Lois' Gift Lois Swan Jones, art historian, bibliographer, friend and mentor of generations of art librarians, was a woman of many parts. Although our paths had crossed already a couple of times before we did not become really well acquainted until we had lunch together during a leisurely break in a busy excursion trip to Buffalo and Niagara Falls during the 1979 Toronto Conference . Sharing a table we were soon engrossed in an animated and very fruitful conversation about the art and science of teaching historical bibliography and research methodology to art history students. At that point I had not even seen Research Methods and Resources: A Guide to finding Art Information(1978) which had only just been published but as soon I had read it its seminal importance obvious -- and it contained a special gift ! After our promising first encounter we managed to get together at every subsequent ARLIS/NA conference for long talks, usually over a meal or drinks. On these occasions our conversations continued, but -- and this may perhaps come as a surprise to some readers -- the topic of our conversations changed from things bibliographical and didactic, activities in which we were both engaged on a day-to-day basis, to the activities of professor Jones' alter ego: that of world traveler and entrepreneur art photographer, film- and video producer and publisher, fascinating activities that were uniquely hers. Jeff Weidman in his l reminiscences of Lois < one of a kind> [ARLIS-L of August 9], pays warm tribute to Lois' first work , Research Methods and Resources: A Guide to finding Art Information ( 1st edition, 1978). This book and its subsequent editions and all the works which she published later are listed in the obituary in the Dallas Morning News of August 9. They are important tools for the art historian's and art librarian's trade and all did, of course, become entries in he bibliographical guides that I prepared for my first-year graduate students. Due to the particular admissions policy at Harvard at the time that favored people with backgrounds in languages and literatures or classics most of the new graduate students that were admitted to the graduate Fine Arts degree program had not been art history majors as undergraduates and were therefore very much in need of instruction in historical bibliography and research methods. So what was this gift to me that I have alluded to in the caption to these reminiscences ? It was the following simple and brilliant idea: Having meticulously recorded all the steps that went into the creation of a major scholarly treatise on an artist, from the original conception of the research idea to the imprimatur Lois in her book retraced these steps one-by-one and discussed them thoroughly from every angle for the benefit of the student. As an object lesson she proposed the creation of a dissertation on the life and works of Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), the French impressionist master. With him she had wisely chosen a figure who lived though one of the great sea changes in the history of French painting. This versatile artist was truly of his time. He was a painter, a friend of artists, writers and other prominent members of the cultural establishment , a man who had contacts in the worlds of politics and of business as well and who was also an art collector to boot. This presented the author a splendid opportunity to introduce the novice scholar step-by-step to every conceivable source and format of pertinent information both textual and pictorial that he would need to illuminate his subject. The obvious merit of this approach is that it makes the student realize that the paces he is being put through in this course are not busy work but have real relevance for what he is about to undertake, his future life's work as a scholar. Thus inspired by Lois, the great teacher, I have used her clever device, i.e. teaching research methodology by dissecting a work of scholarship into its technical components and putting it together again in front of a class for many years with success. I never had I to worry how to motivate students! That was the gift of Lois to me for which I am grateful, Wolfgang M. Freitag __________________________________________________________________ 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 (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask]