Brooklyn History: The Paper Trail

Everyone has gone to ARLIS and left me to my devices, I used the opportunity to do some research for my Practicum analysis. I got to look at some institutional files such as minutes and press to get an understanding of  how the library could be a resource in the study of Brooklyn.

The highlight of the All Staff Meeting was the upcoming "Brooklyn Artist Ball."

Twenty artists, one night. Brooklyn Artist Ball:

"The Brooklyn Museum's most anticipated event of the year, the Brooklyn Artists Ball, celebrates Brooklyn artists and the borough's thriving creative community."

Weeding is a large part of this project; making room in the stacks for new and more interesting volumes.  Removing things that are no longer aligned with the Museum's collection goals and anticipating things to come. Here's a glance at our Quick Reference for Keep or Weed.

The next auction catalogs are actually gallery guides from Cotswold Gallery:

1934: Another catalogue of one hundred and one   drawings by English artists

1933-34: Engravings from J.M.W. Turner's Liber   studiorum : including etchings, engravers' proofs and superb first states   selected from the Ruskin & other recently dispersed collections.

193?: Catalogue of one hundred and one drawings   by English artists./# 272553043

Dec 1929: The fifteenth catalogue :original drawings   and engravings. Part I Part II Water-colours and other drawings by English   artists. Engravings from Turner's 'Southern coast'

1928: The fourteenth  Catalgogue: Engravings   from J.M.W. Turner's "Liber Studiorum" and the So-Called Sequel

1927: Original engravings by & after J.M.W.   Turner

1927:The thirteenth catalogue of original   engravings & drawings. Part I: Etchings, line-engravings, woodcuts,   &c., by old and modern masters; Part II: Water-colours & other   drawings by English artists. 

Probably left over from the “J.M.W. Turner Watercolors from The British Museum in the 1960s”/ And whoever the curator or librarian in charge was adamant we keep these gallery/ auction catalogs  for “prices, names and reproductions” because it's written in pencil on ever cover with the date and their initials.

Another interesting presentations from the NYARC Meeting was Artifex Press.

Artifex Press is a new company dedicated to the production of digital catalogues raisonnés. Currently, their first two catalogues: Chuck Close: Paintings, 1967-present, and Jim Dine: Sculpture, 1983-present are available online for limited free subscriptions.

From the site, these are the following advantages of Digital Raisonne collection:

Discover updated, current information.

Search and sort information using a variety of criteria.

Access catalogues through any web-enabled device.

Create a personalized login.

Choose between multiple views for ease of search.

View multiple images per artwork, as well video and other multimedia.

Search within a given catalogue or across the entire Artifex Press library.

I was impressed with the smart choices the team made in database building, especially limiting front end metadata after user testing. First each catalogue is it's own database and has categories that pertain to that artist's work, making it most beneficial to the user. Eventually if they want to the Raisonnes could be linked because they are stored together on a larger linked database. But for now as they launch, they want to just provide the best Raisonne per artist. Each image has rich metadata on the back in for inventory and other administrative tasks, but now it's kept clean, rich and user friendly.

Chuck Close: Paintings, 1967-Present is a searchable, sortable web publication that will be periodically updated as new information becomes available.

Another interesting point, is that the images are uploaded at print, best resolution quality but then downsized; they are anticipating better screen technology and don't want to have to go back and re-upload.

The New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC) consists of the research libraries of three leading art museums in New York City: The Brooklyn Museum, The Frick Collection, and The Museum of Modern Art. Attending the annual meeting was an enlightening look into what's truly happening in the Museum and Art Library field.

Paola Antonelli's , Appointed Director of Research and Development at MoMA, speech spoke to why I truly to go into the Museum field via the Librarian route. Her main point was that the museum is the space in between our physical and digital spaces. There is so much discussion of digitization, but not much said about integration of the two planes. Under her leadership, the MoMA Research and Development department has been providing information and critical tools to identify and exploring new directions and opportunities for this new frontier. She hosted Salons to discuss what curation truly means in the 21st century and is there a difference between a "Tumblr of Tumblrs" and a Gallery of Modrain's.

Poor Standards

Sometimes it hard to match catalogues in the OCLC.  Especially regarding Foreign catalogues, data entry is either  the bare minimum or over  complicated.  For example Galerie Charpentier is an old French Auction house that has a simple cover title such as Tableaux modernes that matches several other volumes. Or volumes are titled by an intense front page that acts as an  advertising broadsheet for the show, such as 1: tableaux anciens par: Th. Géricault, L. Giordano, Sir H. Raeburn, H. Robert; primitifs italiens, espagnols et flamands par ou attribués à L. Borrassa, G. David, Duccio, Le Maître de la Légende de Saint-Augustin; M. Palmezzano, T. De Bartolo, etc, that will continue into the 500 MARC field.

The Grolier Club opened an  exhibition of extraordinary rare books illustrating the origins and evolution of the modern museum.  An exhibition of this kind truly highlights how a library's collection can come to life and enrich, or even become, part of a Museum's exhibition strategy. All the interns were invited to join Deirdre Lawrence, Head Library, on an exclusive behind the scenes tour of the exhibit.

     Museums started in  the 16th century as European collectors filled special rooms or cabinets with miscellaneous conglomerations of items, including paintings and drawings, plant specimens, animals including monstrosities, shells, fossils, coinage, etc. Many items were those of ethnographical interest from the New World, Africa, and East Asia with the occasional Egyptian mummy and two-headed calf and other rare and curious artifacts.

     Some of the auction catalogues were as exquisite and majestic as the Wunderkammers themselves.  The catalogues were a reflection of cabinets being status symbols; the highly decorative pages showcased the owner's wealth and intellectual prowess.  In the long term, the cabinets of curiosities served various function to each owner: inheritance to passed on, begins of municipal collection, or sold as unit or piecemeal.

When cataloguing its necessary to pay close attention to each individual text to be sure that it is not annotated or has an unique feature such as bookplates. Bookplates tend to appear in donated copies, and add value to the Museum's volume. 

In OCLC, the field would be as follows:

500__|3Brooklyn:|aBookplate"Vorwärts und Beständig BIBLIOTHECA Osc. Münsterberg No. 2939."

The Brooklyn Museum Library has blogged about the variety and uniqueness, check it out:

Tokyo Sales Catalogues circa 1910s

Without the discernible language skills, efficiently cataloguing the six “Tokyo Sales” catalogues is nearly impossible. However, this is what I’ve found out that can be useful.

The only English characters exist in what appears to be contact information for the auction house, Kinbei Murata, address and telephone.

According the LC Authorities, Kinbei Murata is a variant of this corporate title, Murata Kinbē (村田金兵衞)

In OCLC when Murata Kinbē is used as a keyword search, it yields 26 results in the proper time frame of 1900- 1921. These results seem to be the proper volumes according to physical dimensions; however without the language, it hard to really match. Some are cataloged as SCIPIO files, some as just books. Whoever brought these books to library put the month and year of sale in most text as well as annotated prices; one seems to even have been a gift (1920-21)

Tokyo Sales catalogues 1910-12

Tokyo Sales catalogues 1913- 14

Tokyo Sales catalogues 1915-16

Tokyo Sales catalogues 1917

Tokyo Sales catalogues Oct. 1919 (most probable OCLC: 51792133)

Tokyo Sales catalogues1920-21

After Review : Backstage Library Works is on retainer for translating foriegn works for the BM. Because the high level of importance that Asian works plays in the Brooklyn Museum collection, the extra expanse will be spared.

Knight Frank & Rutley (27-May-1927): The Margrave Pallavicini collection and other properties. (London) Old Masters paintings of Austro-Hungarian branch of Italian art family; Rebound and repaired by Work Projects Administration for the Brooklyn Museum  Frick has; MET seems to have two copies; Overall holding about 12 institutions.

12.19.12

Making the case for preservation envelopes:

Collections du Major Lambert d’ Audenarde  from 1926, donations from the Schweitzer Gallery. There isn't much know about the Belgium auction; however, the two part catalog is rare and falling apart. 

If it will stay in the collection, the precautions need to be made so that it will survive life in the stacks. 

Permanent link to this page:

http://arcade.nyarc.org:80/record=b461405~S1

How it's Done: 

Search WorldCat holdings to determine rarity: if 4 or less libraries own it, consider for Special Collections

Rehousing SELECT FRAGILE catalogs into acid-free envelopes: This would be for a small number of catalogs that are slim and very fragile and represent some of our older holdings. Place select catalogs in acid free envelope and then label and barcode the envelope.

After cataloging and labeling, return cataloged items to their stacks shelf (where you first found them).

  12.20.12

For Review: Francisco Goya : Sein leben im Spiegel der Graphik, 1996

While this book appears to be an auction catalog, it actually an exhibition catalog that includes a price list.

Kornfeld in Bern had a Goya show from November 21 1996 until January 1997.

It probably should not be catalogued with the auction catalogs; it is on the work table for review.

Frick also has a copy as well: http://arcade.nyarc.org:80/record=b175098~S1

After Review : Rerouted to general stacks; exhibition catalogs masquerading as auction catalogs.

12.28.12

So today, I finished up the Kornfeld’s that needed to be catalogued.  The Tokyo house is mostly turn of the century 1910s, so I am going through those more thoroughly next week.

Basically I decided to start weeding the large Ketterer collection. Most of it is Modern Art/Art Deco stuff (about 70 volumes) , so I just building the ARLIS list and putting them on the weed shelf.