Holy Cross and Worcester Art Museum Announce Unique Partnership

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.

Through a new online program, the Virtual Worcester Art Museum or V-WAM, museum patrons and students are able to search simultaneously through a plethora of art images and art history pieces available in either 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.

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. With the new partnership, the Worcester Art Museum and Holy Cross both promise to contribute to the current prestige and depth of Worcester.