Holy Cross and Worcester Art Museum Announce Unique Partnership

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross and the Worcester Art Museum are taking full advantage of each other's strengths in a new and unique partnership. Holy Cross is managing and staffing the Museum's Library, with full access to the library available to Holy Cross faculty, administrators and students. The library remains the property of the Worcester Art Museum.

Holy Cross brings extensive expertise in library services and library technology that is benefiting the Museum. The vast collection of art-related material at the Museum Library is aiding Holy Cross faculty and students in their studies of visual arts, classics and more.

"Holy Cross is pleased to be associated with a distinguished institution like the Worcester Art Museum and to be able to share the expertise of our librarians and our technical resources with them. In return, Holy Cross students and faculty are gaining invaluable access to an outstanding resource of art information," says Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J., president of Holy Cross. "We look forward to continued collaboration with the Museum on programs that benefit not only our students and faculty, but the greater Worcester community."

Holy Cross and Museum librarians have been collaborating for the past several years on a grant-funded project to create V-WAM, the Virtual Worcester Art Museum. V-WAM combines the on-line library catalogs of both institutions and a newly created on-line catalog of Museum images. Museum patrons and students are able to search for images of art objects available in the Museum, as well as images of objects that are in storage. They are able to search simultaneously for information about those art objects or any other art history topic in both of the traditional library catalogs. The two collections complement and enhance each other with the Museum Library's focus on its collection of information about the art objects owned by the Museum, and the Holy Cross Library's stronger collection in art history.

Later this year, Holy Cross and Museum librarians will begin working with Worcester-area schools, libraries and colleges to train individuals on the uses of this rich data base, making it available to countless teachers, students and interested individuals.

"It is a natural evolution of our work with Holy Cross over the past several years to have them take on the administration of the Museum Library," says David Sjosten, Worcester Art Museum deputy director of administration.

"This is a mutually beneficial arrangement that emphasizes a sound partnership between our two institutions. We hope to continue to expand our holdings with funds from the Museum as well as from Holy Cross," Sjosten continues.

The Worcester Art Museum is acclaimed for the quality of its collections and is one of the finest museums in New England. The Museum features an exceptional 35,000-piece collection of paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, photography, prints and drawings spanning 5,000 years of art and culture. The Museum Library, founded in 1909 as a non-circulating bibliographic resource dedicated to the history of art, reflects the collection strengths of the Worcester Art Museum.

Founded in 1843, Holy Cross is the oldest Catholic college in New England. Barron's Profiles of American Colleges ranks the College in a select group of the nation’s 50 "most competitive" institutions of higher learning. Among America's top liberal arts colleges, Holy Cross is the only one that embraces a Catholic, Jesuit identity.

For additional information contact Kathy McNamara at Holy Cross at 508/793-2419 or Joan Wackell at the Worcester Art Museum at 508/799-4406, ext. 3074.