SURVEY OF LIBRARY SCHOOLS IN NORTH AMERICA: Educational &Training Opportunities forCareers in Art Libraries &Visual Resources CollectionsAuthor(s): Jack RobertsonSource: Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, Vol. 10,No. 3 (Fall 1991), pp. 141-143Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Art Libraries Society of NorthAmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27948359 .

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Art Documentation, Fall 1991 141

SURVEY OF LIBRARY SCHOOLS IN NORTH AMERICA:

Educational & Training Opportunities for Careers in Art Libraries & Visual Resources Collections

by Jack Robertson University of Virginia

In the fall of 1990, the ARLIS/NA Professional Development Committee (PDC) conducted its annual survey of all ALA (American Library Associationhaccredited schools of library and information sciences/studies. With the recent demise of the schools at Columbia and the University of Chicago, 58 schools offering graduate degrees?51 in the United States and 7 in Canada?were surveyed.

In October a questionnaire was mailed to the deans of the schools. The questionnaire consisted of the following ques tions: "Does your school offer courses on the following topics?

. . . Fine Arts; . . . Humanities (including major com

ponent on Fine Arts); . . . Visual Resources (i.e., slides and photographs)." These three questions asked simply for a yes or no answer, and, if the answer was "yes," to indicate the course title and the teacher's name. The last item on the survey form stated, "Please describe briefly fellowships, in ternships, or work-study opportunities available to students

which provide work experience and/or financial support for study in the fine arts and visual resources field(s)." Written responses were received from 38 of the 58 schools

by the specified deadline. By the end of December the other 20 schools were contacted by members of the PDC, and the information requested on the questionnaire was acquired over the telephone. Therefore, information was gathered from 100 percent of the library schools in Canada and the United States. The results of the PDC's survey were compiled into an eight-page "Survey of Library Schools in Canada and the United States: Courses and Fellowships in Fine Arts & Visual Resources" which includes the school's name, ad dress, and telephone number, along with the questionnaire responses. When schools responded with specific descriptive statements about curriculum and/or internship opportunities, these were quoted verbatim in the survey.1

One of the most striking points revealed in the 1990 survey is the fact that only six schools offer a course focusing specif ically on the fine arts. In four cases the teachers are ARLIS/

NA members, and these individuals have expressed willing ness to share copies of course outlines, reading lists, bibli ographies, etc., with anyone requesting this material. (Please send requests for materials to the attention of the teacher at the specific library school.) The four cases are: Wolfgang Freitag's "Art Librarianship" at Simmons College, offered every year; Betty Jo Irvine's "Seminar in Art Librarianship" at Indiana University, offered every other year; Jack Robertson's "Literature and Research in the Arts" at the University of Maryland, offered every other year; and Deirdre C. Stam's "Art & Museum Librarianship" at Catholic University, offered every year. The content of all four of these courses, as de scribed by the teachers, is a combination of the bibliography of the fine arts (including visual resources) and practical/pro

fessional issues affecting administration and planning in art libraries and visual resources collections. Leila Avrin teaches (usually every other year) "Sources of Information in the Fine

Arts" at the University of Michigan; the contents of this course are almost entirely bibliographical. San Jose State University offers "Resources in the Visual and Performing Arts" every other year; "... faculty is usually a practitioner/ adjunct."2

Two universities offer dual degree programs which enable students to earn both an M.A. in art history and an M.L.S. degree. At the University of North Texas,

A dual degree is offered in Library Science and Art History. Dr. Lois Swan Jones is the coordinator for art history and Dr. Anna Cleveland is the contact person for Library Science. Two courses offered through Art History can be used toward a Library degree: 1.) "Art Bibliography," and 2.) "Art Museums and Private Col lections," both taught by L. S. Jones. For a masters in

Art History, any course from the Library School is ac ceptable for up to 6 hours toward a minor.

At Indiana University, The School of Library & Information Science and the School of Fine Arts/Art History offer a combined Mas ter of Arts/Master of Library Science degree. This pro gram is designed to prepare students for professional library and information specialist positions in fine arts and related libraries and information centers. Five schools indicated that, although there is no specialized

course in the curriculum to help prepare students to work in art library settings, it is possible to take course work outside of the school in specific subject areas such as art history. At Louisiana State University, "6 hours from the School of De sign could be utilized [toward an M.L.S. degree] . . . . " The library program at the University of Arizona was described in this way:

Unlike the majority of schools of library science in North America, the school here is an academic unit as opposed to a professional school. We have consciously not mounted courses in the fine arts. We rely on the excellent resources of the Faculty of Fine Arts for such course work. We then supplement this "external" course work with individual studies and internship opportunities.

At the University of Hawaii, "Six credit hours from another graduate program, such as Art History, may be applied to ward the MLIS degree requirements." The program at the University of Washington,

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142 Art Documentation, Fa 111991

. . . offers a general master's degree program without

emphasis on any one type of library or information setting. The emphasis is on administration, manage ment, & automated systems. A minimum of 42 units has to be done in classes offered through the Library School, another 20 units can be worked out with other specific graduate programs such as Art History if a student wants to specialize in a particular type of librarianship.

Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, also offers credit for subject cognate courses:

The School does not offer courses in these areas [fine arts, humanities, visual resources]. Rather than dupli cate what is already offered elsewhere, our policy is to encourage students to take these courses in the appro priate academic departments. Students are permitted to take up to 4 graduate courses in other departments of Dalhousie University or in one of the other univer sities in the city. In response to the question referring to a course on the

literature of the humanities, 42 schools indicated that they did offer such a course. The questionnaire did not ask how frequently courses were offered nor when a specific course

was last taught, so even though 42 of 58 schools have a humanities course, the availability of these courses to stu dents may be more restricted than it appears. For example, the course entitled "Resources in the Arts & Humanities" at the University of British Columbia was last offered in the spring of 1990 and is not scheduled to be taught again in the foreseeable future, i.e., not in the 1991-92 academic year.

Twenty-three schools affirmed that they offer one or more courses covering aspects of visual resources. It is somewhat difficult to assess the scope and content of these courses, however, because "... aspects of visual resources ..." run a wide gamut from management and/or production of A-V media (courses aimed primarily at school library applica tions) to imaging technology and database design for non print library collections. Examples of the type of course designed for students who will be school librarians include:

Drexel University?a course on video production Florida State University?"Design and Production of

Media Resources" Rutgers University?"Creating Basic Audio Visual

Media" Southern Connecticut State University?"Audio Visual

Media Technology in Libraries" State University of New York at Buffalo?"Non-Book

Materials"

University of British Columbia?"Audiovisual Materials" University of Maryland?"Problems of Nonbook Mate

rials"

University of Missouri?"Multimedia Resources in Li braries"

University of Oklahoma?"Management and Utilization of A-V Materials"

University of Rhode Island?"Media in the Library" University of Toronto?"Audio-Visual Materials & the

Library" University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee?"Introduction to

Instructional Technology." Examples of courses with potential application for individ

uals interested in professional work in a fine arts visual re sources collection include: "Photographic Archives & Visual Information" at Simmons College; "Image & Information Systems & Technology" at University of Michigan; and "Vi sual Resources Collections" at University of Texas at Austin. The preponderance of courses offered would provide, it seems, only a rudimentary or tangential background for stu dents interested in becoming fine arts visual resources cura tors. Special note must be made of two workshops con ducted annually, in the summer, at the University of Texas at Austin, by ARLIS/NA member Nancy S. Schuller: "Visual Re sources Collection Fundamentals" and "Micro-Computer Ap plications in Visual Resources Collections." These workshops are sponsored by the College of Fine Art (not the library

school); enrollment is limited and preregistration is recommended.

Twenty-five schools indicated that students in their pro grams do have the opportunity to arrange an internship, practicum, or "fieldwork" experience in a fine arts library or visual resources collection. Several schools that responded positively did, however, qualify the response by indicating that appropriate art settings were not readily available to their students: University of Alabama said, yes, internships are "available; e.g., one student has interned at the Folger Library." University of Tennessee stated, "Practicums offered but there are no museums/art schools/collections in the area with libraries and no student has done an internship yet." A more positive note was offered by 20 other institutions hav ing locations in proximity to fine arts libraries and

collections.

Among these, Dalhousie University offers, "A Work Experi ence programme of 100 hours . . . required of all MLIS stu dents. Each year at least one student with an interest in art librarianship fulfills this requirement at the library of the

Nova Scotia College of Art and Design"; at the Universit? de Montr?al, "Students are required to complete a 24 day prac ticum (worth 4 credits) at a library of their choice. Wherever possible, the School will match the student's request to work in a fine arts based library"; the University of Pittsburgh provides "Field Experience ... [in] a three-credit 15-week course where student works in supervised library or informa tion center setting for 150 hours"; and the University of Toronto offers "Directed Field Work: optional three-week, full-time placement in public or academic library [that] may provide opportunity to work with either fine art or audio visual materials" as well as a "Special Libraries course con

tain[ing] 40 hour practicum which has, in the past, included projects dealing with audio-visual materials."3

There were a number of negative responses to the four questions on the survey that are surprising and disappoint ing: Syracuse University responded negatively to having a course in fine arts, humanities, or visual resources, but did indicate that art-related fieldwork was a possibility; Univer sity of California, Berkeley, provided a negative response to all four questions; no school in the region of New York City offers a fine arts librarianship course; and the University of California, Los Angeles, replied, "We are not responding to any questionnaire for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that we are in the midst of a revision of the curricu lum which will lead to change."

Conclusions The process of conducting this survey, the resultant data,

and discussions with various ARLIS/NA members and library school officials have suggested a number of interesting points. First of all, there is a great deal of interest in the issue of what are library schools' role in and responsibility for providing subject-specialized courses. Faculty members were particularly interested in the challenges of integrating as pects of a course focusing on fine arts information sources within a context of broader library methodologies and tech nologies. In this case, the school's role, that is, the teacher's role, is to emphasize the special and unique characteristics of fine arts publications and visual resources, and to make con nections between these resources and the capabilities of in formation technology. School administrators express interest in providing educational opportunities for students which

meet particular practical needs as expressed by the profes sion, i.e., by ARLIS/NA. In other words, there are fertile possi bilities for discussion and planning aimed at enhancing edu cational opportunities.

A second useful point that the PDC's survey and the as sessment of its results reveals is the need to expand and revise the survey instrument. The following elements will be added when this survey is conducted in late 1991. Informa tion on the frequency and regularity of offerings for subject specialized courses will be requested. Additional data will be sought on the opportunities students have for independent or directed study in the fields of fine arts and visual re sources; is it possible, for example, for a library school stu

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Art Documentation, Fall 1991 143

dent to arrange a directed study sponsored by a fine arts librarian who is not on the school faculty? Also, the schools

will be asked for greater detail on the possibilities for intern ships, practica, or field work in visual resources collections or art libraries. And, finally, the extent to which library school students may take courses for credit from other curricula, such as art history, will be explored. Some of this informa tion, as related above in this report, was volunteered in the schools' responses to the 1990 survey, but the PDC will at tempt to gather these kinds of data more systematically.

The third point has to do with possibilities for enhancing the role played by ARLIS/NA members and the society in the area of formal education for professional jobs in visual re sources collections and fine arts libraries. As mentioned above, the schools will be questioned regarding the avail ability of opportunities for directed study or fieldwork, but these opportunities imply that there are professionals work ing in the field who are willing and able to sponsor student projects. ARLIS/NA members working in libraries that are in proximity to a library school are in particularly powerful positions to sponsor this type of practical experience for stu dents. The results of the PDC survey may provide the infor mation needed by individual ARLIS/NA members to initiate enquiries and to volunteer involvement in the curriculum of a nearby library school. An extension of this point would be an enquiry at a library school into the possibility of teaching a specialized visual resources or fine arts course as adjunct faculty. Of the handful (six) of fine arts librarianship courses taught in the United States and Canada, five are taught by adjunct faculty and four of the teachers are ARLIS/NA mem bers. For administrative (bureaucratic) reasons it is frequently not easy to establish a new course in a school's curriculum. But the point is that the most likely individuals to help a school fill an unmet, and perhaps unperceived, need for sub ject-specialized courses in the fine arts and visual resources are ARLIS/NA members.

NOTES 1. Copies of the survey may be obtained from: Jack Robertson, Chair of PDC, Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library, Bayly Drive, University of Virginia, Charlot tesville, VA 22903 (telephone: 804 924-6601). 2. All information about a specific school and program that appears in quota tion marks is derived from the written questionnaire responses. 3. Other positive responses were received from: Catholic University, Drexel University, Indiana University, Kent State University, Queens College, Rosary College, San Jose State University, SUNY at Albany, Syracuse University, Texas Woman's University, University of Michigan, University of Missouri, University of North Texas, University of Texas at Austin, University of Western Ontario, and University of Wisconsin, Madison. For a full description of their offerings see the complete survey.

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