Virtual Voice: The Art Library Blog

Amanda Gluibizzi, Fine Arts Librarian

Ohio State University, gluibizzi.2@osu.edu

Libraries have featured blogs on their web sites for some time, but does anyone actually look at them? Why do library blogs have to be about the library? This virtual poster session will examine ways that art library blogs can connect with their communities by taking advantage of the ease and immediacy of blog posting and explore blogs’ potential for cultural production, critical thinking and writing, and as virtual galleries. Looking at popular arts blogs such as Big, Red & Shiny; Scene and Herd; and Design Observer, Virtual Voice will suggest strategies for posting topics, getting staff involved, and the benefits of giving art libraries a virtual voice.

“There is a North-west passage to the intellectual world.”

Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy

Long before Web 2.0 technologies were developed, men and women of letters created Northwest passages to intellectual worlds by keeping “commonplace books,” in which they compiled quotations relevant to their interests and intellectual pursuits. These quotes acted as links to the larger world of thought and ideas.

Can we see blogs as contemporary equivalents of commonplace books? I think we can, but they’re even better because the links are live, they’re searchable, and they are compiled not only for the single reader but for anyone who comes upon them. A page from Thomas Jefferson’s commonplace book featuring a quote from Sterne.

What is appropriate for an art library blog?Depending on your

institution,

• Reviews of current art shows on campus or in the region;

• Discussions of art in the news;

• Opinion pieces/columns about artists;

•Diary pages from the local art scene;

•Pictures of people and places that might be of interest to your patrons;

•Following are some good examples of art and design blogs that include these features

The Sartorialist, http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com

Artforum.com’s diary Scene and Herd channels critic David Rimanelli’s chatty (and sometimes catty) sensibility to provide a glimpse into the hipper-than-thou life of jet-set, art-savvy producers and patrons. Seemingly superficial, it serves as a good introduction to the network and social mores of the international art world.

Artforum Diary, Scene and Herd, http://artforum.com/diary

Big, RED & Shiny is an art journal in the form of a blog, complete with features, reviews, and interviews with artists (I got to meet Andres Serrano because he was interviewed by BR&S in my library!). It is an excellent example of a local, independent art blog with a national reputation. Big, RED & Shiny, http://bigredandshiny.com

Edited by design powerhouses Michael Bierut (Pentagram), William Denttrel (Winterhouse), and Jessica Helfland (Winterhouse), Design Observer provides insights into the priorities of contemporary design. Nice for librarians: it includes lists of recommended design titles.

Design Observer, http://designobserver.com

But why stop at what’s already been done?One of the great things about blogs is

that they’re easy to change, so they encourage experimentation. They are ideal for trying something out to see if it works (and everything can be taken down if it doesn’t). Some other possibilities might include:

Answering “the big questions” in art about which people have always wondered (Why is there a guy on a horse in the cloud in Mantegna’s painting?);

Close readings of artworks (for a good example, look at the “Close Reading” feature in the New York Times);

Looking at the components of art that often get overlooked in professional art history, such as gossip, trends, or random elements that seem unimportant;

The Fine Arts Library @ OSU has had success with a “Shoe of the Week” column on its FIN blog, which looks at the shoes featured in art. After that has been up for a year, we’re moving on to “Hidden Animals in Art,” starting with bunnies:

•Close readings offer examples to students about how to understand a work of art – what questions to ask and what might be looked for.

•Looking at often unaddressed questions about art lets our patrons/readers know that what they notice about art is valid and ripe for questioning (isn’t it always annoying when a speaker ignores the weirdest things about an image?).

•Exposure to close attention to art and its details can help a reader and viewer to understand how to hone her own visual sensibilities. Josef Albers attempted something similar in his color experiments with students at the Bauhaus and Yale.

What can these postings provide for our readers?

The interesting thing about blogs is that they allow for the staff of the library to have a “virtual voice.” This is a way to let our patrons know that we have interests, subject knowledge, and perhaps most important, senses of humor! FIN blog,

http://library.osu.edu/blogs/finearts

Staff Involvement

My experience with the FIN blog has been gratifying because it has allowed for my staff to become involved in its production, as well. Too often our paraprofessional staff do not have as many opportunities to participate in the cultural, creative, or intellectual life of the library in the way that librarians do or that we expect our patrons will be able to. Opening blogging to staff members is a great way to encourage that involvement. I have also found deep commitment to maintaining a regular, updated presence on the blog’s posts and to testing new ideas.

Ideas for staff involvement:

•Poll your staff for images to feature in posts. Our patrons are visually acute – our blogs should be, too;

•Open writing privileges to student workers who can contribute musings on the weirdest artwork they saw in a book that week;

•Curate an online gallery of book covers culled from the online catalog or Amazon and critique the designs;

•Write a feature called “Paintings that Look Boring but Aren’t”;

Steven Heller, Campaign Stops @ the NYTimes,

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/author/sheller/

Follow election coverage with an eye to the success of the candidates’ logos and ad campaigns. Steven Heller has been blogging about campaign design choices. Why not you?

Tell your readers what’s happening in local culture for the weekend and how they can get involved. FIN blog’s very popular “Wha’cha gonna do?” feature is written by my library manager, Gretchen Donelson, and gives her the chance to share her impressive knowledge of what’s going on in our region.

Libraries are so often consumers of resources and culture that we do not often get the chance to become producers of culture. Blogging can be a quick way to keep patrons informed about library acquisitions, policies, and events, but it can also be much more exciting than that. Blogging is an opportunity to share ideas, introduce readers to a different way of thinking about something, and to exhibit a sense of humor. Blogs can be the online representatives of library personality, and they give employees a virtual voice.

How to get started on your own blog:Programs like Wordpress (http://wordpress.com) or Blogger (http://blogger.com/start) make it easy to start a blog.

If you ask your institution or library’s IT department if they would be willing to host blog space under the aegis of the institution, it becomes possible to work with the determined template of the school. An empty school-sponsored blog might look like this to the public:

Blogging programs make it very easy to write, include images and videos, and edit. Though you can add code if you like, coding isn’t required. This is a blank page from the Wordpress site that OSU uses for its library blogs:

Conversely, you can also apply for a blog as an individual, as I’ve done here, and then link to it from your library’s page. (Make sure that you name the blog something other than your name to preserve your privacy.) This is an appealing option, too, because you can choose the blog layout that matches your topics, your design preferences, and your own voice!

Minute Cinema, http://minutecinema.wordpress.com

Images:Edvard Munch. The Voice, 1896. Oil on canvas. Munch Museet. www.munch.museum.no.

Thomas Jefferson’s Commonplace Book, with a quote from Tristram Shandy, by Laurence Sterne. www.loc.gov.

Andrea Mantegna. St. Sebastian, 1457-8. Panel. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. www.wga.hu.

Andrea Mantegna. Agony in the Garden, c. 1459. Tempera on wood. National Gallery, London. www.wga.hu.

Josef Albers. Homage to the Square, Broad Call, 1967. Oil on composition board. www.moma.org.

Yoko Ono. Voice Piece for Soprano, 1961. Photograph of performance. www.artstor.org

Roy Lichtenstein. Vicki! I -- I ThoughtI Heard Your Voice! 1964. Enamel onsteel. www.artstor.org

Blogs and print information consulted for this presentation:Bierut, Michael, et. al., eds. Design Observer. http://designobserver.com.

Darnton, Robert. “Extraordinary Commonplaces.” New York Review of Books 47 (2000): 82-7.

Donelson, Gretchen & Amanda Gluibizzi. FIN Blog. http://library.osu.edu/blogs/finearts

Gluibizzi, Amanda. Minute Cinema. http://minutecinema.wordpress.com.

Havens, Earle. Commonplace Books: A History of Manuscripts and Printed Books from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century. New Haven: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 2001.

Heller, Steven. Campaign Stops. http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/author/sheller/.

Nash, Matt, et. al., eds. Big, RED, & Shiny. http://bigredandshiny.com.

Ouroussoff, Nicolai. “Close Reading: Now You See It, Now You Don’t.” New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/arts/design/20ouro.html?ref=design

Schuman, Scott. The Sartorialist. http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com.

Scene & Herd: The Artforum Diary. http://artforum.com/diary.

Sterne, Laurence. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. London: Penguin Books, 1997.