ARLIS/NA 1996 CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS

Convocation





Left: Conference co-chairs Stephen Patrick, Anne Ross, and James Findlay receive certificates of appreciation for their outstanding work planning the 1996 annual conference.





It was a truly amazing entertainment: informative, honorific, visually sophisticated, and fast-paced. The convocation for the 24th ARLIS/NA Annual Conference was held at the historic Art Deco Colony Theater in the South Beach area of Miami Beach. The convocation was orchestrated to perfection, the handiwork of many people, with President Ed Teague as master of ceremonies.

The keynote address was delivered by the president- elect of ALA and director of the Miami-Dade Public Library system, Mary Sommerville. Sommerville spoke movingly about the role of multicultural art in the public library in creating a sense of home and community as part of the acculturation process for recent immigrants to America. If you had ever wondered whether you had made a good decision in pursuing a career as a librarian, oops, information professional, your commitment was reinvigorated during her talk, indeed, as it was throughout the evening.

Those in attendance were next treated to a moving and well-crafted slide show of travel award sponsors and recipients. Allen Townsend, chair of the Travel Awards Committee, narrated the presentation which included photographs of the sponsors in their book stores, the recipients in their libraries and landscapes. Visually stunning, the slides showed the faces and spaces behind each award. Sponsors and recipients were rightly honored, and the audience enthralled.

The Gerd Muehsam Award held its own surprise; Debbie Barlow (the West Coast Debbie), chair of the Muehsam award committee annouced that the winning paper was of such high caliber that it had already been published elsewhere. Peter Blank, chair of the H.W. Wilson Foundation Research Committee and the newly inaugurated ARLIS/NA Publications Committee announced the Wilson award and three publications awards. Cheryl Siegel announced another new award: the Melva J. Dwyer Publication Award to honor reference works about Canadian art by Canadian authors, published and distributed by Canadian companies. The endearing slide-show tribute to winner Evelyn McMann revealed a substantial lifetime of indexing, and an exemplary professional commitment.

As if this weren't enough innovation and inspiration for one convocation, the 17th Annual Wittenborn Awards were revised this year as well. A new, modernist logo, designed by Fran Grossman of New York City, was unveiled. Deborah Kempe, chair of the Wittenborn Committee, announced three winners and two special mentions. Filled with pride in our colleagues and our profession we walked and rode in buses to the Wolfsonian Foundation for a reception held amidst the exhibit, Designing Modernity.

1996 ARLIS/NA Travel Awards Winners

Howard & Beverly Joy Karno Award :
Nelva Quevedo Pacheco, Library of the Museo de
Arts de Lima, Peru. Librarie

Leonce Laget Travel Award :
Mireille Etignard, Library of the Ecole d'Art de
Besancon, France.

David Mirvish Books on Art Travel Award :
Linda Bien, head of the Slide Library,
Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.

G.K. Hall Conference Attendance Award :
Madelyn Cook, chapter officer and chair of the 1996 Southwest Regional Conference Planning Committee, University of Arizona Library.
Jim and Anna Emmett Award was not awarded as there were no applications.

1995-96 Gerd Muehsam Award Winner:
Bradley L. Taylor, University of Michigan, GLIS, for his paper "Chenhall's Nomenclature, the Art & Architecture Thesaurus, and Issues of Access in America's Artifact Collections," to be published in the next issue of Art Documentation.

1996 ARLIS/NA Publications Awards

(cash awards are available for publications undertaken outside the scope of one's institutional responsibilities; certificates of merit are available for publications undertaken with institutional support.)
Cash Award $200.00: Jeanne Brown. Architecture and Building: Net Resources http://www.unlv.edu/library/ARCH/index.html
Certificate of Merit: Toni Petersen. Art and architecture thesaurus (Getty Art History Information Program) New York: Oxford University Press. (5 vol. print edition Program;. computer file on disks with users manual.)
Certificate of Merit: Murtha Baca, James Bower, and Eleanor Fink. Union list of artist names New York : G.K. Hall, 1994. ( 4 vol print; computer file on disks with reference and users guides)

1996 H.W. Wilson Foundation Research Award

Sheila Klos, Architecture & Allied Arts Library, University of Oregon, for her project, "The Index to American Women Architects, 1945-1995: A Guide." To be published by Greenwood Press in 1998.

1996 Melva J. Dwyer Publication Award

Evelyn de Rostaing McMann, retired indexer, Fine Arts Division, Vancouver Public Library for the four indexes published by the University of Toronto Press between 1981-1996: Royal Canadian Academy of Arts: exhibitions and members 1880- 1979; Index to Canadian Who's Who 1898-1984; Index to Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Spring Exhibitions 1880-1979; Biographical Index of Canadian Artists.

1995-96 (17th Annual) Wittenborn Award Winners

(for books published in 1995):

Princeton University Press for The Salon Album of Vera Sudeikin-Stravinsky, edited and translated by John E. Bowlt.

Thames and Hudson Inc., and the Wolfsonian Foundation for Designing Modernity: The Arts of Reform and Persuasion 1885-1945: Selections from the Wolfsonian, edited by Wendy Kaplan.

Yale University Press for Hadrian's Villa and Its Legacy, by William L. MacDonald and John A. Pinto.

Special mention: The Whitney Museum of American Art in association with W. W. Norton for Edward Hopper: A Catalogue Raisonne, by Gail Levin.

Special menton: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. for Grandmother's Garden: The Old-fashioned American Garden 1865-1915, by May Brawley Hill.

-- Maryly Snow, ARLIS/NA Secretary

Abstracts

Created 1 October 1996. Updated 21 March 1997