Dialogue with the Director Archives Dialogue with the Director

Director Saralyn Reece Hardy speaks with Susan Craig, head Librarian, Murphy Art and Architecture Library, and Linda Stone-Ferrier, chair of the Kress Foundation Department of Art History.

Susan Craig & Linda Stone-Ferrier
November | December 2005

Saralyn Reece Hardy recently sat down with Susan Craig , head Librarian, Murphy Art and Architecture Library, and Linda Stone-Ferrier, chair of the Kress Foundation Department of Art History, to discuss the unique opportunities presented by the museum, department and library all being housed under the same roof.

Saralyn Reece Hardy: I knew a deep pleasure of this job would be the opportunity to work with two of the really energetic departments of the University. It seemed to me that not only was there something very important going on here in the scholarship in art history and the internationally-known art and architecture library, but also the opportunities for the future in terms of how we brings things together when appropriate and how we have our separate roles when appropriate. So Susan, what kind of separate roles do you see and also what are some of the opportunities looking down the road?

Susan Craig: It's important to me that the whole creation of this building was based on the idea that within a single space we would have the art objects, the teaching and learning about the art, and also the resources to do the research about the art. And I think that was such a thing that was imbued into the whole development of this and that we've all continued to value as we've gone on and we've tried to continue to work together to make sure that that mission, those values are always there. And I think we've looked for a lot of opportunities, and continue to do things to work together.

A current collaboration with the museum is the Spencer Collection Digitization Project, which is taking the digital images of the collection and working with the KU Libraries to use the Luna Imaging System to get the images out there for people to see. A few years ago with the art history department, the library did a joint purchase of digital images from Saskia, which again was mounted through a library system for everyone to get access.

So it's not just reaching to the people coming into the building, but also out beyond to spread our collections and make those things available. And those kinds of collaborations are incredibly important to sharing the resources for people doing the research, for knowing what's here. The students are real beneficiaries of these collaborations, and I think there will be a lot of opportunities in the future. The thing that I have always valued the most about the building and also about the kind of people who've worked here is the flexibility and the fact that we've had space we've been able to change to meet new needs. Over the years we've had new students, new faculty and new curators come in who had different ideas and we've needed to continue to evolve in order to incorporate all of that. So I like the fact that that was here from the beginning and we've continued to work towards it.

SRH: You raised the issue of the digitizing project. Have there been other moments that stand out for you when the library, the art history department and the museum were really working closely together?

SC: There's a lot of history of collaboration, including the exchange program that the library and the museum have engaged in over the years--the fact that the museum publications are sent through library funds to partners all over the world and that the materials we receive from those partners come in and add to the collection through the museum's prestige. So that's a wonderful collaboration that has gone on. Linda, can you think of other things that are good examples?

Linda Stone-Ferrier: I think the opportunity for research that the library affords is incredibly important to the missions of students, faculty, curators and staff at the museum. The staff of the library is not only very professional, but also accessible and very helpful, which I think increases the use of the library--that sense of its accessibility. And to go back to the original point, that we're all in the same building, the importance of that cannot be emphasized enough for accessibility, the sense of camaraderie, the sense of shared professional mission.

SRH: I've had the fun of watching students come in and out of class as they come down my hallway. Linda, can you tell me what you think the museum brings to their education? How do you see the three of us--the museum, the library and the art history department--contributing something remarkable to their educational experience?

LSF: The entire history of this collaboration has been remarkable and I assume and hope that it will continue and if anything get even better. If we start with a discussion of our freshman undergraduates and move up through graduate students, the opportunity to study works of art in the museum firsthand cannot be topped.

Proof of that is that student evaluations written by freshmen in the yearlong introduction to art history course and even higher-level courses will invariably say that their very favorite discussion sections within a given semester were those that took place in the galleries of the Spencer Museum of Art. The number of times that students say that is truly heartwarming--it's of course what we would like to see--but it's remarkable that they think to even mention that. They recognize, by virtue of the experience, that there's no substitute for studying a work of art in person. No matter how many times we say that when showing digitized imagery or imagery from slides, it's a little bit of an epiphany for them when they see a work of art in person and study it in that context and they realize that from the get-go, even at 18 years old. Then, as they get older and they move into the higher-level courses and the graduate courses, that experience is only intensified--it's not something they become blasé about.

And it's not just a question of the permanent collection at the Spencer that affords those opportunities, but also of course the important traveling exhibitions that the Spencer has that afford those opportunities. The Spencer has always been, I think, very forward-looking and generous in its planning to ask members of the art history faculty whether a traveling exhibition that may be rented by the Spencer would help classes, would dovetail with classes, would dovetail with our teaching mission. Not that that determines the choices the Spencer makes, but we certainly appreciate that sense of involving--including students and students' interests, and our teaching mission, in plans for shows in the museum.

Additionally, the opportunities that our graduate students have to be curatorial interns in the various curatorial departments of the museum provide experience that money can't buy. It is a very unusual opportunity as far as I know in university art museums across the country. It may be the only case of that. I don't know. That's how rare I believe that could be. It's hands-on experience with professional curators who are first-rate scholars and professionals who day-in, day-out train curatorial interns by role modeling, but also by giving them everything from mundane assignments to significant responsibilities, such as curating an exhibition themselves in the museum.

I've been here 25 years, and I'm still dazzled by that opportunity. And many, many of those students have gone on, not necessarily with a Ph.D., but some having stopped with an M.A., to be hired for prestigious museum appointments of their own because it's known nationally and even internationally that the training in these curatorial internships in the Spencer Museum of Art affords a first-class experience. So those are just some of the ways I think of the partnership. And quite frankly it's exciting to come to work and know the galleries are upstairs, and know that the library is downstairs, and know that we're going to run into each other and that there will be an exchange of ideas. So that physical proximity generates a great deal of excitement and inspiration.

SC: Years ago, we had a student transfer to KU from a very prestigious school back east, and she commented later that when she first came here, she didn't really want to be at Kansas; she really didn't understand what the benefits were going to be. She came here because of a particular professor, but she grumbled about it a little. But by the time she left--and she left with a Fulbright--she could not speak more highly of the experience that she had here: participating in seminars and studying real collections, writing part of the catalogue to a show, contributing to the hanging of the show and to the decisions about it.

She said over and over again that she would never have had the opportunity to do the teaching--she was a T.A. in the department--and the opportunity to participate in a museum had she stayed where she started.

SRH: You talked earlier Susan about this idea of evolving, of things continuing to evolve, and of how important the flexibility is. And I'm struck by that as I'm listening to both of you that you're mentioning things like direct encounters with art, and the contributions that students can make as far as mounting exhibitions so that they're really involved in their own creative, scholarly work. And the experience of teaching and watching others teach in a variety of ways, as well as the research that is so important in the scholarly world. I'm wondering if both of you could leap out there and talk about how the world of art history and research is evolving. Where is it going? Where are libraries going? How might we continue to evolve together?

SC: I'm laughing only because I came here 20-some years ago when we had a card catalogue. We had banks of card catalogues. Then we went to a microfiche catalogue. And it wasn't that long ago that we went to an electronic catalogue that could be accessed from all over. So the evolution in libraries is amazing, and the same thing has happened in our library collection. When I came here, we had paper-based collections, possibly microfilm-based collections, but now we've got CD-ROMs, we've got videos, we've got DVDs, we've got digital collections. Our electronic resources are an incredible component to our collection and the growth of our collection.

We went from a collection in 1980 when we opened of 40,000 volumes or less to a collection now that is over 155,000 volumes. So we have grown and changed tremendously. The expectations now from our students are that we will be able to provide the best, provide the resources they want, provide the kinds of software experiences in computers and networking that will prepare them for the kinds of careers they're going into and for the kind of research that is expected in the classrooms. And I just see more of that coming down. We continue to have to be on top of all that stuff. You can't just say, "Goodness gracious, we're done!"

LSF: Methodologically, the sub-disciplines of art history actually vary significantly from one to the other, which I think would surprise a lot of people. The kinds of interpretive questions and assumptions about how art can have meaning and how it can function actually differ significantly, as I say, from sub-discipline to sub-discipline. And of course that's impacted and determined by many, many variables, some of which are based in the culture out of which the art stems, and some of which are also affected by how accessible that culture is. If we're talking about a culture from 400 years ago, that's different from studying art produced today, of course.

Art history has become more interdisciplinary than ever. It's always been interdisciplinary, but if anything it's more than ever, by which I mean that scholars are actually trained in--rather than just dipping their toes into--other scholarly worlds, whether it's anthropology, or history, or political history, or economic history, or social history, or history of religion, or something else. Art history brings to bear a constellation of issues in research on a given area or a given group of works of art. I think also, more than ever, scholars are working from the object out instead of assuming a methodological approach and finding the work of art onto which that methodological approach can be projected, which I think is a very significant change. I know that's a broad, sweeping generalization, but it's something I've noticed.

In terms of resources, I am incredibly jealous of our doctoral students and the kind of research resources that are available to them today, starting with faxing and e-mail, and going into, of course, the Internet and all of the electronic resources available through the library.

SC: Now let's look at the other side--they know all that stuff is out there and they feel like they have to use all of it!

LSF: And well they should, well they should! It's just amazing. I remember when I was a new faculty member here having a discussion with my doctoral advisor, and saying how envious I was of all these resources, and wouldn't it have been easier to have done my own dissertation with all of those things available to me. And I remember her saying to me, "My dear, in my day, we didn't have photocopying." So there's always a "40 miles in the snow to school" story for everyone, and I'm sure our graduate students today will have something to say with regard to their own graduate students and the degree to which resources have become even more accessible. But it's thrilling. You can go online and find catalogues for collections abroad, and collections in this country. You can go online and find a resource for all scholarly articles, whether this library has them or not--that have been written on fill-in-the-blank. If the library doesn't have them, they can very quickly interlibrary borrow them. It's astounding. And furthermore, this library will now bring to your office door books that are somewhere else on campus--you don't even have to leave the office. It's remarkable.

SRH: Hearing you talk, you use words like inspiration and I look at the two of you and I find not only your history at the University inspiring but also the rigorous way that you conduct your work. You've both been here a while now. So something has meaning for you, something makes it feel important. What is it that makes it worthwhile?

SC: You are regularly working with new scholars and new students. You are learning about new subjects. Although I've spent a lot of time developing the library's collection over the years, the resources that are there continually surprise me, and they get exposed to me by the students themselves because of their interests, or because of a new faculty member who puts a different slant on it. I find that I've got the best job on campus because I get to work in a beautiful building with great people and I have wonderful resources. It's a very rewarding kind of thing because you're working with a lot of people who are very smart but who also are very interesting and interested in what they are doing. And that makes for a nice mix.

LSF: I have the best job on campus! OK. We both do! We tie for first!

SRH: Now wait a minute...

LSF: OK, we all tie for first! I just thank my lucky stars that I discovered art history or that it discovered me, serendipitously when I was an undergraduate on a study abroad program at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. I find that teaching is just exhilarating. To see figurative lightbulbs go off in freshmen's minds, to see the twinkles in their eyes, to hear an insightful remark or thoughtful question, makes me realize that as I speak or as they speak, they have been bitten by the art history bug. That enthusiasm is thrilling. At the freshmen level, art history is thrilling to teach because most people haven't studied it before; it's usually not taught in high school. So people haven't even heard of it as a discipline, myself included in my day. So to turn them on to something unknown to them is very exciting, and to see them connect and make the connections themselves and ask thoughtful questions is very gratifying. And it just becomes exponential as you go up the ladder to juniors and seniors and then, of course, graduate students.

Graduate seminars are just an honor and a pleasure to be able to teach. Many other art history departments don't have graduate programs, or they may have a limited M.A. program. Graduate seminars are just so exciting because they afford opportunities to go deeper, to read things that in fact I haven't read before, and to discuss them with very smart students. Then to work with them on original research for their papers for those seminars is also thrilling. It's thrilling in my office, one on one, talking about problems they are encountering with the research, or where to go from here, and I almost feel the sparks flying off the two of us as we're discussing things. And I'll have an insight I never would have had without that dialogue. So I mean, it's a real work in progress. It's an entity, that energy. I get excited about their papers as they do, and look very much forward to reading them. Reading those papers sometimes gives me goose bumps. They're just so first-rate. And then of course at the Ph.D. level it's the same thing times four or five because there are chapters for dissertations.

We have very smart people at the University of Kansas, and these are incredibly kind, honest, hard-working, supportive people, whom you definitely do not find in every academic environment around the country. I know that from first-hand experience.

SC: I agree. I went from an environment where people considered everybody else their competition to here, where people considered everybody else their collaborators. And that was a real interesting change, and the collaboration included the teacher, and not the teacher as the all-knowing being, but the teacher as someone else who is part of the mix.

SRH: And I guess I would say that that would be one hope that I have for the museum, that we are really part of a dialogue, that we are collaborating with the ideas of students, of teachers, of scholars, and to see the museum not only as a place to encounter works of art but to have a new creative idea in the company of very intelligent and inspired people.

LSF: I think the Spencer @ Work project, with the Lee Friedlander exhibition, the commission of the video installation by Earl Iversen and Luke Jordan, the project out in front where you're bringing in all kinds of workers--I think that's a perfect and very exciting example of what you're just alluding to.

SRH: Well, we talk about how things are changing, but some of what we're talking about is how they stay the same. Certain things continue, like the beginning vision for the building as a really energetic house for all of us. And then the work, the art, continues to bring us pleasure and meaning as well. Are there other things that you feel are timeless in a way about research, scholarship, information and the public presentation of exhibitions and collections?

LSF: I think what's timeless is that sense of epiphany one gets in looking one more time at a work of art or works of art that one has seen innumerable times. That is timeless, that multiple sense of discovery and insight. And that can be an experience standing in front of an object in the galleries upstairs. It can also be working on that object or another object or a collection of objects or a thematic topic if you're doing research. So that is timeless and I think that is very sustaining, too. We know that's going to happen. We know that the longer you look and look again, the more you're going to see.

SC: You're saying things that I think, and that is that I can revisit the same collection over many, many years, and look at different things in new ways because I'm bringing different experiences to them, and all of a sudden a work that I've walked past and sort of glanced at but not experienced has a meaning to me based on something else in my life or something else I've seen or done. It's really amazing how that can happen. And I suppose it may be true for music and other things, but certainly it's true for artworks.