Artist Files and Art Students: Expanding Audience Through Collaboration Between an Art Museum Library and a Contemporary Art History University Course

How do you make art history and art museum library research exciting and relevant to an undergraduate studio art student? And, how can an innovative learning experiment lay the groundwork for future utilization of the acquired course knowledge and the art museum library resources? One answer, as we discovered, lies in creatively utilizing a special collection with the potential for direct application to the students’ present and/or future career goals. Through this case study, we present our strategies for connecting undergraduate art students to a unique art museum library archive on contemporary local artists. After an explanation of the project, we explore the project’s impact through student survey responses taken at three key points in the project, reflect on how the intersection of varied perspectives can create meaning for the student learner, and explore how the lessons learned in this museum-university collaboration could be applied by other museums to generate long-term relationships with audiences.