State of Art Museum Libraries: Evolving Practices Since 2016 and Shaping the Next Decade Together

In 2016, ARLIS/NA published the State of Art Museum Libraries 2016 White Paper, which detailed the roles, issues, and challenges faced by art museum libraries in the United States. The report highlighted how art museum libraries serve as vital partners in their institutions' educational missions by providing authoritative, relevant, and timely research services to both museum constituents and the general public. Despite their critical role, these libraries were facing increasing pressures and needed to justify their value. The report examined the constraints faced by these libraries and offered strategies for overcoming them. Now, five years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, an event that has profoundly reshaped practices across the library field, this panel will present new research and case studies that assess the current state of museum libraries in the United States and Canada. In addition to the 2016 report, research was informed by more recent ARLIS/NA reports, including the 2019 Census of Art Information Professionals and the 2022 Report of the ARLIS/NA Presidential Task Force on Art Libraries and COVID-19. Focusing on the theme of "activating community together," the report's authors presented findings from the field level survey completed by 61 museum libraries and will discuss key findings, including the evolving role of libraries within art museums, institutional support for museum libraries, staffing and hiring practices, work-life balance and workplace culture, the state of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, collection development and management, and emerging trends in user experience. They discussed their research methodology to guide attendees interested in conducting similar studies or expanding on this work. Additional panelists will presented case studies highlighting changes within their own institutions over the past decade, linking the survey data to illustrations of the broader state of the field at the individual institution level.