought-after profession is because it is constantly reinventing itself. Behind these changes are the collaborations between librarians and the clients using the library services. Finding original and creative ways to deliver information is the crux of the profession. Fortune favors the bold in medical librarianship.
(Image courtesy of ClipArt)
Build relationships. Connecting with people is pivotal to being a successful medical librarian. Relationships with certain individuals within an institution can help keep the library within the institution’s vision. Reminding people that the library is present and there for them is an effective way of putting the library’s worth in the forefront of people’s minds. The outgoing and helpful nature of the medical librarian is what the client remembers upon visiting the library facility. It’s important to make a good impression.
Know the hierarchy. Being aware of where you fall within the institutional, and library-specific, hierarchy is important to remember. This will help to keep you on track, focused, and a more productive member of the organization. Librarians, by and large, tend to stay in a position or with a library for a very long time. This is partially due to the current economic climate as well as the passion of the medical librarian. It’s important to note that medical libraries especially are found in mostly the non-profit or academic sectors. Both of which have rigid hierarchical schemas when it comes to employment status. Just like any other profession, paying your dues is essential to reaching the point in your career that you strive for.
GET EXPERIENCE. This point cannot be stressed enough. If you’re unable to get a paying (usually part-time if you’re still in school) job, shoot for an internship. If that’s not working for you… VOLUNTEER! There’s nothing wrong with reaching out to an organization’s library that interests you and inquiring about a volunteer program. It’s something to put on your resume that shows you have some type of medical library experience. Even if it is only a volunteer position, it’s more than what some competitors may have. There’s nothing wrong with getting the experience you need to stand out in an abyss of resumes, even if it takes seeking out permission to volunteer.
(Image courtesy of ClipArt)
I hope you enjoyed my guest blog posts for this month. I’m always willing to chat about library things or otherwise. You can follow me on Twitter, @LibTonio, and I’ll send you my personal contact information in a direct message. Thanks for reading!
*Special thanks to my dear friend, Brittany Good, for acting as my (un)official editor for my posts throughout the month.
Apr 18
Antonio DeRosaFrom Our Guest Bloggers
I recently sat in on a live broadcast from a session of TEDMED 2012. One of the speakers, Mark Hyman, was passionate, humorous, and engaging. His focus was on diabetes and how changing the structure of a community can influence the diabetes statistics in that group or region. Basically, COMMUNITY= CURE.
(Image courtesy ClipArt)
This got me thinking, if we’re all influenced by our community, why don’t we as librarians work harder to change the way our own communities or social circles view librarianship? All professions have their own stereotypes: plumbers, secretaries, brain surgeons, lawyers. The only way we are going to break down the barriers of misinformation regarding our profession is by starting with our closest friends and family.
For example, I recently posted a Facebook status about National Library Week and a friend of mine commented, “I’ll praise you because you know how to use the Dewey Decimal System.” Instead of correcting said friend with a soliloquy about what it is I really do as a medical librarian, I just laughed it off and left it as is, simply because it was easier than confronting. This is what I mean by starting with our own community in changing the way others view our profession. This friend was not corrected and will continue to equate librarians with the antiquated Dewey Decimal System.
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
We work so hard defending our relevancy and skills in the workplace that we sometimes forget that teaching opportunities are aplenty outside of the library. We have the power to change how others see the library and the librarian. It’s not fair to hold it against our peers or families that they are unaware of what we do and how important our positions are to a corporation, organization, school, etc. They didn’t go to library school, they don’t have the knowledge of the intellect a library houses and helps to output, they don’t realize what it takes to locate, vet, and organize information in a neat little byte for quick retrieval via a Google search.
As information professionals, it is our duty to educate, reach, and aid our community on what it takes to do our job, as well as assess and satisfy their personal and research needs. Ours is a dual profession that is unique in that it takes a certain awareness, passion, and commitment to our work as well as the pool of information surrounding our daily interactions to successfully thrive and succeed. We are the plumbers of the septic, the secretaries of the office, the brain surgeons of the operating room, and the lawyers of the court. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!
Apr 12
Lydia WilloughbyFrom Our Guest Bloggers, On the Prowl interview, job, job hunt, job search, On the Prowl, resume, temp
Welcome back to the hunt. Before delving into some sage networking advice from ALA, I just want to share what a dear friend and librarian of mine said to me recently about temp agencies: they’re like being friends with benefits, only you’re not really friends and there are no benefits. I’ve worked a number of temp jobs over the years, and interviewed at even more, and I full heartedly agree. Temp agencies can be useful and they can be positive career moves, but the bottom line is that you are their product and it’s a buyer’s market.
So my initial idea for this column came to me during an ALA Webinar. I recently attended on job search skills. Here’s what the moderators, Tiffany Mair and Andromeda Yelton, discussed:
- go to happy hour early and close down the bars (at conferences and professional development events)
- don’t be an asshole—talk to people and be nice!
- know thyself (nobody wants someone who doesn’t know who they are)
- have a pick up line (or, the equivalent of an elevator speech)
- dress well! (werq it. Look sickening!)
- be open to adjusting your standards (be your own wingman!)
And perhaps the most important single piece of advice from this webinar: don’t go negative. Nobody likes a Debbie downer. Stay upbeat! Don’t broadcast your desperation.
The advice that Mair and Yelton dispense to help us early career librarians find jobs is the same kind of advice that can get you a date, get you some digits, or make a new friend.
Here is a sort of online job hunt library guide, a list of things I’ve found and liked:
Re.Vu – easily create an online resume and cool infographics
Glassdoor –mine facebook for networking possibilities
Resunate –find the ‘must-have’ jargon from a job description onto your cover letter
Huntsy –job tracking application that sends you reminders to follow up
Rezscore–grades your resume and identifies your worth to employers
And one last piece of job hunt inspiration: this is my new personal mantra.
Apr 11
Antonio DeRosaFrom Our Guest Bloggers
If I asked you where you would find information on the incidence of falling among the elderly (aged 65+) in the emergency room setting and any protocols present for preventing this, where would you look? Furthermore, I would like the search to include all peer-reviewed, systematic review, and English-only articles published in the past five (5) years. Would you perform a Google search? Google Scholar? Scirus? PubMed? Web of Science? National Guideline Clearinghouse? TRIP database? EMBASE? Medline Plus? NOAH? Evidence-Based Medicine Guidelines? MD Consult? BMJ’s Clinical Evidence? Scopus? Feeling overwhelmed?
(Image courtesy ClipArt)
If you’re unaware of some of these resources, have no fear. A few of them are subscription-only databases, so you wouldn’t have used them unless they were accessed via an institution that subscribes. Each resource has its own unique capabilities, and depending on the nature of the search request, different tools must be utilized to retrieve the most targeted results. For instance, PubMed is a public database of biomedical citation information with over 20 million references indexed. The advantage here is that the database is public. PubMed is the premier (free) source for biomedical searching. EMBASE, on the other hand, is a pay-for service that provides deeper indexing of articles in its data bank, which, for the most part, allows for a higher number of retrieved results. Also, EMBASE is a more efficient search tool when looking for drug or pharmaceutical-related references as it indexes drug information more acutely than some other tools.
The lesson here is the importance of knowing your resources. If you’ve never worked in a medical library or other medical setting where you would be exposed to these search engines, you can still familiarize yourself with them on your own. The National Guideline Clearinghouse, TRIP database, PubMed, NOAH, and Scirus, are all publicly available resources that are heavily used in the medical library world. Playing around with these tools will make you a more efficient and confident searcher, both of which are essential attributes to possess when conducting detailed searches of the medical literature.
Also, learning the resources before any serious searching will help you to better understand the limiting features available in each tool. If you take our query above, the limits would be the past five (5) years, English-only, peer-reviewed articles, systematic review articles, and the elderly (65+). PubMed offers a handy feature with check boxes for a wide range of limits, including those listed above and sex, species, subsets, etc. Other resources utilize the ‘sidebar’ view which allows you to denote what type of articles you would like to eliminate/view. Both EMBASE and Web of Science offer this type of limiting. The limits are what bring your total number of results down (especially if searching a broad topic) and ensures that language-specific articles are retrieved, for example.
(Image courtesy Antonio DeRosa)
The moral of this post… KNOW YOUR RESOURCES. Without knowledge of where to go to get relevant information and how to efficiently narrow your results, your searches may not be as powerful as they could. Providing helpful support to our clinicians and researchers ensures our relevance in the ever-changing medical field.
Apr 04
Antonio DeRosaFrom Our Guest Bloggers
Hello Desk Setters! I’m happy to be your guest blogger for the month of April. I’m coming to you from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Library in NYC where I am a Reference librarian. This month I would like to tell you about the changing field of medical librarianship and how to best prepare for a career in it. Don’t let the title of this post fool you, medical librarianship is still alive and well, just drastically different than what many perceive it to be. A librarian, in the traditional sense of the word, does not encompass all that a medical librarian does. According to Merriam-Webster, a librarian is “a specialist in the care or management of a library.” Therefore, a medical librarian is “a specialist in the care or management of a medical library.” Of course, all librarians are far more than this.
Allow me to elaborate…
I believe medical librarians to be the true chameleons of the library world. All librarians nowadays must stay relevant by adapting with changing technology to meet their community’s needs, but perhaps the most crucial adapters are the medical librarians. The sheer nature of information that medical librarians handle on a daily basis is demanding in itself; the ever-changing and evolving climate of healthcare and medicine requires that current awareness be a staple of the profession. Knowing how to find the best evidence is the way to succeed as a medical librarian, with the constant change in textbooks, protocols, guidelines, medications, best practices, etc.
A Day in the Life…
Research. Searching the literature efficiently is perhaps the most important skill of a medical librarian. When searching the medical literature—with its unique terminology and vast number of references—never underestimate the power of Boolean. Using the AND, OR, and NOT connectors will help you target the results set for your client. Also, getting as much information about the topic itself and any limits of the research is helpful. For instance, limiting a search to only the past five years will bring down the total number of results to sift through.
(Diagram courtesy Antonio DeRosa)
Collaboration. Teaming up with different groups, services, or departments within your institution helps to ensure your relevancy with the institute’s operation as a whole. This takes more than simple maintenance of the library’s collection and physical space. It takes a proactive attitude and an eye for opportunity. My library director sees every client interaction as a chance for marketing and teaching. One strategically placed comment or well-thought spiel can open up the information flood gates to the library’s resources. The goal should always be to tap into a group or department that seldom uses the Library. LibGuides is an effective way to do this. If you’re unfamiliar with LibGuides as a tool for collaboration, check out Springshare’s LibGuides.
Training. Holding workshops and classes is another major part of being a medical information professional. Offering sessions tailored to your community’s needs keeps you a forerunner when it comes to learning in your institution. A workshop on searching medical databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Scopus, National Guideline Clearinghouse, etc.) or bibliographic management tools is a sensible place to start, if your library doesn’t already have a curriculum in place. Knowing and offering instruction on the latest technology is always beneficial. For medical libraries especially, offering iPad workshops is almost a necessity if you want to target the medical students in your institution. Many medical schools are now providing iPads to their students upon enrollment.
(Image courtesy ClipArt)
Mobile Health. Keeping up on the latest apps, mobile websites/resources, and device upgrades will make the library the authority on all things mobile. By knowing departmental needs and uses of mobile devices, you can better provide relevant resources that differ from group to group within your institution. A good way to keep up on mobile healthcare resources is by setting up RSS feeds on some mobile health blogs and tracking these feeds in a reader tool (e.g. Google Reader). This way, you can set up a schedule to check your reader and record any new or noteworthy mobile information. It’s also important to note that there are many mobile versions of readers, so that you can learn about new mobile resources ON your mobile device. Talk about mobile-y resourceful! Mobile health has been called the “new frontier” in healthcare and medicine so it’s worth keeping an eye on. After all, it doesn’t seem to be losing momentum.
Tune in every week this month for more medical librarian/information professional tips and how-to’s.
Mar 29
Alex WatkinsFrom Our Guest Bloggers art history, globalism, open access
I’ve spent my time here talking about how times are a changin’ and we better roll with the punches, but that we don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, if you’ll pardon my cliches. But the gist of what I’m saying is that I love books and physical places and don’t think they’re going anywhere. But new technology is providing opportunities we can’t afford to pass up. In this last post, I want to talk about open access and why artists, art historians, and art librarians should care about it. I won’t spend very much time talking about what open access is, but only in talking about how it would have positive effects on scholarship and not just the library’s bottom-line.
Art history has been trying to address its biggest weakness that is its substantial western bias. Many academic disciplines emerged from the 19th century with a racist history of scholarship. Art History is no different. The canon that had been set went from Greece to the Roman Empire to the Cathedrals of Europe to the Frescoes of Italy to the Courts of French Kings to the Parisian rebels. All the art that developed everywhere else? Not so much.
Only recently has global art been given much attention. At first only in the ways it influenced and was appropriated by Western Art, from the Japonisme of the Impressionists to the African masks of the Abstract artists. Then it was discovering cultural connections. The legacy of Colonialism, the Silk road, or the Crusades are all prominent examples. These are all good and important, but there was still only one meta-narrative, and that was the evolution of western art (and by this I mean Europe and only more recently the US).
Hiroshige's Suruga Street. The Prussian Blue and use of perspective are examples of western influence
There is still a real need for alternative narratives, for local histories of art, for indigenous perspectives. As recent battles of cultural patrimony have shown, many parts of the world have grown wise to the West’s dominance in the study of art, and their imposition of scholarship onto other cultures. Part of the problem is that the availability of scholarship is vastly uneven, becoming a successful art historian, understanding how the disciple functions, isn’t an easy task.
This ceiling at the Met is Spanish, though its style was shaped by the Islamic influence in Iberia
It is hard/impossible to break into a field when you can’t read the literature, you can’t be up to date without access. You also lose out on publishing opportunities. A whole conversation is being shut down, simply because scholarly articles (the whole goal of which is to disseminate information & ideas) are not freely available. Art History is just one of many disciplines that could benefit from a truly global conversation. And yet we keep publishing in insular journals, and to make matters worse we only read from these same journals. Western art historians are talking to themselves.
This Aztec basin was once a place to put the hearts of sacrifice victims, it was appropriately turned into a baptismal font by Spanish missionaries
But there is a real desire to include more voices, to shake up the canon, to forge an international art history. It just hasn’t happened yet. The question is why not? Most certainly one barrier to this bright new future is the current publishing regime.
As a supporter of open access who has seen the reluctance to adopt new publishing models in Art History, it is important to expand the argument, not just about how it can improve the library’s budget but how it can enrich the field. This means librarians helping people find material published world-wide. Librarians can be a key kickstarter of a global interchange of ideas simply by pointing people in the right direction. Time to get started.
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