Posts Tagged ‘rare books’

Come Listen to a Lecture by a Gardner Museum Curatorial Fellow

Saturday, April 9th, 2011

Interested in Art Librarianship? Special Collections and Rare Books? Our neighbor the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum?

Dr. Anne-Marie Eze, the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow at the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum will be at GSLIS on April 20th, 2011 from 4:45 – 5:45pm in P207 to talk about Mrs. Gardner as a rare book collector. Dr. Eze will also preview an upcoming exhibit “Illuminating the Serenissima: Books of the Republic of Venice.”  This event is being sponsored by the Office of the Dean, GSLIS.

One last call –

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

BEFORE the Convention falls…

So, while I am not sure of everyone (anyone) else reading this blog, I, for one, am very excited for the upcoming ARLIS conference this weekend.

In honor of the convention starting in almost exactly 24 hours, I thought I’d leave some last minute posts about what might be happening…

1) The ARLIS (AR)Tea Party, Saturday night, April 24th.

The ARLIS (Ar)Tea Party will take place in the Harborview Ballroom of the World Trade Center, adjacent to the Seaport Hotel, April 24th, 9-11 pm. Hundreds of ARLIS members will be present, enjoying cocktails, desserts and each others company. More than a dozen contemporary artists will join the party and will also be exhibiting their work throughout the room. There will be video, sound, and performance artists, animation, and installations. All of the artists are truly excited to be a part of this unique event, some are showing brand new work. They have told me how much they look forward to talking with art librarians and vendors about new media art. Please be sure to join us, don’t miss out on this one night exhibition and cocktail party.

The following is a brief description about the participating artists. Some are well known and exhibit internationally and some are emerging artists with promising careers ahead. Thematically, all the artists are actively contributing to the contemporary art discourse and participate in prominent art and music school environments, including the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts College of Art, MIT, The Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and Berklee College of Music, Boston.

* Performance artist and founder of Mobius Artists Group, Marilyn Arsem creates site specific, often spontaneous, performances.

* You will be greeted at the entrance by Stephanie Cardon’s interactive installation “Echo’s Chamber”.

* Animator and teacher, Joel Frenzer will be sharing not only his own work, but that of other prominent New England animation artists. More of Joel’s work can be viewed here.

* Barbara Gallucci will be exhibiting some of her soft chairs which will be part of her upcoming show at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in the Fall of 2010.

* Artist and writer, Nate Harrison is currently writing his dissertation on art and copyright law. His work involves “the intersection of intellectual property, cultural production and the formation of creative processes in electronic media”.

* Carla Herrera-Prats, a recent participant at the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, often works with the classification and cataloging of cultural and economic transactions.

* Wendy Jacobs, associate professor of visual arts in the Department of Architecture at MIT will exhibit a video of her site-based work involving a tightrope.

· Liz Nofziger, multimedia artist, and Managing Editor of ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art will represent both her own work and the latest issue of ASPECT.

* Multi media artist Sarah Peck will simultaneously be having her MFA Thesis Exhibition at the Tufts University Art Gallery.

* Multimedia artist Daniel Phillips works with photography, animation, installation, video, plus drawing, painting, and sculpture. He will be sharing new work with us regarding his current project within an abandoned paper mill. Daniel is represented by the Judi Rotenberg Gallery, Boston

* Master musician, sound artist, and chair of the Brass Department at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Tom Plsek will be giving private trombone concerts to participants through a device attached to the bell of his instrument. Subtle, spontaneous, always beautiful, the experience of listening to live music that only you can hear is amazing.

* Bob Raymond: Multimedia artist, photographer, and member of Mobius, Bob has been participating in, and documenting, performance and experimental art since the 1980’s.

* Australian performance artist Tony Schwensen will be joining us via Skype from Quebec. Tony is funny, direct, and intensely passionate about the preservation and access of digital media.

* Mary Ellen Strom and Ann Carlson, video artist and choreographer, respectively, will exhibit their piece Sloss, Kerr, Rosenberg & Moore, which involves a movement and vocal performance with four New York attorneys.

2) Which brings me to another fact of Saturday, GSLIS students can get FREE admission into the exhibit halls… how, do you ask? Well.

GSLIS is sponsoring a coffee break on Saturday, April 24, so GSLIS
students get FREE admission to the exhibit hall that day. GSLIS
students are invited to attend the coffee break from 2:30-3:00pm and
welcome to visit the exhibits any time during the day. ARLIS members
love to meet students, so the coffee break will be a great opportunity
to network with art librarians.

And the Exhibits are a major event of the annual conference. Art book
publishers, database vendors, antiquarian bookseller, library services
companies and book artists all contribute to making the exhibits the
main marketplace for art libraries and art librarians. A small sample
of attendees is Abbeville Publishing, Distributed Art Publishers, Ars
Libri, F.A. Bernett, Harrassowitz Booksellers, H.W. Wilson, EBSCO and
many more.

Just stop by the Registration desk on the plaza level of the WTC to pick
up your complimentary pass for the exhibit halls. If you are interested
in meeting up with other GSLIS students for the coffee break and exhibit
halls, meet Panopticon leaders Betsy Boyle and Alli Bjorndahl
at the Registration Desk at 2:30 on Saturday, April 24.

So, in other words, you can walk around a conference devoted to art libraries, get as cup of coffee, talk with art book publishers, and maybe take a peek into the exhibit halls, all for FREE.

So, be sure to come by, say hello, and take advantage!

3) Also, finally, for those you are going, ARLISnap will have an event Friday evening after the welcome ceremonies. A great way to meet new people, and NETWORK.

Enjoy your spring-weather weekend, and hopefully, I’ll see you at the conference.

… link soup!

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

Been a while, hasn’t it? Hope everyone is having much luck in writing their papers. Thought you might like some diversions, and I do have 1000+ unread items currently in my Google Reader, so here we go!

1) This might be old news already, but… Gov. Deval Patrick is considering closing the State Library of Massachusetts, in order to save the state money. “Cost-saving method” are, in fact, his exact words. There is a petition here, and also a FB page here. Option to fan/friend the page is available, although not necessary to read the page.

2) The Library of Congress’ Print and Photograph Department recently acquired new photos – “Photochroms give us Holland’s Nice, bright colors”. Collection is of 100+ photos showcasing the Netherlands 100 years ago. Link is here.

3) Artist recreates Masterpieces with coffee. She “noticed how similar the java looked to some of the shades she was using and thought that if coffee can stain your clothes, why not try painting with it.” She also apparently loved how it smelled.
Current paintings include works by Da Vinci and Vermeer. I think my favorite is “The Thinker”, which one is yours?

4) Alternately, if you do happen to have any old card catalogue cards just lying around, here’s one idea to put them to good use…

5) The Extraordinary World of Ex Libris Art – tagline? Sometimes the ex libris is more valuable than the book containing it. Artwork here

6) Also? I want this. I mean, doesn’t anyone else?

7) If anyone wants to move to Ireland, might be a job available, as Ireland library opens 20,000 books, but no staff.

And finally a few local items:
8) Boston’s Athenaeum, due to its declining membership, is starting to market itself to a younger generation. Among other marketing techniques, they’ve been advertising in Boston Magazine and Improper Bostonian, and created a fan page on Facebook. Full article in the Boston Globe here.

9) And last:
Boston Public Library is featuring an International Bookbinding Exhibit now through December 13th. Features 117 bindings. According to the exhibit blurb, the ”

This exhibition features 117 extraordinary bindings from the Designer Bookbinders’ first International Competition. The bindings on display show remarkable ingenuity, technical skill, and sophistication. With its impressive range of cultural and geographical differences in the contemporary art of bookbinding, this exhibition offers a fascinating and beautiful overview of the work of 21st-century designer binders.” Exhibit is FREE.

(Thinking of maybe going once the semester is over. Anyone else interested?)

So… there we have it. Link soup! Meantime, good luck on whatever papers and assignments you are currently working on, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

7,000,000 titles: Abandoned

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

A mid-week special, featuring an interesting article…

(Courtesy of wired.com)

Links of interest, and upcoming events around Boston.

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

Why yes, I did do a Sunday weekly reading of my google reader, why do you ask?

First link tonight comes by way of ArLiSNAP’s (the Midwestern counterpart to ArLiS/NE) blog.

Citing an article originally posted by ACRLog, the article takes a spin on the article “12 Things Newspapers Should Do To Survive”, only applies it to libraries. So, what made the top 12?
Things like: Put the Web First, Charge for Quotes, and Offer Unique Content in Print.

The last listed here seems especially pertinent given the digital world we are entering as librarians, archivists, and visual communicators. Full article can be found here.

I’d be interested to hear what you have to say. Do you think the advice (as it is) written in this article relevant to what we want/hope to one day do in our professions? What parts of the advice would you change? Would you add? Or deem not relevant?

Second link tonight comes from the blog Dark Roasted Blend, (if you’re not reading this feed, I highly recommend it), in the form of Astronomical Clocks.

Article gives a brief overview of the history of the clocks and time herself, with some gorgeous photos as well. Given that these are the original clocks, including some from the Medieval periods, all are in very excellent condition.

Also, not from my Google Reader, but another “oh, look! Pretty!” link -

MassArt has a collection of artist’s books, portions of the collection being viewable to students and individuals.

No word on hours or times to view, but two numbers are listed on the bottom of the page. I’m particularly fond of this one, I have to say.

Also, Harvard Art Museum is starting a series of lectures, the first being on “Buddha’s Hand”.

According to the website: “Each lecture will look deeply at a single work of art, inviting interpretations that probe beneath the surface. Approaching each work from multiple perspectives, we will examine the techniques, contexts, and stories that helped shape these exceptional works…

Ticket prices are slightly steep on a student budget. $18 for a single lecture, and $90 for the whole series. (Buddha would count as single lecture). No price for student tickets, although you do save if you are a member of the museum.

More information found at the Arts Boston site.

Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Books

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

Coincidently, this seems a good way to start the new semester?

Hopefully, everyone knows Library of Congress’ history… when during the War of 1812, a fire destroyed the entirity of the collections, Thomas Jefferson offered to sell his personal library to replace what had been lost, only for another fire in 1851, Christmas Eve no less, to incinerate almost 35,000 volumes. “… although Congress appropriated funds to replace much of the Library of Congress collection, the restoration of the Jefferson library fell by the wayside.”

In this article, we learn the story of curator Mark Dimunation, who for the past decade has worked on the restoration of Jefferson’s library, knowing full well, this is a project he’ll never see completed.

Read the full story here.

(Article taken from Smithsonian Magazine)