ARLIS/NA 54th Annual Conference

Libraries curate and host exhibitions for a range of contexts and purposes, and exhibitions are a popular means of public scholarship and outreach. For many library workers, however, these responsibilities are often secondary to their primary duties or job functions, requiring additional labor and frequently with limited or no formal training. This panel will explore how four different librarians, representing museum, academic, and art spaces, began working on exhibition projects and learned curatorial practices. Additionally, the panel will discuss how curatorial projects fit into their standard library work and broader library goals.

Curation and exhibition design are intersecting skills that draw from a variety of disciplines to advance information literacy, visual storytelling, and pedagogical practice in physical and digital spaces. In these spaces, library workers serve in multiple roles, including student mentors, visual educators, creative designers, and program managers. By translating our expertise and talents into exhibitions, we can create transformative experiences for our communities, whether through works of art or library resources. This viewpoint, which highlights creativity, authorship, and collaboration, serves as an act of resistance against the framing of librarians as customer service drones. More than a display of objects, exhibition work provides an important avenue of expression, scholarship, and creative growth.

A Library Exhibition Program for Everyone: Coordinating Both Library- and Community-Led Exhibits
Speaker: Heather Koopmans

What does one need to lead an exhibits program that includes library-initiated exhibits as well as those developed by members of an academic community? Heather Koopmans will share how she learned on-the-job to review and select exhibits as part of a program, co-plan exhibits with faculty and library peers (bridging departments and disciplines), showcase faculty- and student-generated art in the library, and evolve the program in alignment with changing priorities.

Back to School: Library Lessons in Museum Studies
Speaker: Jacob Lackner

How do museum studies and librarianship intersect in the world of exhibitions? Jacob Lackner will discuss leading a museum and exhibitions team, curating exhibits alongside students and faculty, and the experience of learning as a student in a museum studies MA program.

The Art of Museum Library Exhibitions: Combining Diverse Skills to Foster Creative Curation
Speaker: Rebekah S. Boulton

Rebekah Boulton is a museum librarian working in a public-facing reading room, and curates exhibitions of library materials within the museum’s exhibitions program and hosts related public programming. Like many librarians, Boulton came to this work with no formal exhibitions training, and draws from her background in art history and library studies to consider all aspects of curation to be able to convey the meaning and merit of materials to audiences.

Learning on Display: Curatorial Praxis in an Academic Art Library
Speaker: Courtney Hunt

Speaking from experiences at a public R1 university, Courtney Hunt will share how she learned to curate through the staging of a semester-long exhibition containing library and special collections materials as well as art. Hunt will also speak about running an exhibitions program of student/staff work in a standalone fine arts library.

Working in a museum library combines aspects of academic, special and public librarianship. Speakers in this session will present on the unique issues facing museum libraries and librarians.

Forging a Library-Museum Partnership: Creativity, Exploration, and Resistance
Speaker: Jacob Lackner

After the Oxford College Library and the Michael C. Carlos Museum were brought together as part of organizational realignment at Emory University, library and museum staff began to build a formalized partnership for the first time. The goal of this endeavor was to bring museum collections, resources, and personnel to a new audience at a new campus. Collaboration started with small meetings and building internal teams with relevant stakeholders. This created a foundation for lending artwork, planning and constructing a dedicated exhibition space, and guest speaking during library instruction. The process has required a commitment to cooperation, resource sharing, flexibility, and patience, but has already achieved exciting results. Museum resources enabled the library to bring more diverse voices onto the Oxford College campus, including works by contemporary African and contemporary Indigenous artists, as well as displaying an exhibit of works on paper that was co-curated with an Oxford College faculty member.

As an act of resistance, this collaboration stands against the dominant view that undergraduate education should prioritize job training and narrow pathways over humanistic inquiry and digressions into the arts. Instead, this project encourages students to resist the pressure of productivity, look at something unexpected in the library, and ask questions about the relationship between art, information, and society. Additionally, the project resists the idea that museum collections must always remain in the museum, giving them new context and new viewers in a new place. Established pieces from the collection can be reinterpreted by taking up residence amidst busy students, student artwork, and book stacks.

Attendees will learn strategies and takeaways for planning library-museum collaboration and be encouraged to see how similar partnerships can advance long-term goals at their institutions. Libraries and museums can learn much from each other, and joining forces can leave both institutions better prepared for the challenges of the future.

Catalogues of the World: Building a Universal Archive
Speaker: Holly Phillips

Launched in 2001, the Contemporary Catalogs Project (CCP) is an initiative of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Thomas J. Watson Library to actively collect and preserve contemporary art gallery exhibition catalogs from around the world. Led by library staff with support from interns and volunteers, the project entails identifying galleries, requesting catalogs, recording solicitations, and acknowledging donors. The project goals are: to preserve publications for future researchers; acquire materials while they are still readily available; represent living artists as inclusively and globally as possible; and expand collecting beyond dominant networks of publishers and distributors.

Through sustained outreach and the generosity of galleries worldwide, the library has acquired more than 25,000 publications, representing 60 countries and over 10 languages. In 2020, the project was expanded to include PDF catalogs, which Watson is requesting, archiving, and making publicly available for online viewing and download. More than 5,700 gallery catalog PDFs are now available directly through WorldCat, Watsonline (our online catalog), and downloadable as an entire collection in MARC format record sets.

This presentation will include an overview of the workflow and tracking documentation developed for the project, highlights and key takeaways, and introduce a newly launched landing page and online index.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Korea
Speaker: J. Vera Lee

This original archival research focuses on the role of the Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA; formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts (HAA)) in a seminal stateside exhibition of Korean National Treasures. Robert Griffing, then-Director of HAA, became interested in sponsoring an exhibition of Korean National Treasures as a member of the UNESCO-International Commission of Museums (ICOM; 1947). When the Korean War erupted in 1951, and national treasures in peril were packed and moved from the National Museum of Korea (NMK) in Seoul to Pusan, Griffing offered HAA as a haven for Korean National Treasures to Kim Chewon, NMK Director. Griffing and Kim’s correspondence reveals a framework of influence and power linked to narrating national identity through the objects of the eventual 1957 exhibition (that originated with the National Gallery of Art). I evaluate the making of this exhibition as a precursor to current events around national representation in art museums and libraries. On a more modest scale, I have reformatted my position and labor as a museum librarian to include research and writing. Altogether, I read power and roles that undergird either exhibitions or workflows through a Critical Librarianship lens, to highlight opportunities for resistance, whether geo-political, organizational, or narrative.

How can libraries, museums, and the vendors they partner with embody resistance in the face of privatization, censorship, and inequity? This panel will explore an emerging partnership between Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), an organization dedicated to preserving and providing access to media art, and Pratt Institute Libraries, which is working to expand ethical, sustainable access to these collections. Positioning themselves as allies rather than vendors, EAI is actively developing initiatives that resist barriers to access by highlighting marginalized art histories, supporting educators in underfunded schools, and collaborating with organizations such as Art Resources Transfer to distribute publications and curricula to public libraries and prison systems.

The panel will examine how libraries, artists, and cultural organizations can collaborate to resist exploitative market dynamics, expand access to underrepresented voices, and preserve media art as a vital cultural record. Rebecca Cleman, Executive Director of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), will outline EAI’s mission and history of providing educational access to media art, with a focus on the Educational Streaming Service and recent partnerships with academic institutions. Nelson Henricks, a Montreal-based educator and artist with media art in distribution through Video Data Bank, will discuss his experience using EAI in the classroom. Matthew Garklavs, the Electronic Resources Librarian at Pratt Institute Libraries, will address his collaboration with EAI to develop a shared cataloging infrastructure and reflect on working with vendors to support sustainable, long-term access to educational resources.

While touching upon current developments in the field, this panel will position collaborations between vendors, libraries, and creators not as transactional relationships but as opportunities for solidarity and shared purpose. In contrast to conventional subscription models, EAI is piloting new pathways, such as subsidized streaming for schools and open sharing of MARC records, that align with libraries’ commitments to openness and equitable access. By including an artist’s voice, the panel will also foreground the stakes for creators whose works risk invisibility without the stewardship of organizations committed to long-term preservation and accessibility.

Anchored in Montreal, a city with a deep history of cultural resistance, this panel will resonate with the conference theme by showing how art information professionals can transform professional practice into a form of resistance, expanding access, amplifying marginalized histories, and reimagining collaborative partnerships over commerce.

Returning for its twentieth year, New Voices in the Profession provides professionals who are new to art librarianship or visual resources work the opportunity to present topics from exceptional coursework, such as a master's thesis, or topics with which they are engaged early in their professional life. New professionals are defined as either students in MLIS or Master's programs leading to a career in art librarianship or visual resources, or those within five years of Master's level study. For many, this is their first professional speaking engagement.

This panel began at the ARLIS/NA 2006 Annual Conference in Banff and has since received wide attention and praise. Topics presented reveal new ideas as well as different ways of thinking about established concepts. Speakers give the conference attendees a glimpse of academic interests and current discourses of the newest ARLIS/NA members.

The New Voices session is organized by the Professional Development Committee, ArLiSNAP, and the Student Advancement Awards Subcommittee.

Dusting Off the Artist Files: Early Career Collaborations in Art Librarianship, Cataloguing and Archives
Speaker: Kate Nugent
From 1969 to 2014, the librarians at the Bibliothèque des arts de l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) collected ephemera that documented the activities of Canadian artists, galleries and exhibitions in the form of artist files. Until recently, these files—which predominantly relate to Québécois artists and local Montreal galleries—were not discoverable in the library catalogue, and were thus rarely consulted by students. To evaluate the significance of the artist files and the feasibility of integrating them into the library catalogue, a student was recruited as part of an internship in an MLIS program. Following her recommendations, the cataloguing team at UQAM decided to prioritise the artist files and began processing the collection to make it discoverable and accessible to students.
This presentation will outline my experience as an early-career cataloguing librarian processing artist files, an experience that builds on my previous archival work and my background in art history. I will discuss the challenges of the project, how I combined cataloguing and archival standards, and the experience of working with a student as an early professional. This presentation ultimately advocates for collaboration in these projects—between departments, between students and librarians—and encourages new professionals to take on these projects as a way to learn and grow.

Mexican Bracero Railroaders in the United States During World War II: An Endangered History
Speaker: Emily Mizokami, Gerd Muehsam Award 2026
More than 136,000 Mexican citizens came to the United States during World War II to work the most grueling railroad jobs through a contractual agreement between the U.S. and Mexican governments. At the war's end, they were all immediately and unceremoniously sent back to Mexico. And yet, few have heard their stories. The railroaders were part of the larger bracero program which primarily employed farm workers. The railroad arm of the program lasted only two and half years, while the agricultural branch went on for 22 years. The short duration of the program, combined with the difficulty of accessing archival records documenting living and working conditions, explains the lack of a robust selection of comprehensive literature and public awareness about World War II bracero railroaders. If the bracero program is featured in scholarly journals, it is rare for the railroad braceros to be provided more than a passing mention. If one walks through the exhibit spaces in North America's premiere railroad museums, one will not see these men represented in photographs, documents, or railroad art. To raise awareness and encourage further research, this presentation provides a brief history of the railroad bracero program, a review of existing literature on the understudied topic, and thoughts as to why we still know so little about these men and their contributions.

The Role of Fellowships in Early Career Development
Speaker: De’Ivyion “Ivy” Drew
What is the role of library fellowships in early-career development? This presentation will cover the fellowship experiences of the UNC Chapel Hill Primary Source Teaching Fellowship and the Yale Kress Fellowship in Art Librarianship. MLIS students gain expertise of daily library activities through work practicums in settings that interest them; however, these practicums lack the ability to expose students to a wide variety of librarianship paths, often limited to the setting/context of the hosting institution. Both fellowships feature self-directed project deliverables and collaborative structures designed to address the gap MLIS students experience navigating the paths of librarianship.
The Primary Sources Teaching Fellowship is funded by a three-year (2022 to 2025) grant from the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program and has library alumni that have made significant contributions to public institutions, private institutions, and cultural heritage institutions. In comparison, for almost 30 years, the Kress Foundation, Yale University Libraries, and the Yale Center for British Art together have supported a fellowship for new library school graduates to engage in an immersive one-year experience in art librarianship. Kress Fellows who are selected and complete a capstone project continue their library career on an impressive trajectory, eventually becoming University Librarians, Directors of Fine Art and Architecture Libraries, and other major leadership positions.
Fellowship experience develops library confidence, expands library connections through networking, and can clarify which library roles align best, therefore significantly impacting an early-career librarian for their entire path in librarianship.

Breaking into Cataloging: Learning, Adapting, and Succeeding
Speaker: Madeline (Maddie) Hayko (she/her)
Cataloging, a field that many young professionals are interested in, yet most receive little to no training before being thrown headfirst into a professional cataloging position. Once in a new position, where does one turn for resources, support, and how does one gain confidence in cataloging? In my presentation “Breaking into Cataloging: Learning, Adapting, and Succeeding” I discuss my background in cataloging before accepting a full-time position, reflect on my first year as a cataloger, and what I learned to be initially successful. I will share resources and connections that help me gain confidence in my cataloging abilities and how I adapt while learning the standards of the trade. Lastly, I convey how a new professional can feel successful in cataloging even with little to no prior experience or guidance. This presentation is for those interested in cataloging, new catalogers, and for professionals experiencing imposter syndrome in a very technical field.

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