A Case Study in Artful Collaboration

This case study offers a small liberal arts college perspective in its discussion of a series of successful collaborations between an academic art museum and library. The decade of art-driven collaborations described here reveal important synergies between museum and library professionals’ work and goals, with implications for best practices in more intentional and effective approaches to art education on college campuses. The authors chose to focus on the breadth, depth, and impact of these collaborations at the local level, specifically as they relate to the discovery and access of book collections, creation and curation of digital projects and online collections, curriculum integration and faculty engagement, and exhibitions with public programming. The authors’ intent in sharing these experiences is two-fold: first, to offer a possible model for other institutions and practitioners, and second, to broaden the literature for and about collaborations among galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM).