Art Libraries of North America Conference
Pasadena, CA
April 25-29, 2013

Yes, it is odd that I went to an Art Librarians conference.  The main reason I went was to run a workshop with Rebecca Kohn (some of you will remember her as Rebecca Feind) - "Creating Assessment Questions:  Creating the Tools to Assess Information Literacy Objectives for Art and Design.  So, Rebecca does the art thing and I do the question-writing thing.  We had 20 participants work with us to write multiple choice items based on the good assessment practice I have learned from my CARS friends.



Rebecca figured out how to get LibGuides to have collaborators from different institutions, so all of our workshop materials can be easily found here.  


I attended several other conference presentations, highlights included;  The Evolution of Art Reference & Instruction - this was a panel of several speakers from different art schools who lightheartedly discussed the adventures of working with art students and faculty.  They discussed multiple methods of getting on their radar.  Solutions ranged from partnering with Art Faculty to co-teach course with embedded (and assess-able) Design Information Literacy Standards in the Studio Art class "space" and  innovating with IM-ing to reach students who spend much time in the studio.  Library Instruction for Museum Docents was interesting because it really was about teaching docents to teach museum patrons about the collections which might be the equivalent of us teaching students how to do reference work.  The issues were eerily consistent - training (how to recognize a research question), funding, quality of intervention skills, and how to make a decent referral, sounds familiar.

Sadly, I managed to lose my notes so this is a little light as I'm just now translating my scribbles into something for others to read.  I recently stumbled across them.

The coolest thing about this conference is A:  there is significantly less frumpy amongst our art librarian friends. Seriously, these were the hippest library folks - there was a conference yoga class(!), and B:  the exhibit floor.  Not only do they attract peddlers of rare and beautiful art books, artists in the book art-making business also show.  I carted home many catalogs for Jenne, they were prettier than any of the social science ones I get.