Showing posts with label Cataloging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cataloging. Show all posts

Friday, August 27, 2010

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

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.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Mid-Summer Report!

This past Wednesday, we rearranged some furniture and welcomed the Friends of the Jean Outland Chrysler Library for an open house. It was a pleasure to meet so many enthusiastic supporters of the library. Thank you to those that stopped by and we appreciate the continued support of all the library Friends and volunteers. Personally, the open house was a chance to show museum staff, museum volunteers, and library Friends what I’ve been up to this summer and hopefully promote the ongoing benefits of the cataloging fellowship. It’s hard to believe I’m beyond the halfway point of the fellowship; so far, roughly 500 items in a variety of formats have been added to the catalog and I hope to keep that number climbing steadily in my last few weeks!


--John Curtis, 2010 Jean Outland Chrysler Cataloging Fellow

Friday, July 16, 2010

Mixed Media

In the course of a single day’s work here at the Jean Outland Chrysler Library, I may process and catalog anything from Victorian travelogues to independent films starring heroes of the American counter-culture movement. Such diversity speaks volumes about the library’s commitment to building a truly comprehensive collection and also makes my job a lot of fun!
One of my priorities this week was reviewing and cataloging audiovisual materials. Whether in VHS, DVD, or even CD-ROM form, these materials will soon find a new home in the A. Kempton d'Ossche Art Video Collection. While adding an officially released and professionally produced biography of Pablo Picasso to the collection is fairly straightforward, the library also offers footage of past museum events, artist interviews, and taped art-related segments from news programs such as CBS Sunday Morning. A substantial portion of the un-cataloged audiovisual material has come to us with limited or non-existent documentation and the first step is often popping in a tape to see what’s actually on it. Once the suspense has passed, the detective work begins again and (hopefully) a catalog record takes shape as the tape plays. It’s safe to say that, when it comes to audiovisual material, the Jean Outland Chrysler Library offers researchers the chance to go off the beaten path.
In the midst of my work with tapes and videodiscs, I was able to describe and catalog three photo albums from more than a century before families could document a trip to Europe on a camcorder. Found together in a box in the library stacks, the three leather-bound albums date from 1875 and 1878 and, in early forms of photography, document a tour of Western Europe. I found it fascinating that a contemporary tourist would take or buy many of the same photos as those in the album and felt a tangible link to the past while exploring this fantastic resource. The albums reside in the rare books room and now have individual catalog records; I also created an archival finding aid to describe the three albums as one collection. Unfortunately, there are few immediate clues as to the origin and custodial history of the collection, but the albums can certainly stand on their own as valuable primary sources.
--John Curtis, Jean Outland Chrysler Library Cataloging Fellow

Friday, July 2, 2010

Postcards, Periodicals, and Greetings from Estonia

Happy Fourth of July! Appropriately, the early 20th century postcard collection I’ve begun processing this week has its fair share from the US of A, along with what I’ve determined to be one postcard from what is now the capitol of Estonia. No I'm not spending the holiday weekend in Eastern Europe, but if I had sometime around the turn of the century, I could have sent a postcard much like the one in our collection. I’m putting my archives training to good use (hopefully) and creating a finding aid for a small postcard collection currently housed in the rare books room of the Jean Outland Chrysler Library. The origins of the collection are a bit mysterious, but that won’t keep us from arranging and describing it to provide access for researchers interested in late 19th and early 20th century postcards. The collection is truly a global one, with landscapes, cityscapes, art, and architecture from more than a dozen countries. Most of the postcards are blank, but represent a useful resource for both those interested in postcard manufacture and use and those interested in the scenes they depict. The bulk of the collection is art reproductions and scenic locales so I’m currently arranging the collection into series based on geography and, in the case of the art postcards, Library of Congress classification. The finding aid won’t describe individual postcards, but will provide an overview of the collection and valuable access points to what could otherwise be an overwhelming jumble.
This week I also worked on cataloging art periodicals. In addition to our diverse current periodical subscriptions, the library also holds donated and rare materials and specific issues related to museum collections and shows. More dynamic than single or even multi-volume monographs, periodicals present unique cataloging challenges. Periodicals often change names, absorb other serials, change the frequency of distribution, and shift the place of publication. Cataloger becomes detective!
Finally, a quick shout-out to our new glass door. Museum staff and visitors can now see the friendly faces waiting for them at the reference desk as they enter the reading room. What once appeared to be a particularly foreboding vault door is now a lot more inviting. It may seem like a small detail, but, especially in the case of museum visitors, the new door sends the message that they’re welcome at the library.

--John Curtis, Cataloging Fellow

Friday, June 25, 2010

Cataloging the Jean Outland Chrysler Library’s pamphlet collection may not yield the towering, visually satisfying stack of cataloged material that results from processing monographs, but the rewards and fascinating discoveries are the same. The library accessions (takes in) many art-related pamphlets, most from gallery exhibitions or sales. Unlike monographs, these pamphlets are often limited, one-off printings quickly produced for the length of the exhibition. Most don’t have an ISSN number or assigned Library of Congress call number and lack clearly identified authors and publishers. Furthermore, many of the exhibitions highlight a wide variety of art and one pamphlet may include anything from 19th century British oil paintings to bronzes from the 1970’s. Clearly, some pamphlets represent a cataloging challenge. For example, this past week I came across about 20 exhibition pamphlets from the now-defunct IBM Gallery in New York City. The pamphlets spanned the 1960’s and represented the gallery’s diverse lineup of shows and interests. Should I catalog each pamphlet by subject individually? Should I group them as serial publications? Are these pamphlets more valuable as an IBM Gallery collection? How could I offer subject-based access points to individual pamphlets without complicating our library catalog with so many individual records? Ultimately, I decided to catalog the pamphlets as a collection; initial access is available under the heading IBM Exhibition Catalogs, but users searching for individual titles or subjects will still turn up specific pamphlets related to their search terms. Hopefully, it’s a win-win situation.
These pamphlets are valuable as records of specific exhibitions, facilitating historical research in the broadest sense and sometimes offering insight into the provenance of individual pieces. And, of course, sometimes there’s cool stuff tucked into them! This week I found a copy of a paper by Prentiss Taylor, a noted artist and teacher of the Harlem Renaissance, titled “Art As Psycotherapy” and reprinted from a 1950 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. Within the pamphlet was a Picasso postcard, newspaper clippings, and a letter to “Alice”. After briefly hoping I had found a long-lost letter to Alice Toklas, with whom he communicated, I’m now certain the letter is to Alice Jaffe, an art historian and Chrysler volunteer who specialized in Pre-Columbian art. The library has a portion of Ms. Jaffe’s papers and many of our books on Pre-Columbian art are courtesy of Alice Jaffe. Thanks to the knowledge of librarian Laura Christiansen and some poking through the Prentiss Taylor papers at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, the mystery was solved. The letter alludes to the McCarthyism sweeping the country at the time, as well as fellow Harlem Renaissance figure Carl Van Vechten, and should be a nice addition to either the Alice Jaffe papers or the library’s Prentiss Taylor vertical file.

--John Curtis, Cataloging Fellow

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Hello and Getting Started

Many thanks to the Jean Outland Chrysler Library staff for their welcome in the stacks and blogosphere! It may be cold in the stacks (for good reason) but my reception here at the Chrysler couldn’t have been warmer. Now that I’m settling in, it’s down to business. In my first two weeks I’m starting to tackle the backlog of unsorted and/or un-cataloged material, focusing on traditional art-related monographs. I’m sorting and identifying duplicates in the un-cataloged material and adding catalog records for those books we don’t have. In the coming weeks I’ll start working with smaller exhibition catalogs and pamphlets. Armed with coffee (tightly controlled and un-spilled) I’ll be getting as much material as possible to the shelves and into the catalog where it can searched, researched, and browsed.

Like many archivists and librarians, I face the continuing temptation to fully explore every book I catalog, sort, or work to preserve. In the interest of ever getting anything done, I can only occasionally indulge that urge. Each shelf or stack of un-cataloged material is a treasure trove of interesting material and, as in the case of a book I cataloged this week, that material can sometimes produce personal connections. I discovered and cataloged a book of photography by Joel-Peter Witkin (appropriately titled Joel-Peter Witkin), to whom I’m very distantly related through marriage. The book is dedicated to my second cousin, his wife at the time of printing. I’ve never met either my cousin or Mr. Witkin, but vividly recall a family gathering at which his work was discussed and uniformly criticized as being bizarre, disturbing, and in poor taste. My discovery of the book has not only sparked a shared memory, but also highlighted a challenge often faced by catalogers and the acquisitions staff of a library. Librarians often confront material fully within a collection’s scope which they find personally uninteresting, misguided, false, or even offensive. I don’t share my family’s sense of outrage at Witkin’s art, but personally think his work relies too much on staged grotesqueness as manifestation of his themes. Individual value judgments are unimportant, however, when wearing my cataloger’s cap and Joel-Peter Witkin will take its place beside Joel-Peter Witkin: Forty Photographs on our shelf. His books fall within the library’s collecting policy and, as a cataloger, I’m happily bound to the loftier Chrysler Library missions of fostering research and supporting the Museum’s collections.

Come back for more updates on my cataloging efforts. I’m looking forward to a successful summer!

--John Curtis, 2010 Jean Outland Chrysler Cataloging Fellow

Friday, June 4, 2010

2010 Cataloging Fellow - Welcome!

The staff of the Jean Outland Chrysler Library extends an enthusiastic welcome to 2010 Library Cataloging Fellow John Curtis! Established with the goal of enabling access to the Library’s unique resources while offering Masters of Library and Information Science students the opportunity to gain valuable experience, the Jean Outland Chrysler Library Cataloging Fellowship is made possible by funding from the Friends of the Library. John, a recent graduate of the M.L.I.S. program at Simmons College in Boston, MA is already hard at work cataloging materials that have previously been unavailable to Library patrons. We look forward to working with John this Summer. Keep an eye on the Library's blog for weekly updates about his work, new additions to the collection, and interesting items he comes across while cataloging!

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Cataloging Fellowship 2010

The Jean Outland Chrysler Library seeks a graduate, or recently graduated library and information science student interested in career as a cataloger in archives or libraries. Qualified applicants will:
            • Be current graduate students in good standing in a library science, information studies, preservation, archives or
             related program
            • Have experience in technical services and cataloging or have significant coursework in relevant areas.
            • Have knowledge of MARC, LCSH, AACR2, and DDC.
            • Have familiarity with art history research materials
            • Have good computer skills and familiarity with searching bibliographic databases.
            • Be detail oriented, organized and flexible with the ability to work independently.

 Cataloging Fellows will have the opportunity to work on a variety of cataloging and technical services projects. Responsibilities will include:
              • Assisting with the acquisitions workflow including accession records, physical processing and tracking of
                materials prior to cataloging.
             • Copy, derived, or original cataloging; Fellows will assist with cataloging materials in various formats including
                books, periodicals, archives, etc.
             • Some work with other formats including serials and audio-visual materials.
             • Technical processing of library materials
             • Introductory cataloging of rare books and unique materials.
             • Regular reports of project progress and participation in Library outreach activities including presentations to the
               public.
             • Some reaching and lifting may be required.

Applicants must commit to 10  weeks of employment between June and August 2010. Fellows will receive a stipend of $5,000 to be used for housing, travel and other expenses. The stipend will be divided into three payments: one upon starting, the second halfway through and the third upon completion of the internship.

 APPLICATION
To apply, candidates should submit: a letter of recommendation from an academic advisor or work supervisor, a cover letter, and a resume. Cover letters should highlight previous employment, coursework, and/or other qualifications. Applications must be received by April 15, 2010.

Applications may be sent via e-mail (lchristiansen@chrysler.org) or mail to:

The Jean Outland Chrysler Library
Attn: Laura Christiansen
245 West Olney Rd.
Norfolk, VA 23510

  Only those applicants who are chosen for possible placement will be contacted within two weeks of the respective application deadline to arrange for an interview.

Curious about what the Cataloging Fellow actually does? Take a look at the wonderful work of our 2009 Fellow Rachel Juris here:  
http://chryslermuseumlibrary.blogspot.com/search/label/fellowship

Friday, September 4, 2009

Farewell from Rachel

Although the 2009 Jean Outland Chrysler Library Cataloging Fellowship has ended, the knowledge I gained through my work this summer will be put to use in my next job, cataloging and archiving photographs at the Chicago History Museum, and as continue I pursue a career in museum libraries. This summer, I learned about cataloging many different types of materials and had the opportunity to work hand-on with many old and rare items. I want to thank the Friends of the Jean Outland Chrysler Library for making the Cataloging Fellowship possible. I am also appreciative of the staff, volunteers, and patrons of the Jean Outland Chrysler Library and the Chrysler Museum for providing me with such a welcoming and educational environment. I had a wonderful summer in Norfolk!

Friday, August 28, 2009

Farewell to Our Fellow...

The summer is quickly drawing to a close and our inaugural Jean Outland Chrysler Library Cataloging Fellow, Rachel Juris is on her way back to Chicago. Rachel spent the summer hard at work adding information about materials previously unavailable to Library patrons to the Library’s online catalog. Over the course of ten weeks, she added or corrected records for over 1,000 items! Rachel will go on to use her new skills as the Hedrich Blessing Photography Collection Project Archivist at the Chicago History Museum. Rachel created an impressive portfolio of the work that she completed for the Library this summer. It is available online at http://courseweb.lis.illinois.edu/~juris/chrysler/chryslerlibrary.html

Thank you Rachel for all of your hard work this summer!

Exploring The Archives

Over the course of the summer, I cataloged many exhibition and auction catalogs that originated from the Knoedler London Library collection. This week, I gained insight into the workings of M. Knoedler & Company gallery offices in the 1960s and 70s through an examination of a selection of papers and indices now in the Jean Outland Chrysler Library archive. One of the more unusual items I encountered, and which proved a challenge to describe, was a set of card catalog drawers filled with auction data. I created a finding aid that orders and describes the contents of the M. Knoedler & Company Papers.

-Rachel Juris, 2009 Jean Outland Chrysler Library Cataloging Fellow

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Auction Catalogs

The Jean Outland Chrysler Library auction catalog collection includes rare or unique items, ranging in date from the early 19th century to today. Auction catalogs that belonged previously to the M. Knoedler & Co. Ltd. library (later acquired by Walter P. Chrysler Jr.) have been available to researchers via microfiche since the 1970s (the microfiche is held in the collections of many major research libraries). However, some of the print catalogs have not been cataloged individually. The physical catalogs are significant objects because they contain original handwritten annotations of sale prices, newspaper clippings, and notes made by Knoedler & Co. employees. The Jean Outland Chrysler Library auction catalog collection is extensive, too large to be cataloged in a single summer, however, this week I began the process of creating individual catalog records for items from the Knoedler auction catalog collection. The criteria for cataloging auction catalogs differ slightly from those for cataloging monographs (for example, date and place of sale, owner, and auctioneer are components of an auction catalog record), and I am learning a new skills through the process of completing this project.

-Rachel Juris, 2009 Jean Outland Chrysler Library Cataloging Fellow

Monday, July 27, 2009

You are invited to a Library Open House!

If you've been reading this blog this summer, you'll know that Cataloging Fellow Rachel Juris and Interns Gabrielle, Emma, Jessica and Brendan have been hard at work helping the Library accomplish some big projects. Before our interns return to their respective schools for the year, we invite you to stop by the Library Reading Room on Friday, July 31 between 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. to meet them and see some of the amazing work they've completed. This is also a wonderful opportunity to meet Rachel and hear about her excellent work cataloging the Library's backlog.

We look forward to seeing you on Friday!

Friday, July 24, 2009

Periodicals in Fashion...

My activities this week were devoted to cataloging periodicals. I added approximately 35 new titles to the library catalog, ranging from American and French fashion magazines of the early 20th-century (Signe: Les Modes à Paris, French Elle, Vogue) to art-related titles. As Jessica mentioned in her blog entry last week, fashion and art are closely related. Many early fashion magazines include articles about artists and artworks of the times, in addition to stylized fashion photography and graphic design advertisements. One art-related title of particular note is an issue of View magazine, a surrealist art and poetry publication. The Jean Outland Chrysler Library collection already contained a book about the history of View magazine (View: Parade of the Avant-Garde), which, over the years of its publication (1940-47) featured work by artists, including: Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. Now, library users can see an original example of the magazine itself.

-Rachel Juris, 2009 Jean Outland Chrysler Library Cataloging Fellow

Friday, July 17, 2009

Artist’s Books

I recently returned from the American Library Association 2009 Annual Conference in Chicago. Among the sessions I attended, More Than Paper: The Small Press and the Artist's Book was especially relevant to my work in the Jean Outland Chrysler Library. Panelists discussed not only the importance of preserving small press and artist’s books in libraries, but also the challenges of describing artist-made objects so that users can search for and identify these materials in library catalogs. Small press and artist’s books are often printed in limited numbers and may, therefore, be rare or unique items. The manner in which small press and artist’s books are printed and bound and the materials used in the bookmaking process can be as significant as the texts and illustrations. Some small press and artist’s books have more in common with book art and art objects than with traditional books.
We Apologize by the filmmakers and artists EIDIA (Paul Lamarre and Melissa Wolf) is an example of an artist’s book I recently added to the Jean Outland Chrysler Library collection. A book, a flow chart, and a manifesto printed on a napkin are all housed in a modified record album cover. Only 100 copies of We Apologize were printed; each copy is numbered and signed by the artists.
- Rachel Juris, 2009 Jean Outland Chrysler Library Cataloging Fellow

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

The Changing Look of Art Exhibition Catalogs

During the past week, I catalogued approximately 75 art exhibition catalogs, ranging in date from the 1870s through the 1970s. Many of these catalogs are rare-- located in only one or two other libraries worldwide. Art exhibition catalogs from the late 19th century and first half of the 20th century bear little resemblance to the thick, glossy, color illustrated, essay-filled publications distributed by galleries and museums today. Earlier exhibition catalogs are smaller (sometimes only a single folded page), unillustrated or sparsely illustrated in black and white, listing artworks (title, artist, date, dimensions, medium, and sometimes price) for the purposes of promotion of the gallery and the artist, and sale of the artwork. Instead of a scholarly essay or note from the curator, a biography of the artist and description of his or her technique may be included. Although early exhibition catalogs do not make great coffee table books, they do provide scholars with valuable information about the provenance or artwork and the state of the art market at a particular time. Stop by the Jean Outland Chrysler Library to see the variety of art exhibition catalogs in our collection!

- Rachel Juris, 2009 Jean Outland Chrysler Library Cataloging Fellow

Friday, July 3, 2009

New Feature - Cataloged, Labeled and Shelved...

As you are scrolling down the blog this week you may notice a rather lenghty list has been added under our regular list of new acquisitions. This summer, with the able help of Cataloging Fellow Rachel Juris, the Library staff is working to catalog, label, and shelve as many uncataloged materials as possible. Previously part of our cataloging backlog and unavailable to researchers, the 150+ items listed this week were entered into our library catalog by Rachel between June 15 and June 30. Now all of these items are easy to find in our catalog and on our shelves. Rachel is still working away - so keep an eye for further additions in the coming weeks!

Friday, June 26, 2009

Unique to the Library...

This week, I came across a book to catalog that is unique to the Jean Outland Chrysler Library: Barton Myers: The Architecture of the Theater: Learning from Italy, published by the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles on the occasion of a 2006 exhibition of the architect’s work. Barton Myers, a descendent of Moses Myers and the grandson of a former mayor of Norfolk (Barton Myers, 1853-1927), remains involved in the Norfolk community. The Library has a number of other interesitng architecture books as well. Also to catalog I discovered several architectural and engineering books and manuals once belonging to Wyatt Hibbs (1903-1998), a former resident of Norfolk. These books, annotated by Mr. Hibbs, were used by their owner in his work as an architect and draftsman. The discovery of books whose history is tied to their subjects, uses, and former owners, caused me to consider the responsibilities of the cataloging librarian: both to accurately transcribe information about the books and objects in the library, but also to add meaning (through the addition of subject headings) that relates specifically to the history of the community and to current and future needs of library users, with the goal of making searching for materials easier and more effective. Thus, the collection and catalog of the Jean Outland Chrysler Library strive to represent and to serve the Chrysler Museum’s collections, staff, visitors, and the larger community.

- Rachel Juris, 2009 Jean Outland Chrysler Library Cataloging Fellow