Gillian Hayward 1

LIS60616 Project I: Site Visit

The Helen Farr Sloan Library and Archives at Delaware Art Museum
http://www.delart.org/collections/the-helen-farr-sloan-library-and-archives/
Date visited: February 2, 2018

Museum mission statement:

“To connect people to art, offering an inclusive and essential community resource that through its
collections, exhibitions, and programs, generates creative energy that sustains, enriches, empowers, and
inspires.” (Delaware Art Museum, 2018)

The Delaware Art Museum is a lovely little art museum in Wilmington, founded in 1912. I have
visited the museum and its outdoor sculpture garden many times, but had never been to the library. As
an institution, they’ve had serious financial difficulties recently - which I thought might have affected
the library (Artnet Worldwide Corporation, 2018). I was happy to see, just a few days before the site
visit, that the museum has just been given a substantial donation (Delaware Art Museum, 2018). This
should help to guarantee their future.

I met with Rachael DiEleuterio, the librarian/

archivist, who has been there about 12 years. She
is the solo staff person in the library and archives.
There used to be two full-time staff (a librarian
and archivist), until 2005. She has a Bachelor’s
degree in museum studies, and her MLIS was
earned online from Clarion University (general
study – no concentration).

Rachael has had occasional interns - she would

like more, but there are no funds to pay them. She
has a small group of dedicated volunteers. The
library and archives are part of the curatorial
department of the museum. She told me that the
curators are great users and supporters of the
library. Their offices are adjacent to the reading room, which gives them easy access to the collections.
She reports to the chief curator, who reports to the executive director. She indicated that funding is their
greatest challenge, but she feels that the museum realizes the value in the library and archive
collections, so does not feel that they are threatened.

The library and archives are located in the basement of the museum. They are not completely
below ground, there are windows. Researchers must make an appointment; open hours are 10am-4pm,
Wednesday through Friday. The glass door to the library is locked – users must be let in. The
collections include about 40,000 books and 2,000 linear feet of archival materials. The stacks and
archives are closed. Users are only allowed in the reading room, where materials are brought to them. I
was impressed how clean and tidy the collections spaces were. With one staff person accessing them
and no user access, it must be easier to keep them that way than with open stacks.

The library is mostly used by staff, guides, and outside researchers. In 2017 they hosted 82 visits
from researchers and she answered 193 in-depth reference questions (those figures do not include
visits/questions from staff or guides).
Gillian Hayward 2

In addition to their general books collection, the museum has artist manuscript archives of John
Sloan, Howard Pyle, and Frank Schoonover, among others (most research requests are for these);
institutional archives (the collection which she admits to having the largest backlog for processing);
vertical files about artists; auction catalogs; and a rare book room (which is running out of shelf space
because of a large, recent book donation).

The museum has a strategic plan, and the library does have a large goal in it: “Increase digital
accessibility of archival collections.” They have a digital collections page
(http://www.delart.org/collections/the-helen-farr-sloan-library-and-archives/digital_collections/) that is
hosted through the Delaware Heritage Collection. Rachael told me that they were originally looking to
have their own digital asset management system, but the price was right (FREE) to be a part of the
Delaware Heritage Collection. She is quite happy with the service, but mentioned that they do lose
some amount of control by being part of that collection. She spends a lot of time digitizing materials.

In addition to helping researchers and her many other duties,

Rachael manages the online library catalog (Koha platform).
Rachael does cataloging work, but says she doesn’t feel that
confident about it. She doesn’t use an archives management
program. She does create finding aids for the archives collections.
She showed me institutional files going back to 1912, including one
of their first exhibition catalogs. I was interested to learn that before
they had a building, the art collections were exhibited in the Hotel
du Pont in Wilmington, and at the Wilmington Public Library.

Rachael really exemplifies a special librarian to me. She is

passionate about her work, and seems to be embedded in the culture
of the museum. She must be a generalist due to the nature of her
position, and she must know her collections inside and out and be a
cheerleader for them.
Crying Giant
by Tom Otterness
(Taken 11/17 in the Copeland
Sculpture Garden at the
Delaware Art Museum)

References

Artnet Worldwide Corporation. (2018). Delaware Art Museum sells off paintings by Winslow Homer
and Andrew Wyeth. Retrieved from https://news.artnet.com/market/delaware-art-museum-
deaccession-313082

Delaware Art Museum. (2018). The Helen Farr Sloan library and archives. Retrieved from
http://www.delart.org/collections/the-helen-farr-sloan-library-and-archives/