Submitted by Amy Furness and Kathleen O’Reilly, SIG Co-ordinators

Date: March 31, 2025

Group Roster or Membership

• Freyja Catton served as co-coordinator from June 2023 until December 2023
• SIG membership is informal, but a search of the ARLIS/NA Membership Directory as of March 25, 2024 identified 62 members of the SIG

Incoming Group Leadership Roster

• Amy Furness, Rosamond Ivey Special Collections Archivist and Head, Library & Archives
• Kathleen O’Reilly, Cataloguer, National Gallery of Canada, Library and Archives

Annual Goals for the Group:

• Publish 2 blog posts
• Continue to hold open and inclusive SIG meetings to provide an opportunity for members to share recent activities and pose questions

Summary of Activities Completed

• Transition to new SIG co-coordinators in July 2023. Following Freyja Catton’s resignation in December 2023, Kathleen O’Reilly began her role as co-coordinator in January 2024.
• Migration of the SIG WordPress site to the ARLIS/NA Humanities Commons completed by Freyja Catton
• Established SIG “group” on Commons in July 2023
• A fall meeting was held online via Zoom on October 26, 2023, with 16 people in attendance. Topics of discussed included:
  • Ongoing projects to create bibliographic records for artists files, updating authority records, physical housing strategies, the use of volunteer labor, strategies to keep artist files current, outreach strategies, the relationship between artist files and special collections, and encouraging attendees to join the new Artist File SIG group on ARLIS/NA Commons.
• One blog post was solicited and published in December 2023

Ongoing and/or Planned Work

• Continue to solicit submissions for added content to the Artists Files SIG blog.
  • A call for expressions of interest will be sent out on the ARLIS-L listserv following the annual meeting
• Previous SIG leadership had been in touch with Rebecca Price, ARLIS/NA President, about the Artist File Directory (Artist Files Revealed) that Sam Duncan, previous SIG Coordinator, created and maintained. A Python/Django host would be needed to support this project as is. All the files Sam built are archived in GitHub at the moment. Rebecca suggested that CORE in Humanities Commons might be possible. It would be up to the incoming SIG coordinator(s) to take this project on.

Please share accomplishments and/or goals related to diversity, equity, and/or inclusion.

We do not have accomplishments or goals in this important area, apart from a general commitment to doing this work when we can see an opportunity. SIG activities are largely member-driven, and our membership seems to have limited bandwidth. Creating a welcoming and inclusive space for discussion seems to be valued by SIG members and potential members.