One of our greatest joys at WiLS is hearing our members tell the stories of the big and important work they are doing – interesting new projects or initiatives, or even interesting and new approaches to old projects. And, in addition to hearing about it, it makes us even happier when we can share those stories with other members. Each month, WiLS is proud to feature an interview with one of our library members. This month, we interview Heather Winter, Librarian/Archivist at the Milwaukee Art Museum and WiLS board chair-elect!
This interview is part of a series of interviews with both WiLS member and vendor partners. Your feedback is appreciated. If you have any to offer on this article, or suggestions for upcoming interviews, contact Andrea Coffin at acoffin@wils.org.
Why did you, personally, choose to work in libraries?
In grad school I was interested in late medieval Florentine social welfare and the sharp rise in orphans and orphanages that occurred late in the 1400s. It was a complex time, but one that is documented heavily both through visual arts and demographic records. I had aspired to become a history professor and knew that I needed a better understanding of how information was gathered, indexed and managed and the changing ways in which that record was being made accessible. So an MLIS seemed like a natural and necessary companion for my grandiose research future.
Midway through grad school, I was offered and accepted an opportunity to work in a fine art gallery in New York. A few years later, and a return home to Milwaukee to complete my studies, I began working as a curatorial assistant in modern and contemporary art at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
In a fortuitous —and, for me, circuitous—turn of events, the Museum’s Librarian/Archivist position opened and my skills in both research and collection management were (re)united to bring many of my interests full circle. Ten years later I continue to sift through amazing material, learning more and more about the Museum’s remarkable history.
What is unique about the culture of your library? How do you influence it?
What is unique about the culture of our Library and Archives is not only our staff’s cross-collection knowledge but also the creative sleuthing we must do. Since we need to be as knowledgeable about the visual cues hidden in works of art as we are about the research produced around it, library and archive staff must be comfortable investigating any variety of narratives presented in an individual work of art. From the artistic process used to create a work of art (oil, gouache, aquatint, a photogravure or héliogravure, etc.), to historic symbolism (a little dog in a seventeenth century Dutch painting typically represents a wife’s faithfulness to her husband for example) or the narrative of the artist or creator’s life (by whom were they influenced, where did they live, what was happening in society as they were creating their art) and even the narrative represented in the trials and tribulations experienced by the artwork itself.
In sum, our small staff possess excellent detective skills. These talents enable us to navigate resources which include some 30,000+ volumes on art history, 100,000+ magazines, auction catalogues and gallery catalogues, rare books, online databases and even the Museum’s Institutional Archive which contains almost 1,000 cubic feet of its own records. We are the “knowledge repository” for the institution.
What do you think is important to know about the patrons or community you work with? What helps you understand those needs?
The Museum’s Library and Archive serve patrons of all levels of interest and experience. Whether you are a curator seeking provenance through a nineteenth century French dissertation from the Sorbonne or someone who has never set foot in the Museum but purchased an interesting work of art at a garage sale, we are here to help.
Perhaps our greatest skill as a team is that we are just as intrigued by the question and research journey as the patron or staff member who seeks an answer. In turn, every question answered gives us more experience and insight which helps us prepare for future questions. The learning process is as valuable as what each of us bring to the table (and, as my husband says, this learning process is cheaper than paying for another round of grad school!).
What big ideas are being worked on at your library? What problems are being solved?
We are preparing to deploy a Museum-wide digital asset management system (DAMs) which will unite A/V assets from our art and archive collections into a centralized, searchable database. The DAMs will automatically resize the asset and deliver it to the requestor. For example, if a curator needs an image of Francisco de Zurbarán’s St. Francis of Assisi in His Tomb for a PowerPoint, they can request the image, have it properly sized and delivered to their inbox in seconds rather than contacting our A/V Librarian each time an asset is needed.
As a visual arts organization, we have tens of thousands of images, videos, lectures, exhibition installation photography, event photography, etc. that will become searchable in seconds. The DAMs will free our audio visual librarian from individual requests which will, in turn, allow her to dig deeper into our collections and make more A/V assets available. (And she can finally take a vacation!)
Do you have anything else you’d like to share here?
It is an amazing time to be in the Library/Archive field, especially as part of a museum or cultural repository. Consider that almost every art museum has a Warhol — but no museum has a Warhol with our unique patron, acquisition, or administrative story. The story of this artwork comes alive through extensive primary documentation, including press clippings, correspondence, images of the donor at a party perhaps, or even a recorded interview with the donor. The story of the Warhol goes beyond the image on the canvas and, with today’s technology; the various threads of its story can be woven together and shared in any number of ways.
Thanks to the Internet, libraries and archives are no longer quiet departments in service of a select few. As our collections are digitized and made available, the materials we manage provide multiple new lenses through which to explore and experience the artwork. The depth and breadth of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s collections are incredible and we are just beginning to tap into them. It’s an exciting time!