VRA/VRAF Joint Solidarity Statement

The VRA and VRAF condemn all violence, and acts of racism, including police brutality, against Black people, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). Unacknowledged structural, institutionalized, and legislated racism can no longer be tolerated. Our Black colleagues, their lives, their work, and their sense of belonging to this community matter. As a members’ organization (VRA) and a foundation (VRAF), we strive to create an inclusive community that values and encourages diversity in its membership and work. Our mission is not only to promote knowledge sharing, skill development, and best practices, but also to foster open, inclusive communication; to offer a supportive community; and to advocate for all people who engage in the management of visual assets. We have an obligation to do the work necessary to live up to this mission. Inclusion requires that we acknowledge the intergenerational history and persistence of systemic racism and actively work to counter racism and its lethal effects. We must disrupt the roles that our institutions and practices play in perpetuating injustice and racism by asking what we need to change in hiring and promotions, in curricula, in collecting policies, in description of materials, and in making our knowledge and materials accessible. We must acknowledge that the leadership and membership of VRA and VRAF is disproportionately white and that writing this statement does not resolve long-standing injustices. We must also examine ways in which our organizations can advocate meaningfully and concretely for equity and justice. It is incumbent on us to support people who work in the field by advancing the perspectives of people who have been marginalized by fostering open forums for discussion and ensuring that people of color fill leadership positions, working to dismantle the effects of structural racism in our varied professions, and taking stands against racism and racist practices when we see them. Far from being neutral, visual assets and the institutions and people that provide access to them have a great deal of power to shape and reinforce power structures. A key part of our work as visual assets and cultural heritage professionals is to address ways in which our practices must change to challenge and dismantle, rather than support or permit, white supremacy.The VRA and the VRAF call on all our colleagues to move forward with action and purpose just as we will ourselves. We implore you to reexamine your own practices and policies as individuals, as committees, and as local chapters. We, the VRA and VRAF board members, acknowledge that we need to make measurable changes in the structure of our organizations and are committed to undertake this work.What members of VRA can do:

• Join the Equitable Action Committee (newly established in November 2019) - Fill out the application here
• Sign up to be a mentor and/or Peer reviewer for resumes and cover letters - httpS://vraweb.org/opportunities/mentorship/ (the mentor application form is paused at the moment) 
• Support the hiring, retention, and promotion of your BIPOC colleagues - Watch ARLIS/NA’s webinar on the Recruitment, Retention, and Experiences of Art Library Professionals
• Question your language of cataloging - Register to attend EAC’s Community Hour on Critical Cataloging on Wednesday, June 24, 2020
• Propose, facilitate, and support workshops/sessions for VRA 2021 that will prompt the difficult conversations we all need to have - Submit a proposal here

Donation Links:

• Official George Floyd Memorial Fund
• Black Lives Matter 
• Black Visions Collective
• National Bail Fund Network or local bail funds across the US
• American Civil Liberties Union
• NAACP Legal Defense Fund
• We Here

Resources for Self-Education: 

• Anti-racism Resource List for White People
• Social Justice and Museums Resource List 
• Anti-Racist Educational Reading & Viewing Lists
• Dear White People, This Is What We Want You To Do
• For Our White Friends Desiring to Be Allies
• Research-based Solutions to Stop Police Violence (Twitter thread)
• Articles:
  • Maintaining Professionalism In The Age of Black Death Is….A Lot
  • What Not to Say to Your Black Colleagues Right Now
  • My Role in the Social Change Ecosystem
  • 10 Books About Race To Read Instead Of Asking A Person Of Color To Explain Things To You
• Courses + Curriculums:
  • Recruiting and Retaining Librarians from Underrepresented Minoritized Groups - Library Juice Course ($175) July 6 - August 2
  • Allyship, Anti-Oppression Practices, and Building Inclusive Libraries - Library Juice Course ($175) August 3 - August 30
  • Cultural Competence for Librarians -  Library Juice Course ($175) September 7 - October 4
  • Curriculum for White Americans to Educate Themselves on Race and Racism–from Ferguson to Charleston

VRA Webinar: Incorporating Diversity in our Workplace

Registration is still open for the Friday, June 12, 3:00-4:30 pm EST, VRA Webinar Incorporating Diversity in our Workplace. Originally part of the Baltimore conference program, this session has been moved online. It is free of charge to members and non-members, although advanced registration is required. Please sign up using the MyVRA link. Your confirmation email will include information on how to access the Zoom webinar. Contact tech@vraweb.org with any technology concerns.We hope that you can join us! Please forward to your colleagues or anyone else who may be interested in learning more about VRA and the work of its members.Friday, June 12, 2020Incorporating Diversity in our Workplace: All are Welcome, but How Do We Get There?3:00pm - 4:30 pm ESTRegister: vra.memberclicks.net/vrawebinar_0612#/Moderator: Andrew WangPresenters: Heidi Raatz, Cindy Frank, Meghan RubensteinWebinar Description: As keepers of information in the art, architecture and other cultural heritage fields, we need to be mindful of all the cultures represented in our world. This is apparent in the art that is created and in the various bodies that study it and care for it. As Visual Resources professionals we have the opportunity to respect and celebrate all the diversity that all these cultures represent. At the local level this may mean adjusting our hiring practices. It may mean exploring the way we catalog the work of art and the artist or architect, so that a student can find the representative of themselves in the collection. At the institution level, it may mean formalizing the hiring practices of an equitable process, or training to be aware of microagressions. This session proposes to share direct experiences and then enter a discussion with session attendees to share ideas. We intend to present on the topics of recruiting and hiring a diverse group of student employees and how this creates a dynamic work environment and welcoming public center. We intend to discuss how museums and cultural heritage organizations can develop ethical and respectful methods of collecting, standardizing, and expressing artist/creator data as part of a larger ethical and empathetic practice, and how museums can use artist/creator data to convey factors such as experience, personal identity, environment and status.How can cultural heritage organizations develop ethical methods of collection, standardizing and expressing artist/creator data as part of a larger ethical and empathetic practice? How can we adjust our hiring practices to reach new audiences? How do we remove the “white male” filter from an image search?

Reminder: VRA Webinar Managing Rights Data

Registration is still open for the June 2, 12:00-1:30 pm EST, VRA Webinar Managing Rights Data. Originally part of the Baltimore conference program, this session has been moved online. It is free of charge to members and non-members, although advanced registration is required. Please sign up using the MyVRA link. Your confirmation email will include information on how to access the Zoom webinar. Contact tech@vraweb.org with any technology concerns.We hope that you can join us! Please forward to your colleagues or anyone else who may be interested in learning more about VRA and the work of its members.---Tuesday, June 2, 2020Managing Rights Data12:00pm - 1:30 pm ESTRegister: vra.memberclicks.net/vrawebinar_0602#/Moderator: Chelsea StonePresenters: Douglas McCarthy, Heidi Raatz, and Summer ShetenhelmWebinar Description: Managing rights data is an institutional choice that affects collections access and use. How we choose to present and share our collections changes directly affects how our audiences and community of users can interact with our collections. Conveying that rights data information to our users creates a unique lens through which to view intellectual property rights. Rights data can serve the end users to the extent that they have access to the content, generally understand how they are allowed to use the digital objects for what specified purposes, and enlighten them about the rights held in the underlying content for which they may still be responsible. What are the implications of our rights data management decisions on our collections and our users? What are some of the ways that various institutions have decided to manage their collections and rights data? The RightsStatements.org standard offers a powerful standardization tool: a system of standardized interoperable rights and reuse information under the guidance of an international member based consortium. Open access or "no rights reserved" CC0 dedication grants more freedom to our users and visibility to our collections though it may leave unanswered questions about underlying rights. And what are the ethical and policy issues surrounding reproduction licensing of works in the public domain? Four institutions will discuss how they approach managing data rights data at their institutions from both policy and technical implementation perspectives.Should ethical issues be considered when making decisions regarding managing rights data? Do you think standardization, for example, using Creative Commons licenses or RightsStatements.org standard statements, is important? Is rights data transparency a valuable ethos when working with patrons?Douglas McCarthy What principles do we need for open access to cultural heritage?The forthcoming Declaration on Open Access to Cultural Heritage is a major initiative that seeks to support and inform accurate and culturally appropriate practices for the licensing of digitized public domain works. Douglas will present the context, purpose and approach of the community developing the Declaration, seeking to raise awareness and elicit engagement with VRA conference delegates.Heidi Raatz Mia & RightsStatements.org: a user-centered data standard for managing rights informationThe Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) recently implemented the RightsStatements.org standardized rights statements for online cultural heritage, aiming to clarify what website users can do with the art images Mia shares. RightsStatements.org provides a standard set of user-friendly statements in three main rights categories: In Copyright, No Copyright, and Other. The RightsStatements.org standard aids Mia’s mission to make accessible outstanding works of art from the world’s diverse cultures and helps users engage with cultural heritage online.Following a brief introduction to the standard, Heidi will share how Mia uses the RightsStatements.org statements to communicate more effectively and clearly what we know about the copyright and reuse status of our art collection images, touching on the standards’ benefits and challenges.Summer Shetenhelm Copyright Statements in Plains to Peaks Collective Digital CollectionsAmbiguities about copyright status of digitized resources limit users’ understanding of what can or cannot be done with these resources. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: what rights statements are included in Colorado/Wyoming regional records that have been ingested by DPLA, what rights statements are included for public domain objects, and what creation date information is included in these records? This study hopes to shed light on the state of rights representation in digital collections in the greater Colorado area.

EAC Community Hour: Sketching the Road Ahead: Examining Gaps in Support

As discussions continue about university and GLAM reopenings, join the EAC in a discussion of the questions below as we consider what support we need during this time and what support has been available to us. Our 3^rd EAC Community Hour (Sketching the Road Ahead: Examining Gaps in Support) will be held on Wednesday, May 27, at  2 pm EST/ 11 am PST.Discussion Prompts:

• What support do YOU need during this time? Are there gaps in what your institution is able to provide? How could this committee advocate for you? In what ways could your professional organizations support you?
• IS there a way to suggest actions that we can control within our jobs? How can we as individuals be proactive? How can we as a community offer additional support?
• What new concerns are worrying you? How will hybrid reopening plans affect staff and students across institutions differently?

Send any specific questions in advance to Lael or Kendra (if you wish to remain anonymous please let us know) or bring your concerns to the Hour (where you can still be anonymous via private chat to the moderator)!Click here to register for our next Community Hour!

VREPS Virtual Spring Meeting

The sign-up link for the VREPS Virtual Spring Meeting is now live! Register today and catch up with all your emerging professional/student buddies on May 20th, 2:00 pm EST!

Register here: http://ow.ly/3QP050zCU5k

https://vreps.wordpress.com/

Registration Open! VRA Webinar: Stories from the Start

Registration is now open for the Wednesday, May 6, VRA webinar Stories from the Start. Originally part of the Baltimore conference program, this one-hour moderated discussion has been moved online. It is free of charge to members and non-members, although advanced registration is required. Please sign up by the end of the day on May 5 using MyVRA. You will receive an email with information on how to log into the Zoom session the morning of the webinar. Please contact tech@vraweb.org with any technology concerns.We hope that you can join us next week! Stay tuned for future VRA Webinar offerings. We look forward to sharing more of your work and ideas. Please forward to your colleagues or anyone else who may be interested in learning more about VRA and its members.---Stories from the StartMay 6, 20202 pm–3 pm EST via ZoomRegistration Link: https://vra.memberclicks.net/vrawebinar#/Moderators: Julia Murphy and Kendra WerstSpeakers: Marcia Focht, Julie Irick, Margaret McKeeHave questions about starting out in the Visual Resources field? Interested in hearing other VRA members’ backstories? Join VREPS for an informal conversation with experienced professionals. Speakers will share stories from the beginning years of their careers and discuss the challenges they faced. An open discussion will follow, allowing all attendees to ask questions.Marcia Focht is the Curator of the Visual Resources Center at Binghamton University, starting this position in 1986. In this 30+ year career, she has experienced major transitions in image practice, technology, media, usage, and scholarship. Marcia has presented her experiences at numerous conferences, including the VRA (Visual Resources Association), CIT (Conference on Instructional Technology), EVA (Electronic Visualization in the Arts), and CAA (College Art Association). Current projects include a series of Digital Humanities presentations and workshops for graduate students, faculty, and staff across disciplines and units. These sessions emphasize hands-on experimentation, sharing knowledge, and implementing current standards and best practices. Above all, Marcia encourages an atmosphere of collaboration in which we are unafraid to make mistakes and together add to communal skill sets, thereby increasing competency and confidence for all involved. Currently on the VRAF (Visual Resources Association Foundation) Board of Directors, Marcia also served two terms as VRA Secretary on the Executive Board and 13 years as VRA Mentor Coordinator, as well as done instruction for the ARLIS/NA-VRA Summer Educational Institute. Her educational credentials include a BFA in Printmaking and an MA in Art History from the University of Denver.Julie Irick has been a photo archivist for nearly 20 years. She has worked in public and private archives on both coasts and has been the City Photo Archivist at the City of Seattle for the last 14.5 years. Julie received her MLIS from Queens College in 2003. Having gone to graduate school thinking she would be a public librarian, halfway through the program Julie found herself working part-time in the Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections at the New York Historical Society and loved it! She never looked back and has carved out a successful career in a very niche and competitive profession – public records photo archives.Margaret C. McKee is the Digital Asset Manager at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas. A work-study position in a slide library in college ended up being the inciting incident for a career spent working with images. In her current role at the Menil, Margaret oversees photography of collection objects, digitization of analog photography, rights and reproductions, and soon the implementation of a digital asset management system. Previously, she worked in photographic and imaging services at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She began her professional career as the Slide Librarian at Southwestern University. She holds an AA from Bard College at Simon’s Rock, a BAFA in Art History from the University of New Mexico, and an MS in Information Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Margaret has served as co-chair of the VRA’s Intellectual Property Rights Committee.

EAC Community Hour: Strategizing Together: Navigating Remote Work Boundaries

Thanks to everyone who was able to attend our first Community Hour--we had a really great discussion! One main takeaway was that folks were interested in strategies for navigating discussions with their supervisors and administration in their unique institutional work situation.For our next hour, to be held on Tuesday, May 5th, 2 pm EST/ 11 am PST, we would like to give everyone an opportunity to work together to address our specific concerns in the following areas:

• Chronic illnesses
• Privacy
• Work/Life Separation
• Consensus bias
• Admin/Supervisor Relations
• Inappropriate Appearance Expectations

'How do we ask for more privacy without having to share why we don’t want to show our space during a video call or disclose the details of our personal/home life?'Send any specific questions in advance to Lael or Kendra (if you wish to remain anonymous please let us know) or bring your concerns to the Hour (where you can still be anonymous via private chat to the moderator)! We will discuss the issues and work out targeted responses or plans of action (including role play situations, as warranted).

We would like to focus this Hour on discussion and activity. Below, we provide some readily available resources and articles that you may find relevant or helpful. If you have any suggestions on readings or resources, please feel free to share.

• ADHD Brains Working at Home: A Beginner’s Guide to Telecommuting
• Job Accommodation Network - Accommodation Toolkit
• Protecting Your Job While Coping With a Chronic Illness
• Workplace Culture and the ADA

Click here to register for our next Community Hour!Best wishes,Lael & Kendra

EAC Community Hour: Acknowledging Employee and Student Privacy During Quarantine

Greetings All,

Join the VRA Equitable Action Committee (EAC) for our new series of learning and open discussion, EAC Community Hour! Each Community Hour will address a different theme affecting our membership, field, and community.

On Wednesday April 22nd at 2pm EST, we will be discussing student and employee privacy during this time of quarantine and remote learning. What are some best practices for navigating remote privacy challenges? How do we advocate for student privacy and equity while also navigating similar issues as employees? We will use these readings (optional) and discussion prompts as a starting point for conversation--we will summarize the readings at the beginning of the session.

Click here to register for our first Community Hour!

Email ea@vraweb.org with any questions. To suggest a theme or volunteer to moderate an upcoming session, please fill out this Google Form.

Best regards,

Kendra & Lael

VRA 2020 Virtual Annual Business Meeting

The Visual Resources Association will be hosting their Annual Business Meeting on March 25, 2020 at 11 am Eastern Time (US and Canada).  This will be a virtual meeting hosted in Zoom.  Members have been provided additional details to attend.

VRA 2020 Baltimore Cancelled

Due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak,  the VRA Executive Board has cancelled the VRA 2020 Baltimore annual conference.  A more detailed message has been sent to conference registrants.  If you have any questions, please email board@vraweb.org.

VRA 2020 Baltimore: Update

As many of you know the situation surrounding the response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) has been changing day by day.  The VRA Executive Board has been in constant communication regarding the multiple moving pieces in the program and arrangements, and the impact of changing travel plans.  We are aware that many institutions are now restricting travel.  A more detailed message has been sent to conference registrants.  If you have any questions, please email board@vraweb.org.

Call for Peer Reviewers

Dear VRA Colleagues,Do you enjoy giving constructive feedback? Are you looking for new ways to expand your resume and skills? Volunteer to be a peer reviewer for the VRA Bulletin! In preparation for my term as Content Editor, I am currently seeking a pool of reviewers for upcoming issues. The time commitment is relatively low (a few hours at most per article) and the reward of contributing to the literature of our field is extremely high. Turnaround time for an article is 2-3 weeks.If you are interested in putting your name on the list, please send me an email at jburns@cornell.edu with a list of at least three topics from the Bulletin categories (column on the right) in which you might consider yourself an expert (don’t be modest, you are an expert!).There are at least three articles in our queue that need peer reviewing ASAP, so if you have availability to review in the next month please indicate that in your email as well.Many thanks,JasmineJasmine BurnsVisual Resources Metadata LibrarianLibrary Technical ServicesCornell University

VRA 2020 Baltimore: Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Events

Greetings All,The Equitable Action Committee invites you to attend the many events during VRA 2020 that are related to the VRA’s equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts.

• Incorporating Diversity in our Workplace: All are Welcome, but How Do We Get There? - Tuesday, March 24 • 10:30am - 11:45am
• How to GLAM in "Charm City:" Community Building between Baltimore and Its Cultural Institutions - Wednesday, March 25 • 10:15am - 11:45am
• VRA Convocation with Visual Resources Association Foundation Legacy Lecture speaker Ashley Minner presenting “Repatriating the Archives: An Urban Reservation Reunion” - Wednesday, March 25 • 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
• American Visionary Art Museum Tour ($) - Wednesday, March 25 • 12:00pm - 1:00pm
• Introduction to Critical Cataloging for Visual Resources Professionals Workshop ($) - Thursday, March 26 • 8:15am - 12:15pm
• Stories from the Start - Thursday, March 26 • 10:45am - 11:45am
• Equitable Action Committee Meeting - Thursday, March 26 • 12:30pm - 1:15pm
• Accessibility and Universal Design - Thursday, March 26 • 1:30pm - 2:30pm
• Anticipating Future Needs of Visual Literacy - Thursday, March 26 • 3:45pm - 4:45pm
• Oral Histories for the Uninitiated: Transcribing, Copyright, Metadata and Everything in Between - Friday, March 27 • 9:30am - 10:30am
• Community - Friday, March 27 • 11:00am - 12:00pm
• Navigating International Intellectual Property Rights for Teaching and Publishing in the Humanities - Friday, March 27 • 11:00am - 12:00pm
• Highlights of Hopkins Tour ($) - Friday, March 27 • 2:00pm - 4:30pm

Additionally, this newly formed committee will be at the Community Partnership Event collecting your concerns related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. If you are unable to attend VRA2020 and have suggestions, you may fill out the form here (http://bit.ly/EAC2020).Contributed by:Equitable Action Committee Co-chairs:

Lael Ensor-Bennett, Johns Hopkins UniversityKendra Werst, Williams College

Reminder: Call for New VREPS Co-Chair

With the planned departure of VREPS Co-Chair, Kendra Werst, by the end of the VRA 2020 conference in March, VREPS is seeking applications for a new Co-Chair!!Co-Chair terms are two years, starting from the annual conference and ending at the conference 23 months later (2020-2022). Terms are staggered so there is always one chair with one year of experience. Some of the duties include coordinating the VRAF Host Institution List for the VRAF Internship Award, organizing the ArLiSNAP x VREPS Annual Virtual Conference, as well as, developing conference programming and promoting professional development opportunities for emerging professionals and students.If you're interested in helping emerging professionals and students in the visual resources field (and beyond) please send a brief statement of interest to Julia Murphy, VREPS Co-Chair, at murphyjl@si.edu.Best regards,Julia Murphy and Kendra WerstVREPS Co-Chairs

Exciting VRA Bulletin News

Dear VRA Colleagues, 

On behalf of the VRA Executive Board, I am delighted to share some exciting news about the VRA Bulletin, our open access journal. 

It is my great pleasure to announce the appointment of Jasmine Burns, Cornell University, to the position of VRA Bulletin Content Editor.  As a former two-term Executive Board Secretary, Jasmine has a deep knowledge of the VRA and an exciting vision for the Bulletin's future that builds upon the recent adoption of an open access and peer review model.  Her term will officially begin at the Annual Business Meeting in Baltimore next month. 

The board is also most sincerely grateful to Hannah Marshall,The Chinati Foundation, for her dedicated service and leadership over the past four years as both VRA Bulletin Production Editor and Content Editor. 

I am also very pleased to announce that our VRA Bulletin Production Editor Amy Lazet, College for Creative Studies, has completed the migration of the Bulletin to Open Journal Systems, an open source software application for managing and publishing scholarly journals.  This new platform will provide improved access to our journal for readers, greater ease for our authors and editors, and significant cost savings for the association.  Visit the VRA Bulletin site to see the improvements first-hand.  Amy has exciting design ideas for the site as it gets more established. 

I invite you to be on the look out for Jasmine and Amy's next call for submissions, publish in the VRA Bulletin, and share in its success. 

All best wishes,

Amy McKenna

VRA Public Relations and Communications Officer

Williams College

Visual Resources Association Foundation (VRAF) announces the Winter 2020 Professional Development Grant Recipient

The Board of Directors of the Visual Resources Association Foundation (VRAF) is pleased to announce the Winter 2020 VRAF Professional Development Grant in the amount of $1000 to Meghan Lyon, a MSLIS Student Graduate Assistant at the Pratt School of Information's Semantic Lab, and a NYARC Web Archiving Fellow at the Frick Art Reference Library.Meghan Lyon, plans on utilizing the funds to attend the 2020 Society for American Archivists (SAA) National Conference, which will be in Chicago, Illinois from August 3-8, 2020. Lyon will be a co-presenter at a session titled, "Digital Access and preservation in Artists' Archives: Challenges, Strategies, and Solutions". She will be discussing research regarding the ontology development that supports the Semantic Lab Wikibase, otherwise known as DADAlytics, a prototype toolchain that converts text-based content from images to knowledge graphs. The intention is to make a publicly accessible and community driven DADAlytics toolchain along with the research datasets created by the Semantic Lab and place them on their Wikibase and Github instances.The VRAF Professional Development Grant Program reflects the broad mission of the VRAF 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 VRAF, the VRAF Professional Development Grant, and other VRAF programs, please visit vrafoundation.org.On behalf of the VRAF Board of Directorsvrafoundation@gmail.comvrafoundation.orgtwitter.com/vrafoundationfacebook.com/visrafoundation/

VRA 2020 Baltimore: Night Out at the Walters Art Museum & A Note About Thursday

Hieronymus Francken II and Jan Brueghel the Elder, The Archdukes Albert and Isabella Visiting  the Collection of Pierre  Roose, ca. 1621-1623, oil on panel, Walters Art Museum (Creative Commons Zero)

You might have noticed Dinner and Night out at the Walters Art Museum on the Sched---the fabulous Walters Art Museum is always free and open until 9 pm on Thursday nights! Located on historic Mt. Vernon Place with the Mt. Vernon Place United Methodist Church, the George Peabody Library, the Washington Monument, and just a few blocks from the Maryland Historical Society, the Walters is an encyclopedic collection of 36,000 objects covering more than seven millennia, from 5,000 BCE to the 21st century.

While some of you may be attending the The Walters Art Museum: Chamber of Wonders Tour at 4 pm (as of this post, there are still spots left, email join@vraweb.org to add a tour!), other conference attendees interested in spending a casual evening with other VRA’ers should meet in the hotel lobby at 5 pm or at 6 pm to find other interested parties. From there, it’s just a short $8-10 Lyft ride or free Charm City Circulator ride to Mt. Vernon. Please note that the visitor entrance to the Walters is on Centre Street. Once there, attendees may explore the museum at their own pace. Exhibitions up during our visit will include The St. Francis Missal, Excursions through the Collection, and From Mucha To Morris: Books of the Art Nouveau.

Walters Art Museum Building, Wikimedia Commons  (Creative Commons)

Feel free to stay at the museum until the doors close at 9 pm! But, if you’re wanting to grab dinner at one of the marvelous restaurants in Mt. Vernon with other conference attendees, sign up here for one of our Dinearounds at 7:30 or 8 pm. If you have signed up for a Dinearound, please meet at the Walters Art Museum gift shop at the noted meeting time on the signup.  If you’d rather explore this culinary neighborhood on your own, we recommend:

B&O Brasserie, Brewer’s Art, Cazbar Turkish, Dukem Restaurant, the Helmand, Homeslyce,  Hotel Indigo, Indigma Modern Indian Bistro, Maisy's, Mick O'Shea's Irish Pub, Minato, Mt. Vernon Marketplace, Owl Bar, Tabor Ethiopian, Topside

While the Walters is always open until 9 pm on Thursdays, this particular Thursday is also a big day for the downtown areas of Baltimore. Orioles Opening Day at 3:05 pm will draw a large number of folks to the harbor area and other areas of downtown Baltimore from early in the day through late in the evening. While you will see Yankee fans, as well, you will also see a sea of orange clad baseball fans filling many of the sidewalks and streets. The largest concentration will likely be around Pickles Pub, but expect traffic delays and larger crowds.

Contributor:Lael Ensor-BennettVRA Vice President for Conference ArrangementsJohns Hopkins University

Reminder: Kress Scholarships for SEI 2020 due on March 9

This is a reminder to apply for the Samuel H. Kress Foundation Scholarships to attend the 2020 Summer Educational Institute for Digital Stewardship of Visual Information (SEI), to be held June 23-26, 2020 at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.The Samuel H. Kress Foundation is once again generously funding six scholarships for SEI 2020. This intensive workshop is designed to serve a wide range of information professionals eager to learn about best practices and new technologies and/or update job skills in the realm of digital collections management, as well as to provide significant networking and professional development opportunities. The comprehensive curriculum seeks to address the requirements of today's cultural heritage information professional, including hands-on and lecture modules presented by expert instructors. SEI provides new professionals, current library school students, and mid-career professionals from a wide range of related fields the opportunity to stay current in an ever-evolving digital landscape. Museum professionals, archivists, visual resources professionals, digital librarians, art and architecture librarians, digital project managers, current and recent graduate students, and others in related fields are all encouraged to attend.Details:

• The six Kress Scholarship recipients will each receive $1000 towards the cost of SEI.
• Kress Scholarship applications are due by Monday, March 9, 2020.
• Recipients will be notified no later than Monday, March 30, 2020.
• Each Kress Scholarship recipient will be required to write a report detailing how they benefitted from SEI and the scholarship upon completion of SEI 2020.

Instructions:

• Submit a resume or curriculum vitae and a cover letter (no longer than two pages) describing the effect attending SEI would have on your studies and/or your career.
• All applications will be evaluated by three SEI co-chairs based on the criteria established for the award (including current or future career goals as well as financial need) and any additional directions from the Kress Foundation staff.
• Submit your application materials via e-mail in a single document (PDF preferred), using the following file naming convention: LAST NAME_FIRST NAME_KRESS2020 to SEI 2020 Senior Co-Chair Courtney Baron at courtney.baron@louisville.edu.

Best wishes,Bridget Madden, SEI 2020 Co-Chairbridgetm@uchicago.edu

VRA Foundation Regional Workshop: Can We Do That? Intellectual Property Rights and Visual Media

The Visual Resources Association Foundation (VRAF) is pleased to announce that Can We Do That? Intellectual Property Rights and Visual Media will be held on March 13, 2020 at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. Can We Do That? Intellectual Property Rights and Visual Media is one of the four workshops being offered in the fifth year of the VRAF Regional Workshop Program. The VRA Foundation is grateful to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for their continued support of this exciting opportunity to partner with cultural heritage and educational institutions.How do I know whether something is protected by copyright? What is fair use and how can I apply it? What copyright exceptions are available for library or archival use? How can I clear a copyright? How do I navigate and negotiate licensing agreements? If you’ve asked yourself these questions, this workshop is for you! Aimed at providing real-world applications within the academic, archival, library, gallery and museum environments, we will use relevant case studies to explore issues such as educational and scholarly usage, securing academic publication rights (including for online use), creative reuse, fair use guidelines, VARA and moral rights, licensing from vendors and rights holders, and the public domain. Participants will also be introduced to tools and resources to help them and their constituents in making decisions regarding appropriate use and dissemination of visual media. will be taught by Cara Hirsch, Deputy General Counsel at The Virtual Reality Company, a studio focused on the creation of content for virtual reality film and other experiences. At VRC, Cara oversees all intellectual property matters relating to the company's business. She is the former Associate General Counsel at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, where she supported Guggenheim’s legal affairs in a wide variety of areas including intellectual property. Prior to the Guggenheim, Cara was Deputy General Counsel for Artstor, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to use digital technology to enhance scholarship, teaching, and learning in the arts, humanities and other fields. Among her duties at Artstor, Cara collaborated in refining Artstor's intellectual property and other legal strategies for the organization. She also supervised the rights review and clearance process for media collections in the Artstor Digital Library, a digital image resource that makes available to nonprofit institutions over 1.7 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences. Cara also worked as an Associate at the law firms of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Andrews Kurth LLP, where she practiced in the field of intellectual property. She served as Co-Chair of the Intellectual Property Rights Committee of the Visual Resources Association from 2011-2014. Cara received her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and her B.A., with distinction, from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.Registration for Can We Do That? Intellectual Property Rights and Visual Media is open until February 28, 2020. The fee for the workshop is $125. For more information about the workshop and to register, visit here. If you have any questions about registration, please feel free to contact Beth Haas, VRAF Director, bwodnick@princeton.edu. For questions about the venue, please contact Anne Mar, Assistant College Archivist/Metadata Specialist, amar@oxy.edu. 

On behalf of the VRAF RWIT

vraf.rwit@gmail.comhttps://vrafoundation.orghttps://twitter.com/vrafoundationhttps://www.facebook.com/visrafoundation

VRA 2020 Baltimore: Hotel Rates Ending, Add Workshops and Tours

Book before Tuesday, February 25, 5pm EST to stay in one of Baltimore's top-rated hotels for $149 per night!

We are very pleased to announce that we have exceeded our room block and recommend that you plan on making your reservations as soon as possible while space is still available.

 

The VRA will have almost exclusive use of the conference hotel, Royal Sonesta Harbor Court Baltimore, and we want to encourage you to take part in this amazing networking and community building experience.  Reserve a room before special rates end on Tuesday, February 25, 5pm EST.

 

Royal Sonesta Harbor Court Baltimore

550 Light Street, Baltimore, MD  21202(410) 234-0550 / 1-800-766-3782Block Name:  Visual Resources Association 2020 Annual ConferenceGroup Code:  0329VSRSAS$149 per night, single/double occupancy, plus taxes and fees

Please contact the VP for Conference Arrangements with any questions about reservations.

Why Stay at the Official Conference Hotel?Besides being elegant, convenient, and brilliant for networking, staying at the official conference hotel helps to insure the financial health of both the conference and the association.  When the VRA signs a contract with a hotel to host a conference, the cost of the meeting and event spaces is greatly reduced by our guarantee that a certain number of sleeping rooms will be booked by our attendees.

Room Sharing Encouraged

New this year!  A link to a hotel room and ride sharing spreadsheet will be included with your registration confirmation, so you can easily find the perfect roommate(s) and enjoy huge savings on your accommodations.  After you register for the conference, find the link in your email with the subject "Form Submitted Successfully - VRA Conference Registration."

It's Easy to Add Workshops and Tours Even If You Have Already Registered

Simply email join@vraweb.org and specify the name(s) of the workshops or tours that you would like to add.  Act fast as the following workshops and tours have already sold-out:  IIIF in 2020 Workshop, American Visionary Art Museum Tour, and Hirshhorn Museum Tour.  The Introduction to Critical Cataloging for Visual Resources Professionals Workshop and the Walters Art Museum Chamber of Wonders Tour will likely sell out soon.

Don't forget that the conference continues on Friday, March 27 with more amazing professional development opportunities, including sessions, workshops, and tours!  There is a two-part Grant Writing Workshop with morning & early afternoon sessions.  Carmen Cowick has an art history and archives background and teaches grant writing courses online in addition to other courses on archives, oral history programs, digital curation, and preservation.  Cathleen Tefft is a Senior Program Officer in the Division of Preservation and Access at the National Endowment for the Humanities. She works with applicants and funded projects in all of the division's grant programs, and she coordinates the Humanities Collections and Reference Resources competition.