VRA Quarterly Newsletter | Winter 2023

Winter 2023 Association News

Conference UpdatePlanning for the VRA’s 2023 Annual Conference is underway. The Call for Proposals will arrive in your inbox next week, so start thinking now about what you would like to see at this year’s conference! A Call for Volunteers will be sent to the membership next week. If you are not a member but are interested in volunteering, contact initiatives@vraweb.orgIn November the Hotel Valencia on San Antonio’s River Walk was announced as the conference venue. The hotel is located on a relatively quiet part of the River Walk yet is extremely convenient for accessing downtown San Antonio and its attractions.Fundraising InitiativeThis fall VRA President John Trendler sent an email to VRA supporters regarding a new fundraising initiative to assure our organization a long and successful future of service to the image management community. Ways you can support the VRA include:

• Renewing your membership, which supports VRA’s core research, education, and professional development programs.
• Making a charitable gift, above and beyond renewing your membership, as donations are necessary to the future of several important VRA programs. Your donations support VRA scholarships, regional workshops, professional development awards, project grants, Summer Educational Institute for Digital Stewardship of Visual Information, and help the association pursue new initiatives.
• Making permanent provision for our work by including a Planned Gift to VRA in your estate plan. For more information about Planned Giving to VRA, email board@vraweb.org

New Issue of the VRAB AvailableThe Fall/Winter 2022 issue of the VRA Bulletin (VRAB) was published in December. Thank you to Content Editor and author Sara Schumacher; Production Editor Amy Lazet; and authors Maureen Burns, Akeem Flavors, Briana Meyer, Chelsea Stone, Lael Ensor-Bennett, and Kayla Olson for their work on this issue. The VRAB is a fully open access journal, and there is no cost to the authors in order to publish. If you are interested in publishing in the VRAB, information about the submission and publication process is available on the VRAB website.Fall 2022 Professional Development Grant AwardedThe Fall 2022 Professional Development Grant in the amount of $1000 was awarded to Yolanda Bustos, Museum Archivist and Library Resources Manager at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Yolanda developed an in-house digitization program at the museum and will use the grant to fund professional development in the areas of taxonomies, resource and metadata sharing, and grant writing.WorkshopsIn October and November the VRA offered the workshops Can We Do That?: Intellectual Property Rights and Visual Media with instructor Cara Hirsch and Something Mappy This Way Comes: An Introduction to Digital Mapping Technologies with instructor Justin Madron. Thank you to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for their support of the VRA Regional Workshop Program and to Regional Workshop Implementation Team members Beth Haas, Janice Shapiro Hussain, and Michelle Schierburg for their work developing this programming.EAC Community HoursThis fall the Equitable Action Committee (EAC) continued their Community Hour series. Topics of focus included personal and professional positionality with special guest Sara Schumacher and an introduction to metadata best practices for trans and gender diverse resources with special guest Devon Murphy. Thank you to EAC Co-Chairs Lael Ensor-Bennett and Lesley Chapman for their work organizing Community Hours.VREPS Fall Virtual ConferenceIn early November, VREPS collaborated with ArLiSNAP (Art Library Students & New ARLIS* Professionals) to host the annual Fall Virtual Conference. We are grateful to the students and professionals who presented their work as part of the Fresh Eyes 2.0 lightning round talks and the poster presentations that discussed creative research methods, weeding through fine arts collections, conservation, folk art, and publishing students’ work. For those interested in hearing more about the conference who weren’t able to attend, summaries of the presentations written up by presenters were posted throughout the month of December to the VREPS blog. Thank you to VREPS Co-Chairs Karissa Hurzeler and Allie Scholten for their work organizing this event.

Leadership Updates

Grants OfficerLiz Gadelha has been appointed as the VRA’s next Grants Officer. Liz is the Archivist for Digitization Services at the Bentley Historical Library and joined the VRAF Board of Directors in 2021 and continued on to serve on the merged VRA Board in 2022.

Social Media ManagerChloe Van Stralendorff has been appointed as the Association’s Social Media Manager. Chloe is the Visual Resources Curator at Reed College and brings impressive communications experience to this role. Contact Chloe at socialmedia@vraweb.org if you have VRA social media content ideas.

Current Opportunities

Executive Board Openings

The VRA Executive Board is seeking volunteers for the Board position of President-Elect. Executive Board Officers are elected by the Board. Terms of office will begin in Spring 2023 following a period of shadowing the current officers. Benefits of serving on the Board include complimentary membership and conference registration. Contact board@vraweb.org to find out more.

Upcoming Events

EAC Community Hour: New Year’s Check-in, Resolutions Not RequiredWednesday, January 18th, 11 a.m. Pacific / 2 p.m. EasternThis month’s Community Hour will be a space for VRA members to come together, support each other, and be candid about concerns for the year to come. As always, Community Hours are not recorded to encourage free and open discussion.

VREPS CV/Resume ReviewFriday, February 3rd, 10 a.m. Pacific / 1 p.m. EasternRegistration details forthcoming.