Fall 2002 - Vol. 15 No. 2

From the President

The chapter's fall meeting was held October 4 on Cape Ann, Massachusetts at two distinctive institutions. The morning business meeting was held at the Cape Ann Historical Museum in Gloucester. Laurie Whitehill Chong, ARLIS/NA Eastern Regional Representative, reported on the decision by the ARLIS/NA Executive Board to eliminate some divisions and round tables. She also discussed steps to open the sponsorship of programs at the conference and to allow freer scheduling of meetings.

There was a discussion about the idea of increasing chapter dues by $5 a year. Although the chapter has sound finances, some officers expressed concern our increased programs may spend down our reserves. Members will be asked to approve or reject the proposal on the fall election ballot.

Susan Lewis announced an upcoming program to be conducted by the Ariel Group, an innovative management consulting firm composed of business psychologists and actors. (This meeting was later cancelled for lack of registration-ed.)

For the rest of the morning, the group viewed the museum. Susan Erony, assistant curator for special exhibits, present an engaging gallery talk on Fitz Hugh Lane, the mid-19th-century Gloucester seascape painter. The museum is the home of the largest collection of Fitz Hugh Lane paintings. The rest of museum is a surprising blend art, regional character and maritime history. It presents changing exhibits of works by artists associated with Gloucester and Rockport and their artist colonies, from Luminists to contemporary. On display were special exhibits of the works of Alfred Leavitt, Ralph Coburn, and the show entitled "Cape Ann Collects." Also in the collection are examples the creativity of Gloucester's ethnic communities and maritime displays including a huge diorama of the harbor from the Columbian Exposition and a small sail-boat that crossed the Atlantic at the turn of the last century.

Lunch was a visit to Woodman's in Essex, one of the original clam shacks of New England for chowder, fish & chips and clam rolls.

In the afternoon the group visited Cogswells Grant in Essex. Joanne Flaherty, the site manager, presented a lively and insightful slide presentation of the original owners and the facility. This was the summer home of Bertram and Nina Fletcher Little, premier collectors of American folk art. The 17th-century farmhouse is situated on the estuary of the Essex River overlooking fields and saltwater marshes. It houses an immense collection of paintings, furniture, decoys, and household objects mostly from the nearby region. Today it is a house museum of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

For a note on the future, we are having a joint meeting with ARLIS/ Western New York at Smith College on May 9 and 10, Friday and Saturday. Barbara Polowy, Susan Lewis and Becky Simmons will be planning a program including Smith's beautiful new Art Center. Save the date.

Please notice two announcements in this newsletter: the Wolfgang Freitag Professional Development Award and the Elmar Siebel Scholarship. I encourage anyone in-terested to apply for these financial awards which ARLIS/NE is proud to offer.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has worked to achieve accomplishments of our society of the last year, the programs, the awards, the newsletter and the scholarship, plus the gritty work done by the other executive officers. We should be proud of the contribution we make to our profession and the broader cultural life of our region. I would like to say a personal thank you all who labored to make ARLIS/New England such a worthwhile organization.

Richard McElroy

Election Results!

The ballots have now been counted and the newly-elected officers for 2002 are Anne Haas vice-president/president elect and Ra-chel Beckwith, secretary/membership officer The board would like to congratulate the new officers and thank Barbara Polowy and Jae Rossman for running for office. The elections were very close, all candidates were excellent and their willingness to serve is greatly appreciated.

The chapter also voted-by a large margin-to increase dues by $5.

Treasurer's Report

The current balance in ARLIS/NE checking account is $7,692.47. As of October 2002 balances in CDs at --- Savings Bank are $1,348.91 and $2,642

Susan Myerson, Treasurer

Spring Meeting at Smith College

The Smith College Libraries and Department of Art welcome ARLIS/NE and ARLIS/WNY members to the newly-renovated Brown Fine Arts for a two-day spring meeting on May 9 and 10, 2003. Friday's program will include a presentation about the renovation project, tours of Hillyer Art Library, the Imaging Center, and the Smith College Museum of Art, and a late afternoon reception. A half-day hands-on workshop on the Luna Insight image database will be presented on Saturday morning.

More detailed information about the program, suggestions for local lodgings, and a guide to Five College area attractions, including the Yiddish Book Center and the new Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art at Hampshire College, the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, and of course, the great shopping and restaurant scene, will be available in the spring.

Elmar W. Siebel Scholarship

Purpose of the award is to support and encourage future art librarians and visual collection professionals in pursuing their graduate education at an accredited graduate degree program in library and information science at Simmons College, University of Rhode Island or Southern Connecticut State University. Applicants are asked to send a letter describing themselves and their interest in art librarianship, with proof of enrollment in or a letter of acceptance from one of the above institutions. Must be postmarked, faxed or e-mailed no later than February 15, 2003 to:

Stephen Nonack
Boston Athenaeum
10 1/2 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02045
Nonack@bostonathenaeum.org

Wolfgang Freitag Professional Development Award

The Freitag Professional Development Aware is meant to encourage the professional development of chapter members by providing financial aid and support for travel to professional conferences, research and publishing projects, continuing education, and other objectives pertaining to art librarianship. Full description, qualifications and requirements are posted on the ARLIS/NE web site. Chapter members should send a letter describing their project and financial need by mail, fax or e-mail by March 1, 2002 to:

Don Milliken
P.O. Box 868
Amherst, MA 01004
Fax 1-413-542-2662
dpmilliken@amherst.edu

Bob Garzillo Reports on His 2002 Wolf-gang Freitag Award

I wish to thank ARLIS/NE for the support of the Wolfgang Freitag Professional Development Award. I used the award toward the cost of fees to attend a course at the Rare Book School, University of Virginia. I attended a week-long course entitled, The Printed Book in the West to 1800. Martin Antonetti, curator of rare books, Smith College taught the class. The course covered the development of the Western printed book in the hand-press period. Topics covered in-cluded the introduction and spread of printing in Europe; the development of book design and illustration; and the growth of personal and institutional book collections.

One of the highlights of the class was our daily visit to the University of Virginia's Special Collections. Books printed by Jenson, Aldus, Garamond and Bodoni were available for our class to examine. We were able to view a Shakespeare first folio, a complete copy of the Nuremberg Chronicles, original bindings from the collection of Jean Grolier, etc. It was truly a treat to be able to see examples of materials we were reading about and discussing in class.

I am grateful to have received the award and again my thanks go to ARLIS/NE for contributing to this experience.

Robert Garzillo

From the Members

Ruth Thomas reports that she and and Donald Altschiller, history bibliographer at BU have put together a Boston Research Guide. It is available on the Web at http://www.bu.edu/library/research-guides/boston.html

The guide's major sections are Census and Demographics; Libraries; Neighborhoods; Newspapers; Images; and Other Information: cultural associations; transportation; sightseeing; and general information. It covers both Internet and print resources with a section on books in the BU Libraries.

Ruth continues: For art and architecture re-sources to include, I found two web pages especially useful: Francis Loeb Library's online pathfinder, Boston Buildings http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/library/resources/pathfinders/buildings_boston.html, and Rotch Library's subject guide, Built in Boston http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/subjects/architecture/boston/.

Donald and I welcome suggestions for other sources both on and off the web. For example, we would like to highlight important Boston collections in area libraries.