October EAC Community Hour: Personal & Professional Positionality
Join the EAC and our special guest Sara Schumacher on Wednesday, October 26 at 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT to discuss how you can create your own social identity profile by using positionality maps and power wheels. We will reflect on how our identities impact how we perceive images and thereby our jobs as visual resources professionals. When we understand our unconscious biases and relationship to power, what responsibilities do we have and what actions can we take?To learn more about intersectionality, positionality, and privilege, visit this infographic from the University of Michigan’s Center for Social Solutions.Sara Schumacher is the Architecture Image Librarian at Texas Tech University. Her research interests include visual literacy instruction, ethics, and bias.Click here to register for EAC's Community Hour! Have an idea for a future Community Hour? Share your idea with this form!Best,Lael and LesleyEAC Co-Chairs
Announcing the Fall 2022 VRA Professional Development Grant Recipient
Yolanda developed an in-house digitization program at the museum and has digitized over 10,000 assets. In reviewing the current efforts, she has identified three areas that would enhance the success of the department's efforts: Taxonomies, Resource and Metadata Sharing, and Grant Writing.Taking advantage of support from VRA, she will attend Heather Hedden's "Taxonomies and Controlled Vocabularies" online course as well as two offerings from the Library Juice Academy. We hope she enjoys the courses a great deal and look forward to a report of how they will help the museum's digitization plans.The VRA Professional Development Grant Program reflects the broad mission of the VRA to support professional development in the field of visual resources and visual information management. The grant can be used to participate in a professional development opportunity of the grantee’s choosing (such as a conference, symposium, workshop, online education), or to enroll in relevant research activities (such as hands-on field work or a site visit for scholarly purposes).For more information about the VRA, the VRA Professional Development Grant, and other VRA programs, please visit vraweb.org.
VRA Quarterly Newsletter | Fall 2022
Fall 2022 Association News
Conference Update
The VRA’s 2023 Annual Conference will take place September 26-28, 2023, in San Antonio, Texas. Be on the lookout for a call for proposals! An updated annual calendar of association events and activities will be provided to leadership this month.
2022 Workshop Season Underway
The VRA’s 2022 Workshop Season kicked off in September with Learning to Look and Looking to Learn: A Workshop on Visual Literacy. Don’t miss the upcoming workshops included in the event listings below! Thank you to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for their continued support of the VRA Regional Workshop Program and to the VRA’s Regional Workshop Implementation Team for their work developing this programming.
VRA Internship Award
Sagan Thacker of Asheville, North Carolina, is the recipient of the 2022-2023 VRA Internship Award. Through their internship at the Black Mountain College Museum, Sagan will help launch the museum’s first online portal, which will help make its holdings viewable to the general public. The VRA Internship is generously funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
VRAB Call for Reviewers
The VRA Bulletin (VRAB) is seeking reviewers for the Fall/Winter 2022 issue. Check out the list of resources available to review and sign up by October 7th!
Mid-Atlantic Chapter Meeting
The VRA’s Mid-Atlantic Chapter held an in-person meeting on August 12th at Penn State hosted by the university’s Center for Virtual/Material Studies. The day included an introduction to the Center’s new space, business meeting, visit to the Matson Museum of Anthropology, and visit to the School of Theatre Fashion Archive.
Leadership Updates
Intellectual Property Rights Co-Chair
Donna McClendon was appointed Co-chair of the Intellectual Property Rights Committee. Donna is Imaging Services Librarian at the Menil Collection in Houston. If you would like to get involved with the committee, contact Donna and Chair Kerry Annos at IPR@vraweb.org.
Current Opportunities
Executive Board Openings
The VRA Executive Board is seeking volunteers for three Board positions: President-Elect, Secretary, and Junior Director of Events and Initiatives. 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
VREPS Welcome HourOctober 5th, 4 p.m. Pacific/7 p.m. EasternGet to know the Visual Resources Emerging Professionals and Students (VREPS) at their Fall Virtual Welcome Hour!Can We Do That?: Intellectual Property Rights and Visual MediaFridays, October 14th and 21st (register by October 7th!), 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. EasternThis workshop is aimed at helping information, academic, archives, and cultural heritage professionals navigate the murky waters of US copyright law as it relates to visual media.Registration fee: $50Something Mappy This Way Comes: An Introduction to Digital Mapping TechnologiesTuesday, November 1st and Wednesday, November 2nd, 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. EasternA crash course in available digital mapping technologies including: ArcGIS, Carto, StoryMaps developments, and free open source technologies.Registration fee: $50ArLiSNAP / VREPS 2022 Fall Virtual ConferenceSaturday, November 5thThis one-day conference is open to all, but focuses on the needs of students and new professionals. Attendees interested in art librarianship or visual resource management will have the opportunity to learn from peers and celebrate each other’s work through virtual posters and presentations.Collaborating Across the Institution and Beyond: Creating Professional Partnerships to Support Cultural HeritageFridays, December 2nd and 9th, 11:30 a.m.-2:00 p.m. EasternThis workshop will provide concrete strategies for building stronger professional collaborations by exploring the benefits and barriers to creating collaborations and offering specific techniques to build successful partnerships.Registration opening soon!
Call for Reviewers for VRAB Fall/Winter 2022 Issue
Want to be more involved in the VRA Bulletin (VRAB)? Sign up to be a reviewer! Check out the list of resources available to review for the Fall/Winter 2022 issue below, and email Sara Schumacher with your selection by October 7th. You can also suggest additional resources for review. Reviews will be due by November 1st. Learn how to submit.
Available resources to review for the Fall/Winter 2022 Issue:
Books
- Moore, Rountrey, A., & Kettler, H. S. (2022). 3D Data Creation to Curation. Association of College & Research Libraries. Open access link.
- Sandy Hervieux, & Amanda Wheatley. (2022). The Rise of AI: Implications and Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Academic Libraries. Association of College and Research Libraries.
Standards/Guidelines/Best Practices
- The Trans Metadata Collective, Burns, Jasmine, Cronquist, Michelle, Huang, Jackson, Murphy, Devon, Rawson, K.J., Schaefer, Beck, Simons, Jamie, Watson, Brian M., & Williams, Adrian. (2022). Metadata Best Practices for Trans and Gender Diverse Resources (1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6686841; https://hdl.handle.net/2152/114788
- Europeana Copyright Community. (2022). Copyright management guidelines for cultural heritage institutions. Europeana. https://pro.europeana.eu/post/copyright-management-guidelines-for-cultural-heritage-institutions
- Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). (2022). The Framework for Visual Literacy in Higher Education. https://acrl.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=66818292
- Klosek, Katherine. Copyright and Contracts: Issues and Strategies. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries, July 22, 2022. https://doi.org/10.29242/report.copyrightandcontracts2022.
Scholarly Articles
- Travis Wagner (2022) Body-Oriented Cataloging as a Method of Inclusive Gender Representation, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, DOI: 10.1080/01639374.2022.2089795
- Treshani Perera (2022) Description Specialists and Inclusive Description Work and/or Initiatives—An Exploratory Study, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, DOI: 10.1080/01639374.2022.2093301
- Brian Dobreski, Karen Snow & Heather Moulaison-Sandy (2022) On Overlap and Otherness: A Comparison of Three Vocabularies’ Approaches to LGBTQ+ Identity, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, DOI: 10.1080/01639374.2022.2090040
- Cho, H., Pham, M.T.N., Leonard, K.N. and Urban, A.C. (2022), "A systematic literature review on image information needs and behaviors", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 78 No. 2, pp. 207-227. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-10-2020-0172
Technologies/Tools
Digital Exhibitions
September EAC Community Hour: Virtual Coffee Break
How is it [halfway through] September already!? If you are anything like us, you've had an exceptionally busy summer and things don't appear to be slowing down anytime soon! The EAC cordially invites you to a "virtual coffee break" at our next Community Hour, on Tuesday, September 27 at 2:00pm EDT / 11:00am PDT. Bring your beverage and/or snacks of choice to take a breather, decompress a bit, and take a look ahead. We have some great ideas for our Community Hours in 2022-2023, but we want to hear from you too! What can the EAC community do for you to help promote DEI in our field? What would you like to learn more about in the coming months? What challenges are we all facing right now? Hope to see you in the Zoom "break room"!Do you have a specific question or topic to discuss? Add it to the discussion prompt section in the Community doc here.Click here to register for EAC's Community Hour! Have an idea for a future Community Hour? Share your idea with this form!Best,Lael and LesleyEAC Co-Chairs
VREPS Fall Virtual Welcome Hour
🍁 Join VREPS for a Fall Virtual Welcome Hour on October 5 at 4pm PT / 7pm ET! 🍁Get to know us, what we do, and the professional development opportunities we can bring to the group! The mission of VREPS is to provide opportunities and resources to support the needs of students and new professionals in the Visual Resources field. We host virtual meetings, conference sessions and spaces for new professionals to present their work, as well as social and educational programming such as resume reviews and mock interviews. We also offer opportunities to lead an event and share your ideas.We want to hear from you and what types of programming you’re looking for to develop your work in the field! Many VREPS events are open to attend, though we encourage involvement with the wider VRA community too!Register for this event at the following link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Yb6ttgbfklIRtdIQLRaDifOjyAkJ1fEpJU8QY8a6KeU/edit?usp=sharingIf you additional questions email us at VREPS@vraweb.org.Best regards,Karissa Hurzeler and Allie Scholten, VREPS Co-ChairsWant to turn your course research into an article? Consider submitting to VRAB. Contact Sara Schumacher to discuss how to turn your ideas into a think piece, how-to article, technology/collection review, or even a peer-reviewed research article.
Save the Date: VRA 2023
The Visual Resources Association (VRA) invites you to
Save the Date for
VRA's 2023 Annual Conference
September 26-28, 2023
San Antonio, Texas
Be on the lookout for a call for proposals!
Questions? Contact initiatives@vraweb.org.
VRA Fall 2022 Workshop Season
The Visual Resources Association (VRA) is pleased to announce its 2022 Workshop Season! Workshops will cover a variety of topics relevant to those working with images in cultural heritage institutions and other fields. All workshops will be held virtually on Zoom in two parts. The fee for each workshop is $50.
Now open for registration!
Learning to Look and Looking to Learn: A Workshop on Visual Literacy (ZOOM)Fridays, September 23rd and 30th5:30 to 7:30pm ESTInstructors Jessica Sack and Rachel Thompson are a powerhouse duo from Yale and the Guggenheim, respectively. They're coming together again to teach attendees the ins and outs of Visual Literacy, which continues to grow as a relevant skill in today's world.Please register by Friday, September 16thCan We Do That?: Intellectual Property Rights and Visual Media (ZOOM)Fridays, October 14th and 21st11:30am to 2:00pm ESTThis workshop, taught by Cara Hirsh has sold out in past years and is coming back for an encore. Attendees will learn the basics of IPR concepts and work through real-life scenarios to gain a better understanding of how to handle these concerns.Please register by Friday, October 7th
Save the dates for these upcoming workshops! Registration will open soon!
- Something Mappy This Way Comes: An Introduction to Digital Mapping Technologies (ZOOM) Tuesday, November 1st and Wednesday, November 2nd, 5:30pm-7:30pm EST. Instructor: Justin Madron
- Collaborating Across the Institution and Beyond: Creating Professional Partnerships to Support Cultural Heritage (ZOOM) Fridays, December 2nd and 9th, 11:30am-2:00pm EST. Instructor: Maureen Burns
We'd like to thank the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for their continued support of the VRA Regional Workshop Program.If you have any questions, please send an email to the Regional Workshop Implementation Team at vraf.rwit@gmail.com.Beth Haas, Workshop CoordinatorJanice Shapiro Hussain, Senior Workshop LiaisonMichelle Schierburg, Junior Workshop Liaison
Announcing the 2022-2023 VRA Internship Award Recipient
The Visual Resources Association (VRA) is pleased to announce the 2022-2023 VRA Internship Award in visual resources and image management. This award was generously funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.Sagan Thacker of Asheville, North Carolina, is the recipient of the 10th Internship Award. They will receive $3,000 to work a minimum of 200 hours at the Black Mountain College Museum. Through their internship, Sagan will help launch the museum’s first online portal, which will make its holdings viewable to the general public. In the course of their work, Sagan will describe artworks and other objects held by the museum, digitize objects, and update public-facing records.The Association is pleased to support the education and practical training of emerging professionals through this internship award. The Internship Award Committee (Linda Callahan, Bonnie Rosenberg, Robb Detlefs, and Andrew Weymouth, our previous awardee) appreciates the careful thought that went into every proposal. We are grateful to the Kress Foundation for its assistance and for recognizing the potential of this award to foster the next generation of visual resource professionals.
Register Now! VRA Regional Workshop on Visual Literacy
The Visual Resources Association (VRA) is pleased to announce registration is now live for Learning to Look and Looking to Learn: A Workshop on Visual Literacy with instructors Jessica Sack of the Yale University Art Gallery and Rachel Thompson of the Guggenheim Museum. This two-part online workshop will be held via Zoom on Fridays, September 23rd and 30th, from 5:30 pm–7:30 pm EDT.REGISTRATIONTo register, please visit the workshop webpage. The workshop fee is $50. If you have questions about registration or general questions about the workshop, email the Regional Workshop Implementation Team at vraf.rwit@gmail.com. Please register by Monday, September 19, 2022.The Regional Workshop Implementation Team is grateful to The Samuel H. Kress Foundation for their continued support of this exciting opportunity to partner with cultural heritage and educational institutions. You can read about all the workshops planned for 2022 on our website: https://vraweb.org/opportunities/regional-workshops/WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONAs we now work in hybrid settings—in person and online—there is an increasing challenge to develop visual literacy skills of both educators and students, uniquely positioning those who work with visual media to provide necessary visual literacy training and instruction.This two-part workshop will provide participants with the tools to develop and implement visual literacy instruction within their professional practice both in person and using online platforms such as Zoom. Part one of this workshop will focus on visual literacy skills and pedagogical approaches by using Zoom to engage with objects from museums, libraries, and archives. Part two will focus on ways for participants to apply these pedagogies to their own work and institutions.Participants will discuss and develop ways to implement and evaluate their own visual literacy programs as well as how digital archives, art objects, and other primary sources can be used by staff, students, and faculty. The question of what it means to teach from collections within a range of professional perspectives–including from information, museum, and education contexts—will also be addressed.ABOUT THE INSTRUCTORSJessica Sack is the Jan and Frederick Mayer Curator of Public Education at the Yale University Art Gallery. Jessica has worked in the field of museum education for more than twenty years. In that time she has been developing professional development programs in Visual Literacy for a variety of audiences including librarian, teacher, and faculty workshops, and training graduate students as museum educators. In addition, Jessica works with area teachers and faculty, helping them find ways to teach from objects and hone their own observation skills. Prior to Yale, Jessica was the Senior Museum Educator and Coordinator of Teacher Services at the Brooklyn Museum. She has contributed to journals and publications including Art Education and The International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education, The Caring Museum: New Models of Engagement with the Ageing, Interpreting the Art Museum, “Looking to Learn, Learning to Teach” in the Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin and Picturing a Nation: Teaching with American Art and Material Culture. Jessica received her M.Phil. in Ethnology and Museum Ethnography from Oxford University, England, and a M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University.Rachel Thompson is the Associate Manager of School and Teacher Programs at the Guggenheim Museum. In this role, she plans, implements, and evaluates museum-based programs for teachers; provides support for Learning Through Art, a longstanding artist residency program in NYC public schools; and serves as a mentor for teens in the GuggTeens Collaborative program. Rachel began her career in education at Southwest High School in San Antonio, Texas, where she taught English and Latin. Prior to joining the Guggenheim, she was the John Walsh Fellow in Museum Education at the Yale University Art Gallery, where she facilitated museum programs for a range of audiences, including young children, university students and faculty, and K-12 educators. Rachel has co-authored publications on topics in museum practice in Art Education and The International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education. Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Rachel holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Texas at Austin, as well as a Master of Arts in Religion from Yale Divinity School.
VRA Core 4.0 Chinese Translations Now Available!
The Visual Resources Association (VRA) is pleased to announce that Chinese translations of VRA Core 4.0 are now available on the Library of Congress VRA Core page. The VRA Core is a data standard for the description of works of visual culture as well as the images that document them.Members of the VRA’s Cataloging and Metadata Standards Committee (CaMS) led and assisted on the project along with a group of five library professionals from American institutions. This team began the project to translate the VRA Core 4.0 Element Description into traditional and simplified Chinese in January 2021. The translation project went through multiple revisions before bilingual scholars and practitioners in the U.S., Taiwan, and P.R. China with years of experience with cultural heritage metadata were invited to review the drafts. In response to reviewers’ suggestions on the translation and formatting, the group carried through more rounds of modification and presented drafts for public comment in June 2022. The final translations now available on the VRA Core website incorporate feedback received during these multiple rounds of revision. The VRA Board and the Chair of the CaMS, Leah Constantine, would like to congratulate the following participants and thank them for their dedicated work on this project!Project Lead: Xiaoli Ma, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of FloridaDTP: K. Sarah Ostrach, Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford UniversityTranslators: Ching-jung Chen, The City College of the City University of New York Libraries; Sai Deng, University of Central Florida Libraries; Xiaoli Ma, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida; Jane Pen, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida;Reviewers: Sophy Shu-Jiun Chen, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan; Charlene Chou, New York University Library; Fan Wei, Sichuan University, P. R. China; Carol Ng-He, Center for the Art of East Asia, The University of Chicago; Shu-Wen Lin, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Marcia Lei Zeng, School of Information, Kent State University
Call for Applications: Fall 2022 VRA Professional Development Grant
DEADLINE: September 30, 2022The Visual Resources Association (VRA) is pleased to announce that it is accepting applications for the VRA Professional Development Grant program. This program offers two $1000 grants yearly (which may be divided amongst one or more grantees). This grant can be used to support conference participation, enroll in a workshop, for an online education opportunity, or for research activities.VRA membership is not required to apply. Applicants should have a professional interest in visual resources and cultural heritage information management and may include retirees, the currently unemployed, and students seeking educational and training opportunities in support of broad access to cultural information.For consideration, please submit your application by Friday, September 30th, 2022 at 11:59PM Pacific Time at https://forms.gle/V6XYRRGUKk8dYc2G8. If you have any questions about the VRA Professional Development Grant or the application process, please contact the VRA Grants Officer at grants@vraweb.org. The recipient(s) of the Fall 2022 VRA Professional Development grant will be announced by Friday, October 7, 2022, and funds must be used before October 7, 2023.
VRA Bulletin Call for Papers
The Visual Resources Association Bulletin (VRAB), a fully open access journal published by the Visual Resources Association, is accepting submission of news, editorials, perspectives, reviews, interviews, and lesson plans, as well as double-blind peer reviewed research articles.Our content covers all aspects of the life cycle of visual assets, from conceptualization to use, and the workflows, technologies, standards, and best practices relevant for each phase. This may include project planning, acquisition, digitization, metadata and cataloging, database management, collection development, curation, instruction, outreach, preservation, digital scholarship, visual literacy, and intellectual property.Of particular importance is highlighting and addressing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility needs and concerns within each life cycle phase.We welcome submissions from professionals, including those in their early career or still in graduate school, that work with visual resources in a variety of contexts including educational, corporate, and nonprofit institutions. You do not need to be a VRA member to submit.We accept submissions on a rolling/on-going basis and will publish them in the next available issue after acceptance. See our Information for Authors for more information on the submission and publication process.Please contact the VRAB content editor, Sara Schumacher, with any inquiries.
August EAC Community Hour: Vocational Awe in GLAMs
We hope you will join the EAC on Wednesday, August 17th 3:00-4:00pm EDT / 12:00-1:00pm PDT for our August Community Hour: Vocational Awe in GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums). Independent scholar and consultant Fobazi Ettarh defines ‘Vocational Awe’ as “the idea that libraries as institutions are inherently good. It assumes that some or all core aspects of the profession are beyond critique, and it, in turn, underpins many librarians’ sense of identity and emotional investment in the profession.” Although the term originated in the library world, we plan to discuss how it can cover many areas of the GLAM work world.If your schedule allows, we strongly encourage attendees to review the resources listed in the Community Hour doc in advance of attending the Hour as we will be discussing these materials. If not, please join us anyway!As always, we do not record the community hours to encourage free and open discussion.Do you have a specific question or topic to discuss? Add it to the discussion prompt section in the Community Hour doc.Click here to register for EAC's Community Hour! Have an idea for a future Community Hour? Share your idea with this form!Best,Lael and LesleyEAC Co-Chairs
VREPS Cover Letter and Resume Review coming August 12
Are you a student or new professional looking for someone to review your cover letter and resume?
Sign up for a one-on-one cover letter and resume review session with VREPS!
One-on-one interview practice sessions are your opportunity to work with a VRA professional to polish your self-presentation. We'll help you work on your cover letter and resume, as well as provide constructive feedback for you to put together a strong job application.
Not an emerging professional, but want to get involved?
We're looking for more experienced professionals to act as reviewers! Please free to sign up on the spreadsheet if you're interested in acting as an interviewer for our sessions--aka your chance to be a shining lighthouse that helps steer our new professionals and students into the safe harbors of employment!Our next practice sessions will take place on Friday, August 12th, from 1-4pm EST/10am-1pm PST.SIGN-UP HEREBest,Karissa Hurzeler and Allie Scholten, VREPS Co-Chairs