VRA Affiliated Society Session at CAA's 103rd Annual Conference

CAA 103rd Annual ConferenceHilton New York – Sutton Parlor North, 2nd Floor1335 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NYVRA Affiliated Society Session - Thursday, February 12, 20155:30-7:00 pm- this (and all affiliate sessions) are free and open to the public - From Creation to Classification to Consideration: How Technology is Changing the Role of Artist ArchivesSession AbstractFor this session we invite four archivists working for individuals or as part of larger institutions to discuss their experiences creating and using artist archives. The role archivists traditionally played in managing and supporting efforts to establish an artist’s legacy is changing in response to new expectations of users to have interactive, accessible information. Strides in technology now allow for better access to resources, especially for living artists who are prolific. Managing a digital image archive also plays an integral role in establishing a comprehensive survey of an artist’s work. Keeping records of transient works and meeting the needs of the studio provides access to scholars and curators in the future. The speakers in this session will also explore the collaborative aspect of artist-as-creator and archivist-as-mediator and steward of the documentation to be used by both artists and art historians alike.PresentersMissy Brown, Metadata Specialist, Pratt Institute (Moderator)Establishing a Legacy: Managing an Artist’s Archive within a Trust and Estate PlanJanine St. Germain, Consulting ArchivistArtist archives may be arranged and managed with an interest in supporting eventual estate plans tailored to the artist’s long-term legacy plan.  The collection may serve as a resource for new works, as well as support a collection's future intellectual and financial value. Artists' archives can be managed with an interest in a range of eventualities: their donation to a suitable repository, the creation of trusts for heirs of the artist, future collaboration with other collections or institutions, or eventual sale. All of these outcomes are maximized when the archive is considered within an established estate plan, preferably put into place during the artist's lifetime, rather than as an afterthought following his or her death.  Drawing from examples of work with a variety of recent archives and estates, discussion will focus on how artist archives can manage and support efforts to establish an artist’s legacy.Janine St. Germain is a consulting archivist in the NY metropolitan area.  She has managed the archival collections of fine artist Robert Kushner, theater artist Robert Wilson, and performing/visual artist Christopher Knowles.  She is currently working with the estate of earthworks artist Nancy Holt, as well as a variety of faculty and alumnae collections held at Vassar College’s Archives and Special Collections Library.Artists in the ArchivesIvy Marvel, Manager of Special Collections, Brooklyn Public Library.Jamel Shabazz is best known for his photographs of New York street life in the 1970s and 80s. Portraits of teens decked out in the finest new fashions – published in his books Back in the Days and A Time Before Crack – chronicle the birth of the hip-hop aesthetic in vivid color. Brooklyn Public Library started working with Shabazz in 2012, incorporating his photographs into its archive and engaging the public with his work and process through programming, online presentations and exhibitions. The Library’s archive of more than 250,000 photographs skews toward the first half of the 20th century; working with living photographers like Shabazz has allowed the Library to expand its coverage of Brooklyn into the latter half of the 21st century and up to the present day. Through this partnership with Shabazz, the library has developed a model to accession and make available the work of other living photographers.Ivy K. Marvel is Manager of Special Collections at Brooklyn Public Library, overseeing the library’s local history archive, the Brooklyn Collection.  She earned a Master’s degree in Library Science at Pratt Institute in 2010 and has worked for the Brooklyn Public Library since 2007.The Living ArchiveNicole Root, Archivist, Lynda Benglis StudioIn the fast-paced studio of a prolific living artist, archival issues often take a back seat to the pressing concerns of daily business. Still, a working archive is essential to a studio's efficient operation and an important preliminary step in producing a resource for future scholars. In the Lynda Benglis studio, decades of different filing systems, inconsistent database entry and recent construction have become major obstacles to finding information quickly and preserving important documents. Furthermore, Benglis's working process demands an organizational method different from traditional object files. Using the perspectives of an art historian and artist, this presentation will discuss the development of a comprehensive organizational system that is tailored to Benglis's working process, the needs of the studio and future accessibility for researchers.Nicole Root is the archivist for the Lynda Benglis studio and an art history instructor at Adelphi University. In addition to her art historical training at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, Root has worked in galleries, maintained the records of a large private collection of American art and served as an assistant to sculptor and performance artist, Maren Hassinger.Street Art Graphics: A People’s ArchiveCatherine Tedford, Gallery Director, St. Lawrence UniversityAlthough transient by design, street art stickers, flyers, and other paper-based ephemera capture the creative, cultural, and political pulse of time and place. With topics addressing environmental issues, economic crises, race, class, gender and sexuality, workers’ rights, Occupy movements, and presidential elections, these materials can be used for teaching and research in fields across the curriculum. St. Lawrence University’s digital archive of “Street Art Graphics” currently features over 2,200 such examples from around the world. The archive has been incorporated into course-related assignments and exhibitions at SLU and other alternative art spaces. During the past year, students, young alumni, and community members have collaborated on a new “People’s Archive” and investigative blog project that examines the ways ordinary citizens make use of public space to express themselves. The role of the archivist/activist as an agent for social justice and the notion of archival neutrality are also discussed.Catherine Tedford received a Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1983 and has served as the director of the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University since 1989 (she loves her job). She has presented at academic conferences in England, Germany, Scotland, and the United States. Her writing about street art graphics can be found on her research blog Stickerkitty.

Visual Resources Association Foundation Announces 2014 Project Grant Winners

The Board of Directors of the Visual Resources Association Foundation is pleased to announce the presentation of its 2014 VRAF Project Grants to Matthias Arnold, University of Heidelberg, and Krystle Kelley, University of Colorado Boulder. The amount of each award is $1500.Matthias Arnold, Heidelberg Research Architecture, University of Heidelberg, will use the award to support the development of the VRA Core 4 XML Transform Tool. This tool will enable any user who can supply descriptive image metadata in a standardized CSV form (comma separated values, e.g. via Excel) to create validating VRA Core 4 XML. Useful on its own, this XML also represents an important step for further transformations to other XML schemas, like RDF to support output of data as LOD (Linked Open Data). The tool is being developed in consultation with both the VRA Data Standards and the Core OC Committees, will be shared with the image management community during beta-testing for feedback, and will be open-source and freely available upon completion. Susan Jane Williams (Independent Cataloging and Consulting Services) will serve as coordinator for the mapping templates and will help create documentation, demonstrations (sample records and mappings), and further mapping help in use of the tool. We are confident that this tool will have broad value and impact within the visual resources community, and for the VRA Core 4 standard.Krystle Kelley, M.A. student in Art History at the University of Colorado Boulder, will use the award to support a pilot project to digitize and make broadly accessible 500 images that highlight the extraordinary depth and breadth of the 30,000 Ronald M. Bernier Image Archive. The particular strength of this archive is in the cultures of Nepal, India, Tibet, and Southeast Asia, and in its emphasis on documentation of less studied indigenous traditions, notoriously difficult to access countries and sites, and sites and works that are now in peril or have now disappeared altogether.The project aims to provide broad, public access to a unique, incredibly valuable archive, and do so at the highest standard. As the project evolves, members of the scholarly community at the University of Colorado Boulder and beyond will be consulted to contribute metadata, providing the project with a crowdsourcing element that could serve as a model for others who are trying to grapple with important—but minimally described—collections. Krystle has assembled an excellent project team at the University of Colorado Boulder, including an Art History faculty member, and Elaine Paul and Lia Pileggi from the Visual Resources Center. We anticipate that the project will lead to a resource that will be of lasting value to scholars and image management professionals, as well as to the broader general public.The purpose of the VRA Foundation’s Project Grant is to provide support for projects in the field of visual resources and image management.  Please visit vrafoundation.org for more information.The mission of the VRA Foundation is to advance knowledge in the field of visual resources and image management and to provide educational and training opportunities in support of broad access to cultural information in the digital age. The Foundation advances awareness of important issues for digital information management; encourages the application of professional standards, innovative technology, and metadata cataloging protocols; facilitates workplace training; and promotes awareness of intellectual property rights and copyright issues. The VRA Foundation supports a range of educational offerings to help ensure that such information reaches a diverse and global audience.

Plenary speakers for Denver conference; registration begins tomorrow

Dear VRA colleagues,I am very pleased to announce the exciting plenary speakers for our upcoming 33rd Annual Conference in Denver (March 11-14, 2015). Opening speaker Aaron Straup Cope, Head of Engineering at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum and also an artist, will discuss how the New Cooper Hewitt Experience engages visitors with interactive and immersive creative technologies. Closing speaker Emily Gore, Director for Content with the Digital Public Library of America, will address the strategic vision for DPLA content and oversight of the DPLA Hub program.Kudos and many thanks to Vice President for Conference Program Steven Kowalik for coordinating these innovative thinkers' presence at our conference.See the conference website for more information about the preliminary program (including more details about our plenary speakers), accommodations, travel arrangements, and more. As you will see from the preliminary program, we have stellar sessions, workshops, meetings, and events lined up for attendees.And get ready: conference registration begins tomorrow! Keep an eye out for an e-mail with registration information.I'm looking forward to seeing many of you in the Mile High City for what promises to be an outstanding conference.Best wishes,Elaine

Election Results

Dear VRA colleagues,I am pleased to report the outcomes of the recent VRA membership vote, held November 1-30, 2014.Please join me in congratulating and welcoming our incoming Executive Board members, who will take office at the Annual Business Meeting in Denver, March 13, 2015.President-Elect: Jen Green, Plymouth State University Secretary: Jasmine Burns, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Vice President for Conference Program: Chris Strasbaugh, Vanderbilt UniversityOn behalf of the Executive Board I would like to warmly thank all of the candidates for being willing to serve the Association in leadership roles. We would also like to extend our gratitude to the Nominating Committee: Jolene de Verges (Co-Chair), Robb Detlefs, Marcia Focht, Jeannine Keefer (Co-Chair), and Heidi Raatz, with special thanks to Robb Detlefs and Heidi Raatz for serving as election tellers.The following are the results for the votes on the amendments to the VRA Constitution and Bylaws:Amendment to VRA Constitution, Article VII (New): RELATIONS WITH THE VRAF: Passed with a 90% margin Amendment to VRA Bylaws, Article III: NOMINATION AND ELECTION OF OFFICERS: Passed with a 90% margin Amendment to VRA Bylaws, Article V: DUTIES OF OFFICERS: Passed with a 90% margin Affiliation with the Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC): Passed with an 89% marginMany thanks to the membership for voting on these important Association matters.Best wishes,Elaine

VRA Travel Awards November Member Challenge - final total and thank you!!!

Dear all,We are absolutely delighted to announce to you that as of theclose of play on the final day of the our challenge yesterday(November 30), the membership had donated an astonishing $1390! Thatmeans that we didn't just meet our initial target of $850, nettingthat extra travel award to fund attendance at VRA33 in Denver, but wesurpassed it by $540, meaning that we will be able to make one otherTA applicant a happy recipient of the 'Member Challenge Award'.A colossal thank you to you, the membership, for your generosity.It makes us feel proud to be members of this association.The committee has been deliberating the many strong TAapplications it has received this cycle and will be announcing theoutcome to the VRA-L in the next couple of weeks. It's great that wehave not even just one, but two other awards to bestow this year, sothank you once again.Warmest wishes,Vicky & Jeannine 

November Member Challenge - update and final call

Dear VRA members,Welcome to the fourth weekly update for our November Member Challenge.With just under a week to go we are delighted to announce that we now have a total of $1037 sitting in the pot, so as well as having earned that all important extra $850 award (the Luraine Tansey Memorial Travel Award), we now have a further $187 to bestow on a deserving TA recipient. Our challenge to the membership is to get that figure up with a final push, so before you disappear off on your holidays and spend your hard earned cash on Black Friday, spare a thought for your fellow VRA members and make a donation before November 30!Simply go to the VRA Membership ‘Join’ and select ‘Separate Donations andChapter Membership’. Sign in to MemberClicks and enter the amount ofyour donation, large or small (every little helps!) in the TanseyTravel Award Donation box.Thank you again for your generosity!Vicky and Jeannine (TA Co-Chairs)

GREAT NEWS! And TA Application re-opened

Good Morning VRA Members,1. We have fantastic news from the November Member Challenge - we have reached our initial goal of $850 and an additional travel award (the Luraine Tansey Memorial Travel Award) for the Denver conference (in fact we've received donations totaling $937)!!!  A sincere thank you goes out to all of those members who have helped us reach this goal, your generosity is much appreciated.As per the terms of our anonymous donor, we can shoot for another $850  - that's just $763 to earn by the end of November. To help make this happen, go to the VRA Membership ‘Join’ page and select ‘Separate Donations and Chapter Membership’. Sign in to MemberClicks and enter the amount of your donation, large or small (every little helps!) in the Tansey Travel Award Donation box. If you are renewing your individual membership, you can donate via this form too.2. We are also happy to announce that we have received donations for two awards sponsored by our generous vendors.  Archivision will be supporting an international travel award in the amount of $1000 and Gallery Systems will be supporting a museum professional with a travel award in the amount of $700.  Thank you to Archivision and Gallery Systems!3.  In light of these developments we will be re-opening the Travel Award Application this morning and will accept applications until 12:00 PM EST on Friday November 21st.  If you were on the fence about applying, now is the time to take the plunge!http://goo.gl/forms/96FqOULrVOBefore you apply, PLEASE READ "Travel Award Rules, Guidelines and Tips” for VRA Travel Awards Applicants, and "Types of Travel Awards", both linked here as PDFs.Again a sincere thank you goes out the membership and our travel award sponsors.  We look forward to seeing you at a great conference in Denver!!!Jeannine and Vicky

November Member Challenge Update

Good afternoon VRA Membership,We are entering the second week of November and our third Travel Awards November Member Challenge update brings fantastic news – your generosity has landed us in the 87% range of our goal to attain an extra travel award for attendance at VRA 33 in Denver!We have just $108 to go and no amount is too small - $2, $5, $10….  Or too big. Remember, any funds we raise beyond our $850 goal will be matched by our anonymous donor – so we could strive for a second award if our goal is met.How can you help us meet this goal?  Simply go to the VRA Membership ‘Join’ page and select ‘Separate Donations and Chapter Membership’. Sign in to MemberClicks and enter the amount of your donation, large or small (every little helps!) in the Tansey Travel Award Donation box. If you are renewing your individual membership, you can donate via this form too.Looking forward to next week’s update…Vicky and Jeannine (TA Co-Chairs)

VRA Travel Award Committee's November Member Challenge - and they're off....!

Good day VRA members around the globe,As November comes knocking on our doors, here's a reminder to participate in the Travel Awards 'November Member Challenge'!Each week, we will be updating you with the scores on the donors, encouraging you (yes, YOU) in the quest to attain that all important extra travel award for attendance at VRA 33 in Denver. So without further ado....As you can see, so far we have raised $100 - so a massive thank you, you early birds, for your contributions.To the rest of you, don’t wait around, donate today: simply go to the VRA Membership ‘Join’ page here:httpS://vraweb.org/membership/join/ and select ‘Separate Donations and Chapter Membership’. Sign in to MemberClicks and enter the amount of your donation, large or small (every little helps!) in the Tansey Travel Award Donation box. If you are renewing your individual membership, you can donate via this form too.We need just $150 a week for the remainder of the period - that's a mere 43 grande lattes/week or 15 "casual fast food" lunches. So plug in those coffee machines, dust off those lunch boxes and with the money you save, donate today! But don't just listen to us, here are Allan and Marcia to remind us of what this is all about: http://vimeo.com/109474497Stay tuned for more updates soon…Vicky and Jeannine (TA Co-Chairs)

2014-2015 VRA Foundation Project Grant Program

Deadline:  November 5, 2014The Visual Resources Association Foundation (VRAF) announces that the application period for its next round of Project Grants is open. This program provides support for projects that reflect the VRA Foundation mission to advance education, research, and outreach in the field of visual resources and image management.Two grants are available in the fall 2014 cycle with up to $1,500 to be awarded per grant. The funds may be used for stand-alone projects, pilots or start-up financing for larger projects, or for a significant component of a larger project. Collaborative projects and those proposed by groups, whether or not affiliated with an organization or institution, are encouraged. Of particular interest are innovative projects with results that can have broad impact and be shared with the global community. Categories to be considered for funding include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following:Image Cataloging and MetadataData StandardsDigital ArchivesDigitization Projects of Special and/or Unique Collections (Educational Institutions, Libraries, Museums)Visual LiteracyPedagogy and TechnologyIntellectual Property RightsThe deadline for the fall 2014 review is November 5, 2014.  Awards will be announced by December 17, 2014. More information, including the application form, can be found on the Visual Resources Association Foundation website at:http://vrafoundation.org.s119319.gridserver.com/index.php/grants/project_grants/For consideration, please submit your application to Betha Whitlow, bwhitlow@artsci.wustl.edu, by Wednesday, November 5, 2014, 11:59 Pacific Time. The recipients of the VRAF Project Grants will be announced by Wednesday, December 17, 2014.The VRA Foundation has United States Internal Revenue Service status as a 501c3 non-profit entity. All elements of a proposed project must be performed within the legal parameters of United States local, regional, and federal government requirements. International applications are welcome from institutions or individuals provided applicant institutions have the equivalent of US non-profit status, and applicant individuals have a similar non-profit, educational purpose.If you have further questions about the Project Grant Program or the application process, please contact: Betha Whitlow, VRA Foundation Board of Directors, bwhitlow@artsci.wustl.edu, phone: 314-935-5256.

Visual Resources Association Foundation Announces 2014 Professional Development Grant Winners

The Board of Directors of the Visual Resources Association Foundation is pleased to announce the presentation of its 2014 VRAF Professional Development Grants to Mark Pompelia, Rhode Island School of Design, and Courtney Baron, University of Georgia. The amount of each award is $850.00.Mark Pompelia, recipient of the grant for Established Career Professional, is Visual + Material Resource Librarian at the Fleet Library, Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, RI.  He will use the award to support his participation at the October 2014 conference of the Art Libraries Society of Australia and New Zealand in Auckland, NZ.  He will speak in the session titled, Steady as She Goes: Images and the Visual Resources Association: Preserving the Past while Embracing the Future, organized by VRA colleagues Victoria Brown of Oxford University, UK, and Jennifer Brasher of Griffith University Queensland College of Art Library, Queensland, Australia.  Mark’s talk will focus on the “expanded definition of visual resources at the Rhode Island School of Design,” which “has come to include all non-text-based collections and services for RISD’s twenty-two departments and administrative offices of the President, Alumni Affairs, Graduate Studies, and Global Partners and Programs.”  Proposed by the new VRA International Chapter, this session was inspired by enthusiasm for the opening session at the 2014 VRA conference in Milwaukee, moderated by Mark, which had a similar theme.  This is the first time a VRAF Grant has been awarded to an American attending an international conference, exemplifying the Foundation’s commitment to reaching a diverse and global audience with educational offerings in the field of visual resources and image management.Courtney Baron, recipient of the grant in the Emerging Professional category, serves as the new Visual Resources Curator in the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA.  She is also working toward her MLIS degree at Valdosta State University, focusing on art and academic librarianship, with the anticipation of finishing in the spring of 2015.  Courtney will use the grant to support her participation at the 2015 Visual Resources Association Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado.  As a first-time VRA conference attendee, Courtney expects to bring back “much needed connections, tools, and ideas” to her home institution.  Among the topics she is eager to learn more about are “the changing and growing responsibilities of the visual resources professional, re-envisioning the physical space of visual resources libraries, and supporting the digital humanities.”  She would also like to see what collection management systems other professionals are using, since her goals at the University of Georgia include selecting and implementing a new database for their image collection, as well as an institutional archive for their School of Art.  Courtney states that although the VRA listserv “has been an invaluable resource” in her pursuit of information about these and other topics, she knows that she “could learn and absorb much more at the annual VRA conference.  I know I will put the experience of attending VRA to good use.”The purpose of the VRAF Professional Development Grant is to support professional development in the field of visual resources and image management.  In recognition of the differing professional development needs for an emerging professional and an established career professional, two awards are funded annually.  Please visit vrafoundation.org for more information.The mission of the VRA Foundation is to advance knowledge in the field of visual resources and image management and to provide educational and training opportunities in support of broad access to cultural information in the digital age. The Foundation advances awareness of important issues for digital information management; encourages the application of professional standards, innovative technology, and metadata cataloging protocols; facilitates workplace training; and promotes awareness of intellectual property rights and copyright issues. The VRA Foundation supports a range of educational offerings to help ensure that such information reaches a diverse and global audience.

VREPS Member Profile: Anna Bernhard (VREPS Co-Chair)

Anna Bernhard is the Director of the Stanley G. Wold Visual Resource Center and Library at Colorado State University, a position she began two years ago, and she is the continuing her role as co-chair of VREPS.

Like many in the library sciences field, she studied history, and, like many in visual resources, her path was fairly roundabout. “I ended up in VR more by chance than by determination,” she says. “I had been working as an Archives Assistant in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and as a Graduate Assistant in reference at the Pratt Institute Library while I finished my MLIS and began that painful process of sending out scores of applications.” She had applied for the job at CSU early on but says she had almost forgotten about it when they called. “I came out here and had a traditional academic day-long interview and just had a great visceral connection with the faculty and staff,” she says. “Although I always assumed myself to be more of an archives and special collections person, this work has been great—very versatile and involving a lot of research and interaction with students.”

Anna originally considered enrolling in a PhD program in medieval history. She completed a Master of Philosophy (MPhil), a one-year masters program, at Trinity College in Dublin right after her undergraduate studies at Bates College. “I’ve always been extremely passionate about history,” she says. “I love art, obviously, but a lot of people would assume I have more of an academic training in art than I do. In fact, my MPhil was my opportunity to delve into medieval history and see if I ought to do a PhD. I remember someone saying to me that, at [the PhD] level, you tend to learn almost everything about almost nothing, and I realized I loved learning a little about everything—which is probably why I was drawn to the library world.”

Anna moved to New York and enrolled in the MLIS program at the Pratt Institute, and her first archives position was as a digital archivist/editorial assistant at a Buddhist magazine. She notes, “I know nothing of Buddhism but will now always assert that they are great folks to be employed by — very generously spirited.” They gave her release time to intern with the MET, where she started at the Cloisters (the Medieval branch of the MET, in Fort Tyron Park) and was then transferred down to the main branch, working almost exclusively on the architectural records of the museum buildings.

At the museum, Anna says she learned concrete skills like cataloging and database management, but some of the most valuable experiences were abstract concepts, like working confidently and productively with little supervision. “When you work on a collection you become the expert on that subject,” she says. “You learn to honor a collection while understanding the role and the autonomy of the final research experience. In other words, you do what you can to organize and enable access but understand that you still need to be moving through at a quick pace.” She continues, “The temptation to get obsessed with individual pieces is huge in the beginning. If I were there now I could move through a little faster!”

In her current position at the VRC, Anna says that there really is no typical day. There are the daily tasks like responding to questions and checking out materials (resources and tech tools), but each day is different. “Most days I’ll expect to meet with a student or two about a research paper or their artist statement and work with my interns/students who are working in another room digitizing and cataloging our slide collection.” She continues, “Occasionally, I’ll go into a classroom to talk about research and visual literacy. I see myself as an embedded art librarian more than anything honestly. I love working on research with faculty and students.”

Most of the student and faculty users are generally from the art department, which is the biggest department in the college of liberal arts. Like Maggie at Queens College (CUNY), Anna often advises students about transformative use of resources, especially for students in CSU’s new electronic arts program. “One thing that I do see is that students are very nervous about is copyright law,” she says. “In fact, today I’ve got a lawyer from CSU’s general counsel coming in to give an information session about that very issue for students. I see students feeling very fearful about copyright.” It’s a challenge to make sure the students are aware of copyright issues without feeling afraid that they’ll be hit with a lawsuit if they make a mistake. “Hopefully, this session will encourage them to be a little more aggressive, actually. I do think students are scared, although they can also be a little complacent, and there are a lot of Public Domain resources out there.”

“I see VR management changing a lot,” she says. “I think we’re a little bit in a Wild West moment. Yet I think these changes are dependent on the culture of particular institutions and also their needs. I also think it is shifting in response to the interests and passions of the emerging professionals. One of the great joys and challenges of VRA is how diverse its members are, particularly new members.” An important role for VRA is promoting the work that VR curators and managers do, especially as they are often the lone VR professionals at their institutions. Anna hopes VREPS can help by recruiting more students and new professionals: “We have something in the works to encourage internships with VRA members, which I think will help. I also think that it is important for VRA members to continue to be active in other related associations and be visible.”

She continues, “I think the value in being a member of a professional organization like VRA is in learning to advocate for yourself in a professional capacity. Many, if not most, of us are operating our own little ‘shops’ so to speak, which is great, but it is important to remember you are part of a profession.” Anna makes an effort to define herself as a professional distinct from counterpart faculty or staff members, which she believes creates a natural role for herself as a liaison with those communities and also between them and students. “Being part of a professional network reminds you that you have your own community, even if you don’t see it right in front of you every day.”

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Marie Elia is the Processing Archivist in the Poetry Collection at the University at Buffalo Libraries. If you would like to participate in the profile series, please get in touch at eliam@buffalo.edu.

VREPS Member Profile: Kate Thornhill

Kate Thornhill is the Visual Resource Curator at Lesley University College of Art and Design Library in Boston, a position she calls ideal, a mix of her library and art interests. She earned a BFA and a BA in photography and Art History from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth before attending Simmons for her MLIS. She spent two years as the Senior Digital Assistant at the VRC at UMass Dartmouth, which helped her crystallize her path to a VR career.“My junior year I was playing around with the idea of getting a masters in visual culture studies,” she says. “I saw myself gravitating more towards research instead of focusing on becoming a professional photographer. I am interested in everything, so focusing on one career was really hard for me.” Like many VR professionals, Kate was guided by a mentor, Allison Cywin, Director of the UMass Dartmouth Visual Resource Center. “I met her through the art history program, and when I started asking her what the VRC does, I thought, this is so awesome: It’s art history, photography, and research all in one thing. At the time I had no clue it related to library science and information management.”At the VRC, Kate quickly realized she liked building digital collections and helping people find images. “I thought, how do I turn this into a job? That’s when Allison said I should really look into an MLIS.” Kate completed a rigorous program at Simmons, including coursework in Digital Libraries, Web Development, Digital Stewardship, and Scientific Research Data Management. “Since completing grad school, all my professional interests have dovetailed,” Kate says, though VR management was not covered in her MLIS program, as is often the case. “I think VR gets lumped into digital humanities, digital initiatives, and digital curation studies.” Even though MLIS programs focus on metadata and digital collections creation and management, few programs specifically address how these disciplines are applicable to VR management.We revisited a topic that Jasmine and I had discussed, the MLIS as a companion degree: Deciding on a subject specialty and tailoring MLIS curriculum to that field. Kate hopes to take her targeted education further, with plans to earn a graduate computer science degree. “It would make digital assets management more streamlined and flexible, and help digital preservation practices. It would also open a lot of doors for working with open source programs and developing tools for VR,” because using open source software is often impractical without in-house IT staff to manage it.On a related note, we discussed how tech-savvy VRA members are, and how capable they are with respect to managing digital collections. Kate says, “It makes me wonder how much VR collaborates with ASIS&T and SAA because they do a lot so much with managing/preserving digital collections. I think there should be more collaboration between professional organizations because there are so many special interest groups focusing on DAM,” but many people are intimidated by working with their digital assets. “That’s where professional development should come in,” Kate says. “I’m a strong advocate for continuing professional development and doing research in the library, but it’s hard with limited budgets and finding a balance between work and life,” which is why she thinks professional organization membership is valuable. “I think it’s really important to be actively participating, maybe not necessarily serving on committees, but showing what you are doing and how you are solving problems because there are others trying to figure out the samethings.” Kate described how the VRA listserv helped her recently while working with IRIS. Through the listserv, Kate was able to connect with a Visual Resources Librarian at MIT. “She took time out of her day to sit with me for an hour just to learn some basics about IRIS. It was tremendously helpful!”Kate and the LUCAD library are currently making plans for a big move, relocating across the river to Cambridge. “The new library is going to be transformational for us,” Kate says, but it requires a massive overhaul of the collection, including a weeding project scheduled for summer 2014, and a deaccession project for the slide collection among other projects to be executed this summer. The slide collection currently consists of 50,000-60,000 slides, though 80% of the slide collection is in ARTstor. “Right now my team (2 student workers) and I are focusing on new media, graphic design, and illustration. We’re finding a lot of slides that aren’t in ARTstor but I have to be mindful of how much of the slide collection is kept because of limited space (for slides) in the new library. But, like many VR Curators, my goal for the future isn’t so much to focus on slides.”Kate has the opportunity and challenge to build the program from scratch. “I have a number of projects going on: research and instruction-based, DAM-based, and overall VRC vision- and mission-based.” But, as a relatively new curator, her main goal in her first year is to get to know her community. “I started by revamping the VRC’s digital image research LibGuide: http://research.lesley.edu/artimages. It’s going to be a continuous project (forever evolving) but some areas I’ve focused on building include digital image course specific guides and building a “special topics” in image research page. This is for non-art images because a lot of the questions I get from art students about images are not art based. I’ve also built an ARTstor help guide with some homegrown video tutorials along with a page dedicated to copyright and fair use.” This led us to a discussion about who uses the VRC, and Kate’s answer is that “Faculty, students, and staff do. It’s really great. This semester I have been working one-on-one with an instructor and students for a Fashion and Body Adornment class specifically focused on integrating visual and information literacy into studio art practice. Also, I’ve been addressing the elephants in the room: Google Images and Tumblr.Another project Kate is working on involves the Fenway Libraries Online consortium (a group of small/medium sized academic libraries) and DAM systems. “We are currently working on a Digital Repository Review, not just for VR but for all library and archive digital collections. This is one area I am very excited about because I have a strong interest and developing experience with managing research data and working with institutional repositories. I have a long term goal to start collecting student at LUCAD to deposit into our future IR. It’s going to take a lot of work since ultimately it’s an institutional effort, but I would love to develop arts research data management services for Lesley.”Kate believes that VR managers can be leaders in data management across disciplines. “We create and manage materials for digitization and similar concepts cross over for born-digital content. We understand the workflows for proper digital curation. For my final internship at Simmons, I ran a study at UMass Medical School with their Repository Librarian to assess biomedical PhD student research data needs. Along with this experience, library school, working in a VRC, and getting a degree in photography bells were ringing that research data management doesn’t only have a place in eScience. I see VR experts in tune with the repository management side and teaching data literacy skills. We are the ones who should support the visual arts community and developing their data management needs.”This flexibility and interdisciplinary knowledge base comes from the broad skill set that is required of VR managers. With this in mind, I asked Kate for her advice for students who want to get into VR. “Focusing on digital curation is going to be important, and thinking about how to help faculty and students manage their research or non-research digital collections. And look at the job ads! A lot of the classes I took were based on what jobs wanted, for example, hard skills like XML and XSLT.”And of course there are the internships: “My work experience at UMD, Tufts, Simmons, and UMass Medical School positioned me to have a lot of experience and projects under my belt to start at a job like the one I have now. I pretty much had no life for 2-3 years, haha.” But knowing where she wanted to be, looking at what current VR curators do as well as reading postings for new VR and digital initiatives positions helped her plan a curriculum. “I knew I wanted a job that would be in a field that’s only going to develop more. I think [MLIS education] is what you make of it. That’s the challenge: Knowing where you want to be.”Kate will be attending SEI this summer, so be sure to say hello!

VRA Core Website Receives a 4.5 out of 5 Rating from the Technical Services Quarterly

In a "Tech Services on the Web" review from the December 2013 issue of Technical Services Quarterly the VRA Core website received a rating of 4.5 out of 5.  The review praised the website for providing "a veritable treasure trove of implementation examples, presentations, and other important information for those thinking of using or who have already implemented VRA."Eustis, J. (2013). Tech Services on the Web: Visual Resources Association's VRA Core; Eustis, J. (2013). Tech Services on the Web: Visual Resources Association's VRA Core; http://www.loc.gov/standards/VRAcore. Technical Services Quarterly, 30(4), 441-442.. Technical Services Quarterly, 30(4), 441-442.::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::VRA Core on the WebVRA Core Schemas and Documentation (Library of Congress Official Site)VRA Core Support Pages