CAA Member Directory Now Available
As noted at CAA News (15 March 2010),
The CAA Member Directory, now available online to current individual members, allows you to search for other members internationally. Search criteria include first and last name, organization or institution name, and city, state, and country. Those fields—as well as telephone numbers, email address, and website—are shown in your search results, unless an individual has opted to exclude certain details. To review and update your contact information, including that which appears in the Member Directory, please log into your CAA account. Next, click the “Contact Info” link on the left side to review your contact information. Instructions on the page will help you choose an address for the Member Directory. You may prevent any information from appearing in the directory at any time by unchecking the “Directory” box for all addresses on your record. If you have more than one valid address on your record, please choose which address to include in the directory. Organization and title will only be included with a business address. In addition, only your primary phone, email, and/or website address will be used regardless of which address you choose. You may also remove duplicate or outdated information.
Accessing Library Resources in the Digital Age
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands
Recently within the context of a discussion at C18-L of J-Stor’s experiments with adding auction catalogs to its collection of resources, the inevitable question surfaced: what about access for people who are not attached to institutions that subscribe to such costly databases? At a time when scholarly materials are increasingly migrating from paper to digital storage formats, it’s a serious concern. The web is undoubtedly opening up tremendous avenues, but often at enormous costs, and for individuals not fortunate enough to benefit from libraries that can absorb such costs, the threat of a digital divide is anything but theoretical. One contributor suggested joining the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB) in The Hague, which provides remote access to the library’s resources, including the subscription databases. I’ve not tried it, but judging from the
information available on the site it seems to be a viable solution.
At just €15/year, it’s certainly affordable. Other ideas? –C.H.
Now Available: Audio Replay of CAA in Chicago
From CAA News, 5 March 2010:
The 2010 Annual Conference in Chicago, one of the best attended in recent years, had an incredibly diverse array of sessions. Audio recordings for eighty-one of those panels are now available for sale. A set of MP3 audio recordings from the Chicago conference is available for only $149.95, either as a download or on interactive CD-ROMs. Individual sessions, available only as downloads, are $24.95 each. Please visit Conference Media to view the list of sessions and to order.
Available sessions include such timely topics as “Lifeloggers: Chronicling the Everyday” and “Autofictions, Avatars, and Alter Egos: Fabricating Artists.” Thematic art-historical topics, on analyzing repetition in ancient art and on violence and narrative in early modern art, also make appearances, as do state of the field talks on the art history of the African diaspora and on American-art textbooks. Included in the mix are pedagogical topics involving “Autonomizing Practices in Art, Art History, and Education” and “WTF: Talking Theory with Art and Art-History Undergrads,” among others.
Whether you took part in, attended, or missed a particular conference session, these recordings are a must-have for your library, research, or teaching. Listen to them while walking across campus, while driving in your car or using public transportation, or while relaxing in your home.
In addition to the Chicago sessions, you can also purchase session audio recordings from the 2006–9 conferences in Boston, New York, Dallas–Fort Worth, and Los Angeles. See http://conference.collegeart.org/audio for details.
Sartorial Choices Part II
Several weeks ago Enfilade included a reference to the fashion blog, Academichic. Readers who found it interesting, might enjoy this interview at Already Pretty, where the participants unpack their thinking on the importance of clothing within academia.
Protection in the Eighteenth Century
As recently noted on the website of Amadeus Mozart, various examples of eighteenth-century prophylactics have been recreated and are now available from Dr. Roberts. Details can be found at his site, Tempus Fugit: An Account of the Activities & Adventures of a Gentleman Physician.
These are reproductions of the offerings of Mrs. Phillips in her shop at Orange Court in London. She designed them from sheep or goat’s gut, pickled, scented and delicately fashioned on glass moulds by the hands of the proprietress herself. I will be providing the standard “Baudruches fines,” and for the more cautious customers, the “Superfine Double” which was made from two superimposed and gummed caecums, the blind end of a sheep’s bigger gut. They are to be Five dollars a piece. Contact me straight away to place your order before they run out!
Johan Zoffany’s 1779 Self Portrait in the National Gallery at Parma includes a pair of such sheaths [see William Pressly, “Genius Unveiled: The Self-Portraits of Johan Zoffany,” Art Bulletin 69 (March 1987): 88-101.] Any other relevant examples come to mind?
Accessing Auction Catalogs
As noted by Jason Kelly at H-Albion (and then picked up on C-18L), JSTOR is piloting an online storage bank of auction catalogs, currently ranging from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. The following description comes from the beta site:
JSTOR is collaborating with the Frick Collection and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a pilot project funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to understand how auction catalogs can be best preserved for the long-term and made most easily accessible for scholarly use. Auction catalogs are vital for provenance research as well as for the study of art markets and the history of collecting.
This prototype site is open to the public through June 2010. If you are interested in this content and the importance to art research, we encourage you to try the site and take the brief survey linked below. In June, we will evaluate use of the content and the feedback we have received in order to help determine the future of the resource.
For more information, click here» And by all means, feel free to chime in with observations here in the ‘Comments’ section.
Stephen Bury Named New Librarian at the Frick
From a Frick press release:
The Frick Collection is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Stephen J. Bury to the post of Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian at the Frick Art Reference Library. For the past ten years, he has been at the British Library, the national library of the United Kingdom, and one of the world’s greatest research institutions, where he is a Deputy Director and Head of European and American Collections, as well as Maps, Music, and Philatelic Collections. Previously, Dr. Bury was Head of Learning Resources at the Chelsea College of Art & Design, London. Comments Anne Poulet, Director of The Frick Collection, “Dr. Bury brings to this leadership position an exceptional dual perspective. He is both an art historian― who understands first hand the needs of those who teach, research, and curate―as well as an internationally regarded librarian. An active participant on numerous professional commissions as well as dynamic division head of the British Library, he is a great strategic thinker in a rapidly changing field. Stephen Bury has developed a keen understanding in areas of mutual interest to the Frick, among them digitization, collection sharing, storage, and encouraging greater use of new technologies by staff. Furthermore, the nature of the collections he oversees at the British Library, being both European and American, dovetails beautifully with the scope of our holdings and initiatives. With his arrival in May, we know that the Frick Art Reference Library will benefit greatly from Dr. Bury’s insights as well as from the broad connections he has developed through years of highly engaged service and scholarship.”
Adds Dr. Bury, “The Frick Art Reference Library is internationally well-regarded, not just for its rich resources, but for the very proactive approach the institution has taken in light of the changing universe of libraries and the needs of the audiences they serve. The Frick has played a notable role in exploring such important ventures as digitization and collection sharing, and we are of like mind that the future of libraries is an exciting one. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to lead the remarkably talented staff at this venerable research center. At the same time, the post represents a wonderfully appealing opportunity for me to return to an art historical focus, that area of study being at the core of my academic background.” (more…)
Free Access to ‘Early English Books Online’ until March 12
Anna Battigelli, of Early Modern Online Bibliography, sends the following announcement:
Thanks to the generosity of Proquest, readers of EMOB will have free access to Early English Books Online from February 22 to March 12. We are hoping that this temporary access will generate discussion about EEBO, as it is used both in scholarship and the classroom.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
According to the ProQuest website:
Early English Books Online contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700 — from the first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare and the tumult of the English Civil War.
Details regarding access can be found here»
A Blog about Georgian London
Think you know what it is? Click above to see.
Any idea what this might be?
This curious bucket was recently included as a ‘Mystery Object’ on the blog, Georgian London. Written by Lucy Inglis, it’s a terrific site that’s received various awards including ‘History Website of 2009’ from the online readers of History Today Magazine and the 2009 Cliopatria Award for ‘Best Individual Blog’ and ‘Best New Blog’. Inglis is, in her own words, particularly interested in “the immigrant population and the artisan communities of London during the 18th century, as well as day to day trivia and the more bizarre aspects of London life three centuries ago.” Topics range from Huguenots in London, to counterfeit coins, to menstruation, to fan etiquette. I found Georgian London through Dr. Crystal Lake’s blog, a fine example incidentally of an individual scholar’s website. –C.H.
State Bed at Calke Abbey
Yesterday’s posting at Style Court includes exceptionally good photos of the Calke State Bed. I’ve included one here, but for the much larger images, you’ll have to visit Courtney Barnes’s stimulating site:
For a long time now I’ve been contrasting grand centuries-old canopied beds with some of the more lavish beds that occasionally pop up in the pages of Elle Decor. After my recent post about Marla Mallett’s Chinese textiles, a very kind person from the National Trust shared these colorful, wonderfully detailed images of the silk-laden 18th-century Calke State Bed. . . .
Enfilade 
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