Attention, logophiles! We invite you to visit the Frick Art Reference Library and The Museum of Modern Art Library to acquaint yourself with the Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED). Logophiles, or lovers of words, will be pleased to know that the OED is replete with more than 600,000 entries that include contemporary meanings of words as well as their corresponding chronological history and evolution. The OED includes great ways to learn how to get the most out of this online dictionary, including quizzes for those who are up for the challenge.
Ok, they were previously 0% findable. Still, by adding the MoMA Film Department Special Collections inventory to the MoMA web site, film researchers can now discover over 100 primary-source collections on film-related figures and topics. The processed (and partially-processed) collections include papers on individuals (filmmakers, distributors, animators, actors), studios (Biograph, Edison, Kalem), and groups (Film and Photo League). One can also find distribution and equipment catalogs (where could you get silent films in 1918?), popular publications (press books, scrapbooks, fan magazines, posters, postcards, sheet music).
Processing the acquisitions on the Special Collections shelf is always a highlight of my week, especially when I know we’re expecting mail from Printed Matter or a book artist has been by to visit recently. I approach the task knowing that strange and beautiful books of all shapes and sizes await me, and that processing will most likely not entail the usual rote click-click-click through, a cog in the wheel of acquisitions procedure, as the majority of the artist’s books we acquire are not in OCLC's WorldCat, a world-wide catalog of library catalogs, and require a unique new record to be generated.
When studying the collection at MoMA Library, we often reveal compelling stories of how certain books were produced and how these objects travelled through the world. With experimental art and design publications of the 20th century, part of the story of a book’s history relates to its circulation from the hands of friends to a wider audience, into the collections of museums and libraries. This kind of narrative is consistently of interest to researchers and staff – we study these pathways that books travel and these movements of books and magazines often reveal the movement of ideas across space and the relationships between artists, designers, and other interlocutors.
I have the privilege and challenge of working with artists and other collaborators to produce artist's books for The Library Council of The Museum of Modern Art. These limited-edition publications are intended to explore the art of the book as they benefit and shed light on MoMA’s research collections. Upon seeing the most recent publication in the MoMA Library, Lily Pregill of the New York Art Resources Consortium asked me to write about The Library Council’s most recent book, The Island of Rota by the neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks, the designer Ted Muehling, and the photographer Abelardo Morell, published in November, 2010. While I was very happy that this book had moved through the best of audiences (art librarians), I had to think twice when she asked me to write something that had not already appeared in our prospectus. The online prospectus is something like an expanded announcement, with a summary of the contributions and intentions of the artist as well as a detailed description of the physical qualities of the book.
Over the past three years, 30 talented interns from the Pratt Institute, School of Information & Library Science, have passed through our doors here at the Brooklyn Museum Libraries, Archives and Digital Lab, thanks to an IMLS-funded grant (Institute of Museum and Library Services). These M-LEAD (Museum Library Education and Digitization) interns have been instrumental in a variety of important contributions, from processing and describing archival materials, to digitizing images for online accessibility, to clearing copyright and cataloging library resources, just to name a few!
Ok, animation isn't the primary function of the Library's new face-up book scanner/copier. But it gives an idea of how it works and image quality. If you think about it, turning books upside-down to copy pages is counterintuitive. And really bad for preserving books. The "Bookeye" is designed to make good-quality images while minimizing stress on bound materials. It's got a bit of a learning curve but even tech-shy researchers are using it.
New York is already getting a much-needed taste of spring through The Roses—an installation on Park Avenue between 57th and 67th streets—by contemporary artist Will Ryman. The larger-than-life sculptures of roses and rose petals in different shades of pink makes this writer daydream of warm days to come. The project is sponsored by the Department of Parks & Recreation and the Fund for the Park Avenue Sculpture Committee in conjunction with Paul Kasmin Gallery and is on display through the end of May.