Dr. Stephen J. Bury Appointed to the Post of
Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian
at the Frick Art Reference Library
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> The Frick Collection is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr.
Stephen J. Bury to the post of Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian at the
Frick Art Reference Library. For the past ten years, he has been at the
British Library, the national library of the United Kingdom, and one of
the world's greatest research institutions, where he is a Deputy
Director and Head of European and American Collections, as well as Maps,
Music, and Philatelic Collections. Previously, Dr. Bury was Head of
Learning Resources at the Chelsea College of Art & Design, London.
Comments Anne L. Poulet, Director of The Frick Collection, "Dr. Bury
brings to this leadership position an exceptional dual perspective. He
is both an art historian- who understands first hand the needs of those
who teach, research, and curate- as well as an internationally regarded
librarian. An active participant on numerous professional commissions
as well as dynamic division head of the British Library, he is a great
strategic thinker in a rapidly changing field. Stephen Bury has
developed a keen understanding in areas of mutual interest to the Frick,
among them digitization, collection sharing, storage, and encouraging
greater use of new technologies by staff. Furthermore, the nature of
the collections he oversees at the British Library, being both European
and American, dovetails beautifully with the scope of our holdings and
initiatives. With his arrival in May, we know that the Frick Art
Reference Library will benefit greatly from Dr. Bury's insights as well
as from the broad connections he has developed through years of highly
engaged service and scholarship."
Adds Dr. Bury, "The Frick Art Reference Library is internationally
well-regarded, not just for its rich resources, but for the very
proactive approach the institution has taken in light of the changing
universe of libraries and the needs of the audiences they serve. The
Frick has played a notable role in exploring such important ventures as
digitization and collection sharing, and we are of like mind that the
future of libraries is an exciting one. I am thrilled to have the
opportunity to lead the remarkably talented staff at this venerable
research center. At the same time, the post represents a wonderfully
appealing opportunity for me to return to an art historical focus, that
area of study being at the core of my academic background."
About Stephen Bury
Dr. Bury joined the British Library in 2000 as Head of Modern English
Collections, and was promoted in 2002 to Head of European and American
Collections. In a role of ever-increasing responsibility, Bury has
overseen a large staff and substantial budgets for library acquisitions
and collections development. During his tenure, he has been a driving
force behind a number of forward-looking initiatives, from digitization,
to collaboration and resource-sharing, to critical and state-of-the-art
solutions for storage. His engagement in these issues extends beyond
the walls of the British Library. He leads the institution's
involvement on a number of professional bodies, including The European
Library and Europeanna, The European Library Management Board & Contacts
Group, Conference of European National Libraries/Federation of European
Publishers, and the UK National Book Committee. Bury is also the Chair
of ARLIS (Art Libraries Society) UK & Ireland National Co-ordination
Committee, and is a member of the Arts & Humanities Research Council's
Peer Review College.
At the British Library he leads the Mellon-funded 21st Century Curator
Project, a program that encourages staff to remain engaged in learning
and to take advantage of new technologies entering the field, while
helping them pass along traditional skills that are disappearing from
the library school curriculum (historical bibliography, paleography, and
so forth). Bury also leads the Web Archiving Programme, created to
address the fact that many resources today live online and are
ephemeral. Without efforts to preserve them, a digital black hole may
occur. The selective UK archive is available at
www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/.
American Collections at the British Library
The British Library houses the foremost collection of American books,
manuscripts, journals, newspapers, and sound recordings outside of the
United States. Stephen Bury oversees not only these holdings, but also
line-manages the British Library's Eccles Centre of American Studies.
Founded in 1991, the Centre has two broad aims: to promote the Library's
North American materials and to support American Studies in schools and
universities. His familiarity with such holdings will undoubtedly be an
asset to the Frick Art Reference Library, given the scope of its
resources and its own celebrated initiative, the Center for the History
of Collecting in America.
At Once an Art Historian and a Librarian
Dr. Bury comes to the Frick exceptionally sensitive to the needs of the
position, given his dual background as a librarian and an art historian.
As an undergraduate, Bury studied history at Balliol College, Oxford,
and went on to earn advanced degrees in Library and Information Studies
at University College, London, and the University of Oxford.
Subsequently he completed his master's degree in Victorian Studies and
undertook doctoral studies in Art History at Birkbeck College, London,
where he wrote his PhD dissertation on art critic and social thinker
John Ruskin. Interested in the practice of making art as well, he
taught and lectured through the 1980s and 1990s at the Chelsea College
of Art & Design, Royal College of Art, Central St. Martins College of
Art & Design, and Camberwell College of Arts. His courses ranged from
printmaking to book arts to fine arts. He has supervised PhD candidates
at most of these schools as well as been the external examiner of PhDs
at the University of Leeds, Goldsmith's College, and the University of
Sheffield. As a curator, Bury has presented some fourteen exhibitions.
He organized several shows on artists' books for the Chelsea College of
Art & Design and has also curated for the London Institute Gallery and
for the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Dundee. His British Library
exhibitions include Translation/Illustration (2000), Iris Murdoch
(2002), 1922 (2002, with Colin St. John Wilson), and Breaking the Rules:
The Printed Face of the European Avant Garde (2008). Bury has written
exhibition catalogues in conjunction with such projects and contributed
to numerous other publications. He is a frequent editorial contributor
to art journals, and his reviews of exhibitions have appeared in Art
Monthly, Print Quarterly, The Times Literary Supplement, and elsewhere.
He is a former Chair of the Board of Trustees at Matt's Gallery, London,
and of Book Works.
About the Frick Art Reference Library
The Frick Art Reference Library was founded in 1920 by Helen Clay Frick
as a memorial to her father, Henry Clay Frick (whose art and mansion
were bequeathed to the public, later becoming The Frick Collection, one
of the world's most treasured house museums). In founding the Library,
she vowed to provide a curious and growing public of art researchers
with resources as valuable to them as her father's art collection came
to be to the world's art lovers. The mission of the Library was, and
remains, to make available to a broad community of researchers materials
for the study of art in the Western tradition from the fourth to the
mid-twentieth century. With its emphasis on object-oriented research,
the Library amassed a photoarchive that now boasts images of more than
one million works of art, many of which are unpublished. The Library
owns over 350,000 books, periodicals, online resources, and annotated
auction and exhibition catalogues. The collection is unrivaled in the
United States, and is one of the world's most valued art research
centers and the most comprehensive resource on the history of collecting
and patronage.
For more information, contact us at [log in to unmask]
QUICK LINKS
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The Frick Collection
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Contact:
Heidi Rosenau
The Frick Collection
212.547.6866
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