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I am all for closer relations between the two organizations.  Before any serious talk of mergers, however, I think at least another couple joint conferences would be in order, to ensure that the two cultures both can preserve everything they want and complete their respective agendas within such a framework.  If it works well, then why not merge?  It would be great for people like me who are members of both organizations, but can only go to one conference a year.

 

Regarding the term “Visual Culture”, I would have to take a dissenting view here.  That term was all the rage among art history departments in the late ‘80s-early ‘90s.  While they all considered changing their names (and some did), it was never clear how this was reflected in the discipline or curriculum.  I think it is always good to have titles whose meanings can be readily understood by the laity, and I don’t think this one can.  As the bulk of us are still in museum or academic art or architecture libraries and departments, I rather like having the terms “art”, “libraries” and “visual resources” in our title.  A professional organization should work to improve society-at-large’s image of librarians and VR professionals—we shouldn’t change are name to convince people we are on the cutting edge—rather we should be on the cutting edge to show people what our titles mean!

 

I do think this discussion is very healthy!

 

Eric Wolf

Director of the Library

New York School of Interior Design

170 E. 70th Street

New York, NY 10021

212-472-1500 x216

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