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Does a decade make a difference? Comparing the web presence of North American art museum libraries and archives in 1999 and 2011

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

Heidi N. Abbey
Heidi N. Abbey*
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University Libraries, Penn State Harrisburg Library, 351 Olmsted Drive, Middletown, PA 17057-4850, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The number of North American art museums with a presence on the internet has more than doubled since 1999. This is not surprising given the power of new media to transform the experiences that museum visitors have with our cultural institutions. Every year museums attract thousands of visitors to view, both in person and online, their specialized collections and unique exhibitions. Developing in tandem with these resources and largely unfamiliar to the general, museum-going public, the libraries and archives of these institutions have contributed to the research mission, educational programming, documentary history, and curatorial functions of museums in countless ways. In addition, especially for art historians and other scholars, museum libraries and archives have been and continue to be increasingly valuable for primary and secondary sources, including artists’ correspondence, diaries, sketches, hard-to-find monographs, exhibition records and sales catalogues. What is unclear, however, is the extent to which resources in art museum libraries and archives are being documented, preserved and made accessible online. This research is perhaps the first of its kind to evaluate, on a small scale and during a span of twelve years, the web presence of 22 North American art museum libraries and archives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Art Libraries Journal , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , 2012 , pp. 34 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 2012

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References

1. This article is based upon the research presented in the author’s unpublished graduate seminar paper, ‘Embracing the future without sacrificing the past? A case study examining the web presence of twenty-two North American art museum libraries & archives,’ written as part of the Master of Library Science program at the University at Albany, State University of New York, in August 1999. Data collected and organized with an evaluation instrument in 1999 was re-used for this study. In addition, using the 1999 version as a template, a new evaluation instrument was created to collect data for the same questions and new questions related to social media applications in museums during August 2011.Google Scholar
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3. While numerous articles have been published on the topic of museum websites in general, to date few publications have attempted to examine the web presence of art museum libraries and archives. Two notable studies that took place in the past decade include Joan M. Benedetti’s ‘Survey of small art museum libraries,’ ARLIS Online Publications, Part I and Part II, last modified April 2002, http://www.arlisna.org/pubs/onlinepubs/ssaml/ssamltab.html, and Pastore’s, Erica M. ‘Access to the archives? Art museum websites and online archives in the public domain’ (M.A. thesis, State University of New York at Buffalo, 2008).Google Scholar
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11. The author would like to acknowledge two Penn State Harrisburg American Studies graduate students and archival assistants, Jolene Busher and Katie Kitner, who assisted in the first phase of data collection for the second case study during August 2011.Google Scholar
12. Only a portion of the original data collected is presented in this article. Please contact the author for the results of the 38-question evaluation in case study no. 2.Google Scholar
13. ARCH (Art Restoration for Cultural Heritage) Foundation, homepage, http://www.arch.at/.Google Scholar