SC - OOP - help with Brie

[Stefan li Rous]

>I know that although I am a librarian, there are
>libraries I cannot access, even as a professional
>courtesy... I have been told that
>the J. Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, is
>equally as difficult to use.

I've been lucky in my experience. I have not been denied access to places or
materials although I have been very restricted and always supervised. Heck, I'm
just thrilled to be able to look at items up close and personal that are nearly
a 1000 years old. 

Even though I've never been denied, I realize that it could happen to me at some
point. I think the way Mark van Stone handled the situation by going to an
alternative source is the way to deal with denials. I realize that if you want
to research and observe a one-of-a-kind item and you're denied, that
alternatives may not exist, but that may just be the way things are. Private
collections can pick and choose and restrict who they wish. Who are we to say
this is wrong? 

There are ways to help gain access to very private collections besides academic
qualifications. Albeit the solutions may be unobtainable (like knowing the
director or a board member or a congressman) but some are not. 

If the collection allows membership, by all means, join. Send as much as you
can, promptly, every year. Donations to the collection won't hurt either. If you
plan to publish your research on an item in that collection, send them
information about what you know, what the intent of your publication is, and, if
you know, where it will be published. Then ask if it would be possible to see
the item in question for a VERY specific reason. 

Build on what you've done. I've joined the Textile Museum in Washington, DC,
even though I live in Alaska. As a member in 1994, they allowed me access to
about seven different garments from about 400 CE to 1100 CE. There were five
staff people, a friend who came to take sketches, and myself crammed in this
little office. I wasn't allowed to handle the items in any way but I could take
measurements and dictate. They gave me two hours tops. With that experience, I
requested information about Islamic textiles in the Seattle Art Museum. They
sent me an inventory listing. I then asked if I could come and see specific
items and told them about my experience with the Textile Museum and the research
I was doing. In 1996, they allowed a friend and I access to a large number of
textiles that were early 18th c and earlier. There was one technician and we
were not allowed to touch anything. I think we were given about an hour and a
half. With that in 1998, I requested information about Islamic textiles in the
Detroit Museum of Art. They sent an inventory list and when I requested specific
information about one item (mentioning, of course, my experiences with the
Textile Museum and the Seattle Art Museum), they sent a packet of info which
included, among other things, a rather large black and white photo of the item.
I'd love to go to the museum there some time and see the item in person. 

True, the Seattle Art Museum and the Detroit Museum of Art are publicly funded
institutions (which will gladly let me join their membership if I so desired),
but the Textile Museum is not. But I can become a member of that museum, so I
have. The point is that I've been able to get information I've been looking for
and I'm no more an academic than a stone.

Sometimes you have to travel quite a distance too. I was researching early 15th
c Italian clothing and really enjoyed the clothes on the funerary sculpture of
Ilaria de Carretto (d. 1405 in Lucca, Italy). I ILLed books, and researched
contemporary art and did all kind of things that I could locally. When my
husband and I decided to go to Italy this year, I made sure we went to Lucca for
a whole day. Me and Ilaria got to spend some serious quality time together. I
have invaluable notes and sketches plus some locally authored books (in Italian
of course) and really detailed postcard photographs on Ilaria and the sculpture.
There's no way I could have done that without leaving Alaska.

I am not a wealthy person; I can't afford to leave the state more than once or
twice a year at that. I do what I can, when I can and I've had a rather high
success rate. All the little "baby steps" I take, slow and ponderous as they
are, seem to work. 

My $2.50 worth,

Kerri
Cedrin Etainnighean, OL
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