Art & Architecture Group

Started in 1979 by 10 North American universities and museum libraries within RLG, the Art & Architecture Group (AAG) counted more than 80 institutions worldwide among its constituents. The remarkable strength of their combined collections and their commitment to collaborative solutions helped to make RLG databases an unparalleled resource for art-related bibliographic research. The AAG provided an early and productive model of how art and architecture institutions could share resources and expertise in an online environment.

Over its lifetime the group focused on art-specific projects within RLG, including:

• Building SCIPIO, a database of art and rare book sales catalogs.
• Establishing an art and museum libraries "trading partnership" within the larger RLG SHARES interlending program.
• Coordinating collection development and cataloging efforts, as in the art-related monographic series cooperative cataloging project (see below).
• Participating in the Art Serials Preservation Project to create microfilming that was available to the larger community.
• Appointing the working group for the "Inaccessible Domain" Materials project—which led to a new bibliographic standard for aggregations of unique research materials.

The AAG Steering Committee coordinated the group's activities with input from all participants and annual meetings held in conjunction with the annual conference of their primary professional association, the Art Libraries Society of North America. Reports from the last ten years of AAG annual meetings provide snapshots of the group's priorities and RLG progress:

• Houston 2005
• New York 2004
• Baltimore 2003
• St Louis 2002
• Los Angeles 2001
• Pittsburgh 2000
• Vancouver 1999
• Philadelphia 1998
• San Antonio 1997
• Miami Beach 1996
• Montreal 1995
  
  Please note: Web pages for RLG meetings prior to June 2006 have been archived and are available from the OCLC Corporate Library Collection in the OCLC Digital Archive.

Steering committee rosters

The Art & Architecture Group Steering Committee comprised six members from the larger group together with an RLG program officer acting as liaison for art-related activities and initiatives.

2004-2005 (final year)
Stephen Bury, British Library; Mary Elings,UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library; C. Danial Elliott, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Katherine Haskins, Yale University; Amy Lucker (Chair), Harvard University; Sally McKay, Getty Research Institute; Günter Waibel ( RLG liaison), RLG

2003 - 2004
Stephen Bury, Kitty Chibnik, Jeannette Dixon ( Chair up to June 2003), Katherine Haskins (replaced Kenneth Soehner), Amy Lucker ( Chair from June 2003), Sally McKay (replaced Jocelyn Gibbs), Günter Waibel (RLG liaison)

2002 - 2003
Mary Clare Altenhofen (Chair), Kitty Chibnik, Jeannette Dixon, Doug Dodds, Jocelyn Gibbs, Tony Gill (RLG liaison), Kenneth Soehner

2001 - 2002
Mary Clare Altenhofen (Vice Chair), Kitty Chibnik, Jeannette Dixon, Doug Dodds, Tony Gill (RLG liaison), Christina Huemer (Chair)

2000 - 2001
Mary Clare Altenhofen, Doug Dodds, Leigh Gates, Tony Gill (RLG liaison), Christina Huemer, Amy Lucker ( Chair until July 2000), Kathleen Salomon ( Chair from August 2000)

1999 - 2000
Peter Blank (Chair), Leigh Gates, Tony Gill (RLG liaison), Deborah Kempe, Amy Lucker, Kathleen Salomon, Murray Waddington

1998 - 1999
Peter Blank, Anne Champagne, Katie Keller (RLG liaison), Deborah Kempe, Susan Roeper (Chair), Allen Townsend, Margaret Webster

1997 - 1998
Peter Blank (replaced Adeane Bregman), Anne Champagne, Katie Keller (RLG liaison), Susan Roeper, Ed Teague (Chair), Allen Townsend, Margaret Webster

1996 - 1997
Adeane Bregman, Max Marmor, Katherine Martinez (RLG liaison), Susan Moon (Chair), Doralynn Pines, Susan Roeper, Judy Silverman

1995 - 1996
Carol Hughes (RLG liaison), Milan Hughston (Chair), Lyn Korenic, Max Marmor, Susan Moon, Barbara Reed, Judy Silverman

1994 - 1995
Carol Hughes ( RLG liaison replacing Jim Coleman), Milan Hughston, Lyn Korenic, Roger Lawson (Chair), Max Marmor (replaced Peggy Kusnerz), Susan Moon, Barbara Reed

Art cataloging coordination

In this 1996-1997 project, Art & Architecture Group participants gave priority cataloging to publications in agreed-on monographic series. These members selected titles they received regularly and committed to creating bibliographic records using RLIN® within a month of receipt. Twenty-one libraries committed to cataloging a total of 60 titles out of 87 that were identified.

This bounded cooperative effort helped to ensure that new materials were cataloged in a timely fashion, divided the cataloging effort among members, and resulted in more art-related cataloging copy in the RLG Union Catalog.

(Table compiled by Laila Abdel-Malek, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with contributions from Patricia D. Siska, then of the Frick Art Reference Library.)