ARLIS Chair’s Report from Council, February 2017
Council met on 16th February at the RCA . Two members were also in attendance virtually, one via Skype and one via FaceTime.
We were delighted to hear that Joseph Ripp is willing to serve as our new Treasurer from May 2017; that Gerry White and Liz Kerr are willing to continue as Council members and that Leo Appleton and Simine Marine have offered to serve on Council. However, nobody has come forward to serve as Chair so we looked at ways in which the different roles carried out the Chair could be shared between existing Council members.
Erica Foden-Lenahan reported on the Art Libraries Journal : Volume 42 is well underway. Issue 1 is available online and the hard copy issues are being sent out; issue No. 2 will be out in April – a special themed issue on information literacy in UK and US art libraries, co-edited by Gustavo Grandal Montero and Leo Appleton; issue no. 3 is fashion themed and no. 4 is based on some of the lightning talks at the Art Libraries conference in Florence last year. Experience of membership and subscriptions renewals at the end of 2016 has been a steep learning curve. The ways institutions manage their journals subscriptions is highly complex and it is clear that many institutions do not really understand their current membership status. At some point we may need to point to review the link between institutional membership and subscriptions. We also agreed to support Erica and Gustavo with the editorial workload by seeking associate editors. We asked them to come up with criteria for the associate editorships and to update the existing journal management documentation so that we can get on and advertise. Erica and Gustavo have done a brilliant job in steering ALJ through its first year in the CUP stable.
We will also soon be advertising for a web editor.
We discussed feedback from members regarding the document on the Future of ARLIS including communications from the Scottish Visual Arts Group and the Committee for Co-ordination of Art Resources which opened up into a reflection on ways in which ARLIS can present itself as more relevant and appealing to the profession, for example by being more transparent and welcoming. However, it may one of those vicious circles where people don’t rush to volunteer so have to be asked, and because people keep being asked the organisation starts looking as if only those in an inner circles are welcome.
We received an update from the Dublin Conference 2017 working party and are already beginning to think about what kind of conference to offer in 2018.
It is not too late to look at and comment on the report The Future of ARLIS UK & Ireland – 2017 onwards which is on the ARLIS website<http://arlis.wpenginepowered.com/content/future-arlis-uk-ireland-%E2%80%93-2017-onwards>.
David Pulford
ARLIS/UK&Ireland Chair