Dear ARLIS/NA and GLIRT Members, Since my name was listed in the first message about this subject, I think it is time I responded to it. I was a founding member of GLIRT and moderated the first officially sponsored GLIRT session at the 1993 ARLIS/NA confernece in San Francisco. I was also the first moderator of GLIRT (1993-1994). I did volunteer to become the new GLIRT Vice-Moderator prior to the Houston conference. And I, sadly, did not go to the GLIRT business meeting as planned. I became ill while I was in Houston and was not able to attend as many sessions and events as I had hoped to attend. I sincerely apologize for not informing people about what had happened to me. I feel that I must say, however, that it would have been nice if a GLIRT member had contacted me personally by email or phone prior to discussing my named absence from the meeting globally via the Internet! I have not receive a single personal email or phone call asking me why I failed to attend the meeting or asking me if I could continue as the GLIRT moderator! Now that I have vented that disappointment, I want to address my thinking about GLIRT. If GLIRT is to be dissolved, it must be done according to ARLIS/NA Bylaws and it should issue forth from a GLIRT business meeting in which all members have had an opportunity to think about it, discuss it and then vote on it. I would hope that the ARLIS/NA Executive Board would agree with me! During this email discussion we have heard from Ted, Miguel, and Sherman, but I would also like to hear from other signers of the email calling for GLIRT to dissolve. As stated in Ted's first email, those people are: Milan Hughston, Greg Most, Clayton Kirking, Daniel Starr, Eric Schwab, Allen Townsend, Hugh Wilburn, Andrew Gessner and Tom Young. I want to hear the reasons you think GLIRT should dissolve. If members are not attending the GLIRT business meetings, why do you think that is the case? In my own personal case, as some members of ARLIS/NA and ARLIS/Ohio know, I taught Library Science for the University of Pittsburgh in China during 2002. I became quite ill after I returned home. The illness was so serious that I had to take a medival leave from my position as Head of the Frick Fine Arts Library. When I returned to work, I found I could only work part-time for a period. I have not felt well enough to attend ARLIS/NA conferences in recent years. I only began to feel as if I am regaining part of my normal energy level this past summer (2004)! I find myself now living with a compromised immune system that may well be permanent. My doctor has prescribed a permanent Rx for an antiboitic because I am so prone to colds, flu and other infections now. I did not attend the Baltimore or NYC conferences because my health didn't allow it. In spite of that recent health history, I am still willing to serve as the Incoming Moderator at the Banff conference in 2006. I am still willing to formulate a program proposal for that conference IF a GLIRT member will take the time to email me ASAP with ideas that may have been discussed in the NYC business meeting during 2004. In spite of the fact that I am on sabbatical through August 31, 2005, I am willing to see what I can do to bring back the GLIRT web site and update it. It was produced at Pitt when Jim Viskochil worked here. I am quite certain that I can find an interested Library Science student who would be willing to work with me to make another GLIRT web site happen. GLIRT programming at annual conferences has always been high in quality, dynamic and provocative. And, judging from the GLIRT session at the 2004 NYC conference, it continues to be so! GLIRt programming has covered everything from queer scholarship, censorship, management issues and collection development to archival resources and Andy Warhol's Time Capsules. Speakers at those sessions have included such internationally and nationally known artists and authors as Jonathan Katz, Nayland Blake, Thomas Waugh, Patrick Moore (Estate Project for Artists with AIDS) and Tom Sokolowski and John Smith. GLIRT sessions have played to standing room only audiences, gotten local press coverage (i.e., 1995 Montreal conference on art book censorship at the Canadian-US border), and even been videotaped to be partially used in a film by the National Film Board of Canada (1999 Vancouver conference). It was also a GLIRT session that featured a world-preiere of a performance artist piece (1999 Vancouver conference). And it was for the GLIRT session at the Pittsburgh conference that for the first time, the Andy Warhol Museum took a Time Capsule off museum premises and opened it for a conference audience. GLIRT has even jointly sponsored a session with the Gay and Lesbian Caucus at an annual CAA conference! It was the 1995 CAA conferece in San Antonio that featured the jointly sponsored session moderated by internationally known US artist, Tee Corinne, and included papers by 2 West coast artists and three art librarians. Do GLIRT members REALLY want to loose such programming from ARLIS/NA and CAA conferences in the future? GLIRT has NOT exhausted topics for future ARLIS/NA conference programming. I am brainstorming alone right now and I can think of the following topics trhat have not been addressed for which a need continues to exist: workplace issues, cataloging and access issues to relevant information, collection development issues, public service issuses, VR issues, the realted issues of racism-homophobia-misogyny-xenophobia, how to find out who the glbtq artists are, glbtq art from the studio arts perspective .... I could go on.... I am sure that other ARLIS/NA and GLIRT members have other ideas. Yes, GLIRT did have one of the fist ARLIS/NA web sites with substantial content. This may only happen again if GLIRT continues to exist. Yes, there are other relevant Internet sites, but they don't offer an art librarian's or visual resource curator's perspective. The GLIRT web site also provided a record of the outstanding programs sponsored by the round table at ARLIS/NA conferences -- a model for other professional organizations. And was useful for ARLIS/NA historical purposes since the ARLIS/NA archives are not easily accessible to members. A recent check of ARLIS/NA conference proceedings shows that reports from several GLIRT sessions were never submitted, so the historical record at that portion of the ARLIS/NA web site is not complete. If GLIRT has entered a "low energy" phase of its life, that is not a reason to dissolve it. Other Round Tables have had those periods, resting is one of the universal laws of thermodynamics and can be of benefit to groups as well as individuals. Recycling moderators is not necessarily a bad thing either. It's certainly not a reason to dissolve the organization. We should enourage younger ARLIS/NA members to join GLIRT, encourage them to be active in the grup and even mentor them. Dissolving GLIRT because other ARLIS/NA groups have recently done so it not a reason for GLIRT to do the same thing. There is plenty that remains to be done by GLIRT. The list of program possibilities above is only one example. Other things GLIRT needs to do: Grow the round table membership! GLIRT needs to make the entire ARLIS/NA membership aware that it exists and what its mission is. A web site would help with that sort of communication! So would regularly submitted reports of the business meetings, small articles in UPDATE and relevant lengthier articles in ART DOC (as far as I know only two have been published and they were absolutely top notch!). Encouraging "friends" of GLIRT to become members wouldn't hurt either! Recruit women members! GLIRT has been aware of that need for many years, but I wonder what has been done to make it a reality. Providing business meetings, conference programming and social events that are women-inclusive may entice women to join. So might co-sponsoring sessions with WART. Perhaps a confidential survey of women ARLIS/NA members may provide us with ideas as to what women may need from GLIRT that we have not yet provided. It took courage to establish GLIRT in 1993. We must have the courage and muster the energy to see that it continues to be a part of ARLIS/NA in the future! While it is 2005 and we do live in the 21st century now, we also live in a "backlash" political environment. It is a world in which diversity, while remaining a vital part of the nation's debate, is also being dismantled in institutions across the country. It is a world in which feminists are still cited as "ugly, strident man-haters" and we glbtq people continue to be discriminated against in ALL aspects of life. If GLIRT does not remain a presence within ARLIS/NA (as similar groups do within ALA, CAA, AAM, MLA, AHA, etc.) our issues will not be addressed in the organization's policy or programming. Do GLIRT members REALLY want that to happen? I vote for ending this discussin, calling off the Board's vote and continuing our GLIRT work in the future! GLIRTies, please let me know ASAP if you want me to continue as your Incoming Moderator and send me program ideas that have a chance of flying at the Banff conference in 2006. Ray Anne Lockard Ray Anne Lockard Head, Frick Fine Arts Library University Library System University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15260 Voice: 412-648-2410 Fax: 412-648-7568 E-mail: [log in to unmask] A book should be a ball of light in one's hands. Ezra Pound __________________________________________________________________ Mail submissions to [log in to unmask] For information about joining ARLIS/NA see: http://www.arlisna.org/join.html Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc) to [log in to unmask] ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance: http://lsv.uky.edu/archives/arlis-l.html Questions may be addressed to list owner (Kerri Scannell) at: [log in to unmask]