Library

Newsletter

ARTstor continues to add to its image collection, and is expected to have over 500,000 images by 2006. One drawback to ARTstor is that there is little contemporary material due to copyright issues. Barbara Rockenbach, the Assistant Director for Library Relations from ARTstor who presented at MassArt, reported that ARTstor is committed to gaining fair-use access to this material over the next several years, but they are treading lightly in some uncharted copyright territory.

The Art Library Society of New England (yes, there is such a professional organization!) members who attended the workshop came away with a great deal of information from Barbara Rockenbach and a good taste of how the database is being used here at MassArt.

ARTstor images from the MOMA Architectural & Design Collection

We enjoyed being the hosts of our first ARLIS/NE meeting and hope to see a lot more ARTstor use in the coming months.
— Rachel Beckwith, Public Services Librarian

First library orientation held

This past August all incoming MassArt students came to the library for the first ever orientation. Since we didn’t want to scare them away in just a half an hour, we tried to make it a casual and fun first introduction! We pulled out some of our favorite new books and journals, put together a few vitrine cases of remarkable items from Special Collections, projected images from our new ARTstor database, pulled out cool slides, and even played some silent films.

The students got a taste for our collections as well as packets to bring home with all of the information they would ever need about our borrowing policies, reference and interlibrary loan services, hours, and staff. And, should someone find they had a library-related question while out on a hike, they even got Morton R. Godine Library water bottles with our telephone number and web site address!

As a final treat, Library Director Paul Dobbs stood on the circulation counter and rang an 80- pound bronze bell, a representation of Mass Art’s 1929 Longwood building. In all we had over three hundred first-year students come through the library, and we hope the ringing of the bell set them off on the path of success here at MassArt. We hope to see all of them using the library and its resources over their student careers here.
— Rachel Beckwith, Public Services Librarian