Department of Research Collections

Staff in the BGC Library. Video still by Byline Studio.

The Covid pandemic galvanized Bard Graduate Center’s library staff to find innovative ways to support student and faculty research. Fortunately, the library was well positioned to provide enhanced online service, having steadily expanded its digital holdings and access to online resources over the past decade. Librarians offered subject-specific research guidance via Zoom, facilitated access to research materials via interlibrary loan and digital resources, initiated a remote scanning service, and kept the library open to those who were able to come to West 86th Street.

In the spring of 2021, BGC created the Department of Research Collections (DRC), a new organizational entity that unifies the library, the Object Study Collection, BGC archival materials, and digital assets. As one reflection of this more unified approach, in spring 2022, the DRC launched FOLIO, a new discovery interface that allows users to search BGC’s Study Collection images alongside its library catalog and electronic journal articles.

The Department of Research Collections made significant contributions to recent Gallery and online exhibitions. The team cataloged 125 objects collected by Richard Tuttle, many of which were gifted to the BGC Object Study Collection and included in the exhibition Richard Tuttle: What Is the Object? The online exhibition Voices in Studio Glass History, originating from a unique gift of nearly three hundred images from the teaching collection of the critic and historian Paul Hollister, was launched in March 2022.

The Study Collection, now ten years old and approaching two thousand objects, is embarking on an exciting new phase of growth that includes enhanced access and use of the collection through regular workshops and expanded storage and display space. The DRC offered the first of these workshops, entitled “Get Glassy,” in April 2022. Students learned about techniques of decoration and making represented in the collection’s glass works, from a seventeenth-century Persian flask to studio glass of the late twentieth century.

Over the past quarter century, BGC has both amassed and generated a significant collection of scholarly material. With eighty exhibitions behind us, a collection of nearly two thousand objects—along with an expanding landscape of digital output through the research forum, podcasts, recorded lectures, articles, and events—now is the time to ensure we preserve and guarantee ongoing access to this critical mass of material, and thus provide a strong foundation for future scholarship.