Friday, August 27, 2010

11 Classic Children's Art Books

This summer, the Jean Outland Chrysler Library staff was excited to add a new collection for young visitors to the Museum. Our brand-new children’s book collection focuses on books about art and artists, but also features some familiar titles – such as Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are. Last week online art journal ARTINFO.com writer Emma Allen listed the top 11 Classic Children’s Art Books [ here ] and I was excited to see that our fledgling collection already contains more than half of the books listed! Among the books from our collection that are included in the list are:


From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by  
   E.L. Konigsburg

• Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh

Linnea in Monet’s Garden by Cristina Bjork

• The Uncle Andy Books by James Warhola

Action Jackson by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan

See an old favorite or a title you’d like to read – stop by, this collection’s for young minds of all ages!

- LEC

Interns Journal - A View from the Stacks Week 4

Our wonderful interns Casey and Chelsea have completed their internships and are headed back to school, but they left us with a vivid journal recounting their summer adventures in the Library. Stay tuned for future editions of "A View from the Stacks" which will continue to appear on the blog during the next few weeks.



For week four of our internship we were loosed from the Library and sent to the Education department to perform the seemingly simple task of sorting the Docent library. What at first seemed like a few shelves of roughly categorized material that just needed to be stood upright and recorded soon turned into a week-long foray into the minefield of library cataloging, as well as my favorite internship experience yet. Our work began with an examination of the collections’ materials and purpose. A collection of donated books, the Docent library serves both as a source of quick reference and more in-depth study for Chrysler Museum’s dedicated Docents. Our task was not only to organize the books but to make them quickly accessible by arranging them logically and then cataloging them.


The Docent library before we set to work.
As we got down to the work of recording titles and deciding subjects we encountered the great plague of library organization. While the Library of Congress system provides a structure that arranges books by subject beginning with general art history and moving into mediums, countries of origin and individual artists, some books (and many of the Docent books) cover multiple of these organizing subjects. Placement in the library eventually comes down to individual logic and an executive decision, an issue that complicated work for two beginner-perfectionists

As we made our way though tough names like Mary Cassatt (who, as an American impressionist painter exhibiting in France, was eligible for four of our categories of organization), we settled our disagreements and questions with our supervisor, Laura until, finally, the nearly 600 books of the docent library were recorded and placed in order. For now, we await our second crack at their organization and the completion of our first mini-catalogue. In the meantime, the kinesthetic learner in me cannot wait for my next chance to get hands-on, while the perfectionist in me is eager to complete my task.

- Chelsea Reinhardt 2010 Summer Library Intern

Friday, August 13, 2010

Farewell from the 2010 Jean Outland Chrysler Cataloging Fellow

Sadly, it’s time to say goodbye. Like the old cliché, time flew and, though I feel like I’m just getting started here at the Jean Outland Chrysler Library, the 2010 Cataloging Fellowship is coming to a close. I hope my time here has served the library as well as it has served me. In the spring, I looked forward to the diverse material and formats I would encounter here at the Chrysler and, in the end, underestimated just how rich an opportunity this fellowship is. Over the summer I’ve cataloged in the neighborhood of 650 items: monographs, periodicals, pamphlets, archival collections, and videos. Many presented time-consuming challenges and I hope to have met those challenges with the result of ever-improving access to this valuable collection.
Open coffee container = place in the empty bottom drawer
But now I have to say goodbye to my desk chair, my caffeine drawer (pictured), white archival gloves, volume of Pearl Jam photographs (pictured), and Library of Congress Classification System reference books.
It’s been a summer of professional growth (applying classroom lessons in a professional setting) and personal milestones (my fiance's engagement ring was mailed to the Chrysler!) and I cannot thank the Friends of the Jean Outland Chrysler Library enough. Finally, thanks are due to Dickson Librarian Laura Christiansen and Library Assistant Sara Mason who created an environment of collaboration and put up with my stream of questions. Best wishes, all around!

--John Curtis, Cataloging Fellow

Friday, August 6, 2010

Thinking Forward to Fall

We’ve just bid a fond adieu to our Summer 2010 interns and have begun enthusiastically planning displays and events for the Fall. Quite a few museum members, staff and docents have stopped by to catch a glimpse of the catalogue Paintings from the Reign of Victoria: The Royal Holloway Collection, London in preparation for the fast-approaching exhibition. Also, we’re learning all about The History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage for the August 18th installment of “Art and Books, Wine and Cheese.” Please stop by the library for a copy of the reading list and suggestions on how to locate the books.

Research has been flowing in from all directions! We’ve had history buffs interested in the Pickett-Buchanan ledgers (please see inset photo) and glass enthusiasts researching Art Nouveau lamps. There have been many college students in to complete their end-of-summer class projects (including myself), as well as a large number of high school seniors working on up-coming Art History papers. Thanks to the Summer Teachers Institute 2010, we were introduced to a new group of researchers. We shared knowledge about digital resources, toured the library collections and discussed the how-tos of researching and preparing art-related classroom programming.

We’re looking forward to even busier and more exciting times to come this Fall! Please stop by the Jean Outland Chrysler Library and see what’s going on!

-SCM

A View from the Stacks - Intern's Journal Week 3

Our wonderful interns Casey and Chelsea have completed their internships and are headed back to school, but they left us with a vivid journal recounting their summer adventures in the Library.  Stay tuned for future editions of  "A View from the Stacks" which will continue to appear on the blog during the next few weeks.



Week 3 – Collections Development and Management


At the beginning of the week, Laura told Chelsea and I we would be helping with collections development by choosing one shelf in the library for an up-to-date inventory. The Library completed a full inventory in 2008, but the shelves are always shifting and changing. We were to go through the shelf, enter basic information about the books into a spreadsheet, flag books in need of relocating or repair, and suggest new books for the shelf. For time and sanity’s sake, Laura encouraged us to choose a shelf that housed books mainly on one subject or a single artist. Since we would be suggesting new books to add, Laura advised us to choose an artist we were familiar with. Based on this information I couldn’t imagine this project taking more than a day – it’s only one shelf, right? The library quickly erased my preconceptions once again.

First – choose one shelf from the painting section of the stacks. This should be the easy part, right? But how does one choose a single shelf in a library of nearly 2,000 shelves! My traditional taste led me towards the exquisite Flemish painters, but choosing a single painter among the thousand of painters within the stacks felt like asking a mother to choose her favorite child. I was afraid of hurting some poor artist’s feelings and worried they would impair my painting skills from the grave forever! So instead of risking any forsaken future, I decided to choose a shelf no one could argue with – 15D – Vermeer. The Chrysler Museum currently has a Johannes Vermeer painting on display in the gallery. Surely there could be no better time to scour through his shelf. I loaded the contents of 15D onto my book cart and went on my way without a trace of guilt.

Several hours into this project, I began to ask myself why I had foolishly neglected to learn French, German, and Dutch. These staples of Flemish art served as roadblocks when trying to read the book titles, but thank goodness Google Translator!

Although this project took much longer than I had originally anticipated, all the listing, flagging, bar-coding, pulling, and re-shelving of books taught me the importance of being meticulous and organized when working in a library. Also, that I need to invest in Rosetta Stone before entering graduate school.

The Vermeer contents of shelf 15D currently sit on the shelves of the library’s reading room for easy public access. Seeing these books specially displayed in the library’s entrance has reassured me that our work as interns is indeed valuable to the Chrysler Museum’s visitors.
 
- Casey Nye, 2010 Summer Library Intern

The Seven Thrones Mystery

After most of a week off to officially become a resident of Norfolk (Boston to Norfolk in 16 ft. truck = 14 hours), I was welcomed back with the opportunity to work with some fantastic and sometimes mysterious rare materials. I’ve been able to catalog, among other things, the library’s holdings of an early 20th century magazine called The Craftsman and a rare, artistic box of booklets, multimedia, and sculpture to commemorate a 2004 performance by artist Terence Koh. The latter proves that an item need not be half a century old to be classified as rare; in this case, the Jean Outland Chrysler Library may be the only art library in the world with a copy of the “Koh & 50 Most Beautiful Boy” box, which was produced in very limited quantities.
Most exciting for me, however, was the chance to solve the mystery of a Persian-language book possibly created as far back as 1482. Lacking a staff member able to read what may be an archaic form of Persian script, we’re unable to say with certainty what the text is about. The volume is beautifully illustrated in a Persian miniature style prominent in the 15th and 16th centuries. Adding to the mystery is a loose, typed note with the name and dates of a famous Persian poet, Jami. Clues in hand, I started some online digging through other institution’s catalogs and exhibitions as well as following a Wikipedia trail (yes, I admit it) to Jami, Persian poetry, and miniature painting. When I looked up it was 2 PM and I was momentarily convinced we had a version of Jami’s most famous work, Haft Awrang (Seven Thrones). Unfortunately, my theory remains just that and without being able to read the text, I can only rely on visual characteristics and the beautiful illustrations. Two of the illustrations in our volume match scenes depicted in the most famous Haft Awrang manuscript, currently residing in the Freer Gallery of Art, but the others do not immediately invoke scenes from Jami’s epic work. If nothing else, I had an exciting morning of feeling the smallest bit like a desk-bound Indiana Jones, but hopefully my research can provide another starting point for future catalogers or researchers. The mystery volume remains one of the most intrinsically valuable in our rare collection and stands as a personal highlight for me.