Rhode Island Historical Society’s Research Library Reading Room Closure

On December 17, 2013, the Rhode Island Historical Society’s Research Library Reading Room sustained water damage from a mechanical failure. The Library will be closed until further notice. During the pending Reading Room reconstruction, reference staff will not have access to Rhode Island Vital Records, the newspaper microfilm collection, or the genealogical reference resources that are housed in the Reading Room. These collections are undamaged, but inaccessible. Unfortunately, without these collections, we are temporarily unable to answer reference questions about genealogy, family history, or newspaper articles. We will continue to provide copy and ILL copy requests from accessible collections for researchers, but please note that response time may be slower than usual. We have added a webpage of resources that you and your patrons may find helpful in your research endeavors during the time when we are closed.

Blue Mountain Project

The Princeton University Library has announced the launch of the Blue Mountain Project, an open-access digital thematic research collection of avant-garde art, music and literary periodicals (1848-1923). Drawing together rare material from Princeton’s Art, Music and Rare Books libraries, the Blue Mountain Project will provide high-quality digital images as well as full-text searching, deep indexing of content, detailed metadata and descriptive essays to a broad audience. With generous support from the NEH, the Blue Mountain Project will make 34 titles available over the next two years. A full list of these periodicals – which are in English, German, French, Danish, Dutch, Hungarian, Czech and Russian – can be found on the Blue Mountain project page.

EBSCOhost downtime for My EBSCOhost on Oct 26 from 7-8am

News from EBSCOhost: Please note that for about one hour beginning at 7:00 a.m. EDT (UTC-5) on Friday, October 26, 2012 certain EBSCOhost functionality will be unavailable due to planned maintenance. Please note that EBSCOhost will continue to be available during this brief interval, however EBSCOhost with Navigator may experience intermittent interrupted access. Affected functionality will include: Personal User Authentication Checkout and Download of eBooks Alerts Access to My EBSCOhost folder items or the ability to save items to personalized folders from session We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this short maintenance interval.

Brown University’s Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab

In October, Brown University is opening up the Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab in the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library. The lab features a large-scale visualization video wall consisting of 12 high-resolution, 55-inch LED screens that form a 7-by-16-foot display with a combined resolution of over 24 megapixels, creating a high-quality viewing and analytical space. It also features a surround-sound audio system, videoconferencing capabilities, specialized lighting, and several individual touch-screen monitors.... Brown University Library News, Oct. 3

Art.sy

Discover the world’s great art on Art.sy Richard Byrne writes: “Art.sy is a new site that has indexed thousands of works of art that you can view online. It allows you to browse for artworks according to medium, style, subject matter, movement, or region in which the art is produced. Once you’ve found an artwork that you like, Art.sy helps you find more by suggesting related works. It will serve as a nice supplement to art history and art appreciation courses.” Art.sy went live on October 8.... Free Technology for Teachers, Oct. 9; New York Times, Oct. 8

The Art of Library Date Stamps

An artist uses due date stamps to create art.

Book Installation

Massive River of 10,000 Discarded Books Rages Through Melbourne.

Fold This! Pop-up Books & Paper Engineering

"Movable books have been around for more than 700 years." Read More. See RISD's pop-up books.

Getty Research Portal

"The Getty Research Portal™ is an online search platform providing global access to digitized art history texts in the public domain. Through this multilingual, multicultural union catalog, scholars can search and download complete digital copies of publications for the study of art, architecture, material culture, and related fields. The Portal is free to all users." http://portal.getty.edu/

Google Art Project

Learn more about the Google Art Project here.

Bibliophilia - books we love & why

To celebrate National Library Week, April 8-14, 2012, we invite RISD Students, Faculty and Staff to select 1-3 of their favorite RISD Library items to be displayed on the stadium seating in the first floor Library Reading Room. Favorite items may include any combination of Media, Reference, Oversize and Main books as well as circulating Picture Collection and Material Resource Center items. Include 1-2 sentences about what sets this particular book, film or visual material apart from others. Comments are optional and will be included in the display.

Just fill out the online form for the Bibliophilia exhibition or the printed cards which are available at service desks throughout the Library.
We'll pull the items and put them on display.

Spead the word - tell your friends, colleagues, and student workers about the exhibition.
Invite them to select a favorite book, film or material from our collection.

The display will run Sunday April 8 - Sunday April 22, 2012

Providence Athenaeum in the news

NPR: Athena's Library, The Quirky Pillar Of Providence

ARTstor updates - Folders changes and Chome browser

There was an update to the ARTstor Digital Library this week. New changes include:

* Full support for Chrome browsers.
* In your image search results, you may now see icons on the lower right-hand corner of the image thumbnail: "P" denotes Personal Collection (for images uploaded by a campus instructor), and "H" Hosted images (for images visible only at your institution).
* Folders are now nested in two upper level folders: "Private Folders" and "Institutional Folders." "Private Folders" contains folders viewable only by you. "Institutional Folders" contains folders that are viewable by other users at your institution either as "Public" folders or as "Password-protected" folders.


After this update, some users may find that they cannot see their folders or image groups; clearing the browser cache should resolve the issue. Read detailed instructions on how to do this on our help wiki.

And of course, you can contact User Services for more help at userservices@artstor.org.

Library Online Catalog Down for Updates on Wednesday

Update: upgrades down last night when the library was closed. Online catalog is working.

The Library online catalog will be down for updates tomorrow, Wednesday, Feb 15 from 8:30 am to 10:30 am.

Wintersession Break Hours

Sat Feb 11 10am-6pm

Sun Feb 12 Closed

Mon Feb 13 - Th Feb 16 8:30am-8pm

Fri Feb 17 8:30am-4:30pm

Sat Feb 18 Closed

Sun Feb 19 Regular Hours Resume

Librarian Love

Congratulations to the 10 winners
of the 2011 I Love My Librarian Award

Read Caroline Kennedy's remarks as she describes libraries as "tabernacles of personal freedom" and
watch the I Love My Librarian recipient interviews

About Free JSTOR Early Content - video

Watch this video to learn the details of JSTOR Early Content

The Fourth Annual Undergraduate Art History Symposium at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The Visual Culture Consortium is proud to host
The Fourth Annual Undergraduate Art History Symposium
at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Call for Papers: 2012 Young Scholars Symposium
New Approaches to Art, Art History, and Visual Culture

Seeking to foster interaction between young scholars studying at undergraduate institution in the Greater Boston area, this symposium will bring together students from across the region to present their research on a diverse array of subjects relating to Art History, Visual Culture and their related contexts.

Papers can address a broad range of topics in art history and visual culture- including architectural history, urban planning, film studies, industrial + graphic design, fashion, illustration, animation, performance, graffiti, or any other form of visual communication.

A series of 15-minute presentations will be followed by opportunities for questions and discussion.

When: Saturday, April 14, 2012, 1:00 – 5:00 pm

Where: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Remis Auditorium
465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115

To submit a proposal:

Students should submit a 250 word abstract of their prospective 15-minute papers to the selection committee at the email address below by Wednesday, February 1, 2012.

Notification of the committee’s decision regarding participation will be sent by March 1st.

Please email the abstract as an attachment (MS Word document or PDF file) with the applicant’s last name included in the title to Emily.Gephart@smfa.edu
(Please be sure to list the applicant’s name and title of the proposed paper at the top of the page).

For more information contact:
Emily W. Gephart
Department of Visual and Critical Studies
Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts
Emily.Gephart@smfa.edu


The Visual Culture Consortium, Boston is an association of scholars in Art History, Artchitecture, Art, and Visual Studies departments, libraries, and schools from across the Boston area. We study all forms of visual communication. We recognize and advocate for an expanded terrain of art, ranging from architecure and artifacts to performance and digital culture.

By organizing lectures, events, and undergraduate symposia, the VCC fosters inquiry and dialogue across disciplines and institutions, while encourageing innovative research among young scholars.

Students and Faculty: Join Today.
Visit our Facebook group to sign up for more information & event details
Or contact Stuart Steck at ssteck@lesley.edu

Benezit Dictionary of Artists Trial

The Benezit Dictionary of Artists is now available online for the first time via Oxford Art Online. With over 190,000 entries on artists from antiquity to the present day and featuring regular updates, Benezit is one of the most comprehensive and definitive resources on artists in the English language. Entries are clear and concise, and Benezit contains thousands of auction records, museum holdings, and bibliographies. In addition to its outstanding scope and depth, two features in particular make Benezit unique among art reference works: its superb coverage of obscure artists and the inclusion of images of artists’ signatures, monograms, and stamps. Also check out what's new for Benezit.


Let us know what you think of this databases (risdlib@risd.edu).
Thanks!

Current Installation in the Library

Check out the newest Installation in the Library created by Interior Architecture students. Up this week until the end of November.