University of Miami Libraries, Lowe Art Museum Will Host First Academic Art Museum and Library Summit

The University of Miami will host the inaugural Academic Art Museum and Library Summit next January, bringing together fourteen pairs of library and museum directors from prestigious North American academic institutions to address opportunities for deep intra-institutional collaboration. The Summit will focus on the ways that new pedagogical models and technologies are transforming the work of the academy, and the potential for art museums and libraries to engage more fully with faculty, students, and each other.

The two-day Summit, which will take place at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida, will bring together leaders from Arizona State University, Duke University, Oberlin College, Princeton University, Skidmore College, University of Georgia, University of Miami, University of Michigan, University of Notre Dame, University of Oregon, University of Texas (Austin), University of Wisconsin, Vassar College, and Yale University; all of which are recognized for the leadership they provide in the fields of academic museums and libraries. The Summit, whose participants represent both private and public institutions of varying sizes from across the nation, will open with a keynote address by Dr. Daniel Weiss, President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and include sessions led by other distinguished speakers with a profound knowledge of and commitment to excellence in the museum and libraries fields. The agenda will allow the invited teams of directors to engage in interactive, participatory programming designed to facilitate the mining of rich collaborative opportunities. The invitees will propose topics for discussion and develop ideas for a collaborative project on their home campuses in advance of the Summit.

"Working together, libraries and museums have the capacity to harness the enormous potential to create strong collaborative networks, share resources, and foster dynamic interdisciplinary scholarship," said Dr. Jill Deupi, Beaux Arts Director and Chief Curator for the Lowe Art Museum. "We are so proud to host this first Summit, which has the critical mission of addressing new and innovative ways that students and faculty seek to integrate library and museum collections into their learning and research agendas," she added.

"Changes in pedagogy and research occasioned in large part by the digital revolution suggest fertile ground for developing shared practices and strategies across the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums)," said Dr. Charles Eckman, Dean of Libraries and University Librarian. He added that "we are deeply grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for their vision and generosity enabling the University of Miami to host this path-breaking Summit."

The Academic Art Museum and Library Summit is being co-organized by the University of Miami Libraries and Lowe Art Museum, with the Association of Art Museums and Galleries, the Association of Research Libraries, and the Coalition for Networked Information. It is being underwritten with generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

"We are pleased to support the Academic Art Museum and Library summit," said Donald Waters, senior program officer for Scholarly Communications at the Mellon Foundation. "Mellon actively supports collaborative and cooperative efforts such as this one and believes that institutions with diverse but complementary talents that work together are more likely to come up with creative solutions to shared problems than if they worked separately."

"Academic libraries and museums," said Max Marmor, President of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, "share a common mission to collect, preserve, and steward cultural collections in the service of education, research, and scholarship. Thanks in part to new and emerging technologies, they have rich opporutnities and compelling reasons to collaborate ever more closely in pursuing this shared mission. We at the Kress Foundation are grateful to the University of Miami for hosting this inaugural summit, which is intended to foster new partnerships in this promising arena."

The University of Miami's mission is to educate and nurture students, to create knowledge, and to provide service to the community and beyond. Committed to excellence and proud of the diversity of its University family, UM strives to develop future leaders of the nation and the world.

The Lowe Art Museum (www.miami.edu/lowe), a unit of the College of Arts & Sciences, is located on the campus of the University of Miami at 1301 Stanford Drive, Coral Gables.

As a dynamic and integral part of the academic scholarly enterprise, the University of Miami Libraries (www.library.miami.edu) seek to provide high quality information services, instruction, and resources to the students, faculty, researchers, and staff of the University of Miami.

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