If you’re headed to ALA Annual, make sure to checkout our fabulous ACRL Arts Annual Discussion Forum!

Date: Saturday, June 25 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM
Location: HYATT Regency Orlando, Room Columbia 34

This year’s forum will feature the following presentations:

“Artists as Scholars: The Research Behavior of Dance Faculty” by Shannon Marie Robinson (Drexel University)

No current research exists directly examining the information needs of dance scholars. Their research behaviors and library use are widely unknown, particularly in regard to issues of access to historical materials and new technology preferences. In the past thirty years, college and university dance departments in the United States have developed into independent, research-based programs. Academic librarians must understand the research behavior of dance faculty in order to support the performance, research, and pedagogy of these programs. Interviews with dance faculty from three diverse institutions of higher education provide exploratory data about these scholars’ research needs. This qualitative study provides context for dance faculty experiences as both artists and teachers. The findings from these interviews suggest that dance is a multidisciplinary and multicultural practice. Dance scholarship and practice embody history and religion, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, biology and neuroscience, and visual and performing arts. Contemporary dance faculty are at home in the studio, classroom, and computer lab. Dance faculty have a broad array of subject interests and research needs. As dance embraces new disciplines and methods of performing, our notion of dance must broaden. In order to fully understand their information behaviors, librarians should use interdisciplinarity as a lens through which to view current dance research practices. The data gathered from these interviews will be of value to librarians as they determine collection development practices and reference services for their particular dance and performing arts programs.

“Building Bridges, Creating Partnerships and Elevating the Arts: the Rutgers University Art Library Exhibition Spaces” by Megan Lotts (Rutgers the State University of New Jersey)

The Rutgers University Art Library Exhibition Spaces (RALES) were created to further engage the local communities by elevating the importance of scholarly research happening in the Arts, as well as providing an opportunity for budding artists to learn more about what goes into an exhibition, from creation of the work, to the public viewing, marketing, and reception. RALES also provides an opportunity for individuals to view artworks in person, as opposed to studying an image in a book. In two and one half years this teaching gallery has hosted 27 exhibits by students, faculty, and staff, of Rutgers, as well as a few local and out of state artists. There has been little to no cost to run this gallery space, other than the time. The most impactful aspect of RALES is that is has created a deeper connection to the community by building new bridges across the campuses and introducing the libraries to many new potential partnerships. This presentation will present the physical make up of RALES and provide tips on how one can create their own low cost gallery space. This presentation will also provide examples for ways to find artist and curators as well as provide access to a digital guide that was created as an archive for RALES. This presentation will be a dynamic visual presentation including text, comments by viewers, publicity created about RALES, images, and a discussion about the impact of these exhibition spaces.

“You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato: Collection Format Preference of Music Faculty” by A. Carey Huddlestun (Kennesaw State University)

This presentation reports on music faculty’s format preference of music material. Historically, collection development has focused on what material to purchase. However, with the maturation of web-based music audio databases, web-based video databases, online music scores, and electronic books and reference material, the format of material is also now an important collection consideration. This presentation reports on the results of a music material format preference survey completed by music faculty at a large, comprehensive state university in the spring of 2016. This session will present the purpose and setting of the collection, the survey results, and the implications for music library collection development.

Please join us if you can!

Best wishes,
Ariel Turner, Chair of ACRL Arts Publications and Research Committee

Ariel Turner
Discovery Librarian
Art & Design and Foreign Languages Liaison
Kennesaw State University Library System
Kennesaw State University