Art Resources Transfer
Written by artresourcestransfer on Tue, 02/02/2016 – 15:53
Art Resources Transfer is a nonprofit arts organization that activates the key components of the printed book—publication, distribution, and shared spaces of reading—to create more egalitarian access to the arts and literacy. Since 1987, A.R.T.’s Distribution to Underserved Communities Library Program (D.U.C.) has endowed public libraries nationwide with free books on contemporary art. Our national participant network includes nearly 7,000 public schools, libraries, prisons, and alternative education centers in underserved rural and inner-city communities nationwide, as well as nearly 300 publishers, museusms, universities, and independent arts institutions that donate books for distribution.
A.R.T. seeks METRO Fellows to help us evolve the D.U.C. by identifying and posing inventive responses to current problems of access—material, cultural, economic, and geographic—via use of printed books in public libraries today. We want to understand the role that print collections play in today’s libraries (with their increasing emphasis on digital technologies, social services, and human resources) and how the specific literacies and forms of attention born of engagement with a printed book—particularly one on contemporary art—prepare students and readers for the challenges of accessing knowledge today. We hope a METRO Fellow will engage our national participant network to understand the needs of public librarians and the communities they serve; and propose content, new program areas, and/or partnerships that help librarians spark diverse readers’ interest and engagement D.U.C. the books, as the beginning of meaningful access to a range of expanded perspectives and ideas. METRO Fellows will have access to our national participant network of public libraries (including 300 in NYC) and donating cultural institutions; our collection of over 500 distinct titles available for free distribution; our recently redesigned website with a custom-built CMS system and web journal; and staff resources.