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Dear museum library colleagues - Are you doing (or planning) interesting / innovative work in terms of outreach and/or positioning your library for the future? If so, I would be grateful to hear what you're thinking about or already doing, or to receive your recommendations for really good, recent publishing on the issues. There will be programming at the upcoming Toronto conference that responds broadly to this, but unfortunately that's too late for my deadline! The context for my query is a management desire at the Art Gallery of Ontario to re-think the role of its research library in terms of the long term future. The issue is being raised in the context of an overall museum benchmarking project being carried out by the AGO in partnership with several American peer museums, as well as a big push towards e-publishing. It is a very timely question and one where I see much future opportunity for this library ---- if a persuasive proposal with comparables from other museums can be put forward to support my belief that there is a future for the museum library, if it is nimble enough to balance the 'digital museum' with traditional scholarship. Like many of you, this 100 year old research library has struggled to keep the faith: keeping its large scholarly holdings relevant to the museum's ever growing and diversifying art collections, and to fresh needs generated by a new museum education centre. It is a challenge to find new money for electronic resources, to make the business case for not inconsiderable outlays of cash in support of a relatively tiny user base, and to balance all this and more with expectations for new kinds of service. We made an enormous change several years ago, taking the unusual (for Canada) step of affiliating with an academic library (OCAD University) at a moment when both libraries needed to reinvent themselves in response to new institutional programming demands, and it is a rewarding partnership with plans for future collaboration.. However, more change is clearly wanted and needed. I would be happy to share responses with others, if there's interest. Thanks to all, Karen Karen McKenzie Chief Librarian E.P.Taylor Research Library & Archives [cid:[log in to unmask]] Art Gallery of Ontario 317 Dundas St. W. Toronto, ON M5T 1G4 Canada PH 416-979-6660 FX 416-979-6602 E [log in to unmask] www.ago.net<http://www.ago.net/> ü Please consider the environment before printing this email. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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.arlisna.org Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~