Free webinar, VRA travel award, & CFP

As always, you can also see what’s coming up through the Educational Opportunities Calendar. Keep reading for details about all the great webinars, CFPs, and scholarship opportunities below!

Webinar:

Title: Communicating Through Infographics

Presenter: Dawne Tortorella

Format: Webinar

Date: Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Start Time: 12 Noon Pacific

1PM Mountain

2PM Central

3PM Eastern

This webinar will last approximately one hour. Webinars are free of charge. Please note: we have changed hosting services fromWebEx to Adobe Connect, so we advise you to test your browser before the webinar: http://intesolv.adobeconnect.com/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm

For more webinar tips, see: http://infopeople.org/webinar/tips.

For more information and to participate in the Wednesday, November 14, 2012 webinar, go to http://infopeople.org/training/communicating-through-infographics.

· Have you noticed the growing trend of communicating through infographics?

· Do you wonder where the data comes from and how to verify information displayed in visual form?

· Would you rather read a 100 page report or look at a visual presentation that conveys the story in less than one minute?

· Would you like to tell a compelling story about your library through the medium of infographics?

Visual representation of information has existed for hundreds of years in various forms and formats. Infographics (information graphics) represent the latest visual form to gain popularity. Telling an effective story through infographics requires accurate data, compelling design, and visualization tools.

During this one-hour webinar, we will discuss and demonstrate:

· blogs and infographic search resources to find examples and track trends

· differences between infographics, poster art, and data visualization

· common data sources used in infographics (big data and local sources)

· suggest library-specific data and statistics appropriate for visual presentation

· visualization tools for experimentation

This webinar will be of interest to library staff at all levels and in all types of libraries who need to present information to customers, stakeholders, and management. Senior staff and directors responsible for board reporting are especially encouraged to attend. If you are unable to attend the live event, you can access the archived version the day following the webinar. Check our archive listing at: http://infopeople.org/training/view/webinar/archived.

 VRA Travel Award:

VRA Travel Awards are available for attendance at the 2013 VRA conference “Capitalizing on Creativity” in Providence, Rhode Island April 3-6. The deadline for receipt of applications will be Monday, November 26, 10 am EST. The list of recipients will be announced on the VRA listserv the third week of December.

A preliminary conference schedule with a listing of workshops and sessions has already been posted at: http://vra2013annualconference.sched.org and information about costs is posted here:http://www.vraweb.org/conferences/vra31/?page_id=8 and here: http://www.vraweb.org/conferences/vra31/?page_id=11

Before you apply, PLEASE READ “Travel Award Rules and Guidelines”, “Tips for VRA Travel Awards Applicants”, and “Types of Travel Awards”, all linked here as PDFs: http://www.vraweb.org/about/awards/index.html#travel

HERE’S THE LINK TO THE APPLICATION:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEM1Zkdsdlo2dGZ1TEJRN3hGQWxjR2c6MQ#gid=0

The form is also linked from the What’s New on the VRA homepage.

You do not need to be a member of the VRA to apply for a travel award, but please note that upon winning an award an applicant who is not a member of VRA must purchase a membership, with the option to use funding from the travel award to do this. This year by removing the membership requirement for all applicants, we hope to draw more interest and expand membership.

In order to allow funding to go further, Tansey awards will be distributed according to financial need i.e. full awards (up to $850) may be given to some, whilst lower amounts may be awarded to others with partial institutional/ other support.

For 2013, we are fortunate to have generous financial support from sponsors and funds provided by the membership:

* The Kathe Hicks Albrecht award of $850 for a first-time conference attendee

* Two New Horizons awards of $850 each. These awards are aimed at members in the following categories: solo VR professionals, part-time VR professionals, geographically isolated VR professionals, VR professionals in smaller institutions, and/or first-time attendees

* The Joseph C. Taormina Memorial award of $250 for an applicant with partial funding

* A New Horizons student award of $300, for a full-time student enrolled in an accredited degree program and considering a career in visual resources

* $4800 in Tansey fund awards ranging from $250 to $850 each

More awards may become available and will be announced on this listserv. Also, stay tuned and watch VRA-L and the VRA website for further details about the conference. Please email if you have any questions not answered by the documents noted above.

So don’t delay – apply today!

We look forward to receiving your applications,

Heidi Eyestone & Vicky Brown

Co-Chairs, VRA Travel Awards Committee

–

Heidi Eyestone

Visual Resources Collection

Art and Art History

Carleton College

One North College Street

Northfield, MN 55057

507 222-5399

507 222-7042 fax

Vicky Brown, Visual Resources Curator

History of Art Department, University of Oxford

Suite 9, Littlegate House

St Ebbes

Oxford OX1 1PT

UK

+44 (0)1865 286839

victoria.brown@hoa.ox.ac.uk

CFP:

Call for Book Chapters: Collecting the Contemporary (Book to be published by MuseumsEtc in 2013)

URL: http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0062/7112/files/CFP_CollectingTheContemporary.pdf?5

COLLECTING THE CONTEMPORARY

Edited by Owain Rhys and Zelda Baveystock

We invite international submissions to be included in this forthcoming book, to be published by MuseumsEtc in 2013.

The book will be edited by Owain Rhys, Curator of Contemporary Life at St Fagans: National History Museum, Wales and Zelda Baveystock, Lecturer in Arts Management and Museum Studies at Manchester University.

Why and how should social history museums engage with contemporary collecting? To fill gaps in the collection? To record modern urban life? To engage with minority communities? To link past and present? There are many possible responses… And many museums collect contemporary objects, stories, images and sounds – consciously or unconsciously. But reasoned policies and procedures are very often lacking. And – given the uniquely detailed record of contemporary life recorded by ubiquitous media – how best are museums to record and present contemporary life in their collections?

An overview of contemporary collecting in a social historical context is well overdue. Original source material, ideas, developments and research has never before been brought together in a single volume. This book will bring together practitioners from around the world to provide a contemporary and convenient reader which aims to lay the foundations for future initiatives.

We welcome submissions – of between 3000 and 5000 words – on the practice, theory and history of contemporary collecting in social history museums, based on – but not confined to – the following issues and themes. We are particularly interested in new and pioneering initiatives and innovative thinking in this field.

Practice

Projects (including community outreach, externally funded collection programmes, projects with specific goals)

Exhibitions (including popular culture, contemporary political issues, under-represented groups

Networks – including SAMDOK and other initiatives

Fieldwork and contemporary collecting

Adopting a scientific approach to contemporary collecting

Audio-visual recording

The influence of the internet, how to collect, and associated museological issues

Contemporary collecting and contemporary issues

Access, storage and conservation issues

Theory

What to collect?

How to collect?

Who should collect?

Community involvement – advantages and disadvantages

Contemporary collecting – key priority or passing fad?

Definitions of contemporary collecting

Should contemporary collecting be object or people based?

Alternatives to the accepted norms

The case for nationally or regionally co-ordinated policies

The impact of social and digital media for the future of contemporary collecting

History

Origins and development of contemporary collecting

Differences between institutions and countries (e.g. Sweden’s ethnological approach v. Britain’s social history approach)

The editors

Owain Rhys has recently published Contemporary Collecting: Theory and Practice with MuseumsEtc. This book gathered together disparate strands of contemporary collecting theory and history, and provided an insight into current practices at St Fagans: National History Museum. Owain is interested in formalising definitions and procedures, and in strengthening the bonds between those museums involved in contemporary collecting. Zelda Baveystock has a longstanding interest in contemporary collecting. As the first Keeper of Contemporary Collecting at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, she established a subject specialist network of urban history museums actively involved in the field in 2004. She has lectured and taught on the subject in the UK, and in Sweden.

Submissions

If you are interested in being considered as a contributor, please send an abstract (up to 250 words) and a short biography to both the editors and the publishers at the following addresses: owain.rhys@museumwales.ac.uk,zelda.baveystock@manchester.ac.uk and books@museumsetc.com by 10 December 2012. Enquiries should also be sent to these addresses. Contributors will receive a complimentary copy of the publication and a discount on more.

The book will be published in print and digital editions by MuseumsEtc in 2013.

Deadlines

ABSTRACTS: 10 DECEMBER 2012

CONTRIBUTORS NOTIFIED: 11 JANUARY 2013

COMPLETED PAPERS: 2 APRIL 2013