New York Public Library Partnership for Education

Learn from the Experts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Special and Museum Collections.

About the Institutes

Learning on location at NYPL and the Metropolitan, students are taught by distinguished librarians and curators. Experiential learning is combined with research and theory, giving students the knowledge and skills to be leaders in this exciting and challenging field.

Art Collections

Institute on Art Collections at NYPL, Summer I
LIS 687 - A unique opportunity to work with the distinguished librarians and curators of the Art and Architecture collections of The New York Public Library's Research Libraries. The Institute will include lectures and demonstrations, as well as time to work on special projects in a world class library using both traditional and digital collections. Special attention will be given to the specific needs and interests of the art and architecture researcher as we examine the librarian's role from the researcher's viewpoint. For further information, contact the instructor, Lee Robinson, Art Librarian at 212-930-0722 or e-mail lrobinson@nypl.org

Map Collections

LIS 688-3, Institute on Map Collections at NYPL - Summer II
Maps provide essential and efficient delivery of information for all types of subjects across time. Ecology, history, property, archaeology, events in the news -- all can be clarified by the cartographer's artistic and scientific hand or via geographic information systems. During this institute, you will explore the intricacies of map collecting in local and national libraries, as well as among private collectors. Map librarianship will be studied in seminars with The New York Public Library's distinguished Map Librarians and through visits to local map libraries, map stores, and antiquarian dealers. Participants will draw upon this information and experience to investigate and evaluate specific research areas and topics.

Special Collections

LIS 689, Institute on Special Collections at NYPL - Summer I

Now in its 11th year, the Institute on Special Collections at the New York Public Library is an intensive 10 day, 3-credit course is made possible through the cooperative efforts of NYPL and Pratt, working with NYPL's distinguished special collections librarians and curators. In a time when educators increasingly turn their attention to the provision of distance education via the Internet, the Institute takes on special significance for the way in which students learn and experience primary source materials and information. Rather than a digital diet, they feast on the collections of one of the world's great research libraries, use primary source material, make discoveries, attend presentations by leading scholars and librarians, discuss special collections librarianship with distinguished professionals, exchange ideas with fellow students, and share experiences. Students create subject and topic guides in the form of an illustrated exhibition catalog.  Students idenfity a special collection from which they develop a topic and then explore their topics across a range of collections from rare books and manuscripts to prints and photographs.  

Museum and Library and Research

LIS 629, Institute on Museum and Library Research at the Metropolitan Museum of Art - Summer I

This intensive 10 day, 3-credit course is made possible through the cooperative efforts of the Metropolitan Museum and Pratt.  Students learn and experience art and information through the vast, rich libraries and collections of one of the greatest art museums in the world.  The course focuses on the researching art objects and creating a thematic museum exhibition that crosses collections and cultures, thus encouraging students to experience art through diverse social and cultural perspectives so that they will be better prepared as librarians to serve diverse museums and communities.  Students use the Watson Library, which contains over 400,000 books and 2,500 serials, in conjunction with the Hazen Center for Electronic Resources and Central Catalog, which maintains the object records of some two million works of art.  Students use the museum collections, library collections, and electronic resources to gain new insights as researchers into the interactions and connections of these richly diverse art and information resources.  

Performing Arts Librarianship

LIS 686 Performing Arts Librarianship

As part of our program in "Cultural Informatics," designed to prepare students for a broad range of careers in fine arts, performing arts, and humanities settings featuring research in archives, special collections, and digital libraries, this intensive course gives students the unique opportunity to learn performing arts librarianship in the context of one of the world's great performing arts libraries and, importantly, from leading professionals in this exciting field.  Working from the dual perspectives of librarianship and research, students use the methodologies of collection-based research, from which they produce a subject guide to specific collections.  Students gain an understanding of different aspects of information transfer posed by working with both real and virtual documents and collections and how differences in format and media convey and influence meaning.  Further, students learn to select and juxtapose documents to communicate ideas and to serve as representations of collection content, as well as how to organize these to benefit user research.  Students experience and observe first-hand the daily operations of user services in a performing arts library setting. 

PRATT-SILS AND NYPL LIBRARY FOR PERFORMING ARTS AT LINCOLN CENTER Institute on Performing Arts Librarianship  LIS 686 meets in spring semester Kevin Winkler, Associate Director, LPA, Instructor
COLLECTIONS:     Music	DANCE	RECORDED SOUND	THEATRE	CIRCULATING