The Frick Collection is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Stephen J. Bury to the post of Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian at the Frick Art Reference Library. For the past ten years, he has been at the British Library, the national library of the United Kingdom, and one of the world’s greatest research institutions, where he is a Deputy Director and Head of European and American Collections, as well as Maps, Music, and Philatelic Collections.

Previously, Dr. Bury was Head of Learning Resources at the Chelsea College of Art & Design, London. Comments Anne L. Poulet, Director of The Frick Collection, “Dr. Bury brings to this leadership position an exceptional dual perspective. He is both an art historian― who understands first hand the needs of those who teach, research, and curate―as well as an internationally regarded librarian. An active participant on numerous professional commissions as well as dynamic division head of the British Library, he is a great strategic thinker in a rapidly changing field. Stephen Bury has developed a keen understanding in areas of mutual interest to the Frick, among them digitization, collection sharing, storage, and encouraging greater use of new technologies by staff. Furthermore, the nature of the collections he oversees at the British Library, being both European and American, dovetails beautifully with the scope of our holdings and initiatives. With his arrival in May, we know that the Frick Art Reference Library will benefit greatly from Dr. Bury’s insights as well as from the broad connections he has developed through years of highly engaged service and scholarship.”

Adds Dr. Bury, “The Frick Art Reference Library is internationally well-regarded, not just for its rich resources, but for the very proactive approach the institution has taken in light of the changing universe of libraries and the needs of the audiences they serve. The Frick has played a notable role in exploring such important ventures as digitization and collection sharing, and we are of like mind that the future of libraries is an exciting one. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to lead the remarkably talented staff at this venerable research center. At the same time, the post represents a wonderfully appealing opportunity for me to return to an art historical focus, that area of study being at the core of my academic background.”

ABOUT STEPHEN BURY
Dr. Bury joined the British Library in 2000 as Head of Modern English Collections, and was promoted in 2002 to Head of European and American Collections. In a role of ever-increasing responsibility, Bury has overseen a large staff and substantial budgets for library acquisitions and collections development. During his tenure, he has been a driving force behind a number of forward-looking initiatives, from digitization, to collaboration and resource-sharing, to critical and state-of-the-art solutions for storage. His engagement in these issues extends beyond the walls of the British Library. He leads the institution’s involvement on a number of professional bodies, including The European Library and Europeanna, The European Library Management Board & Contacts Group, Conference of European National Libraries/Federation of European Publishers, and the UK National Book Committee. Bury is also the Chair of ARLIS (Art Libraries Society) UK & Ireland National Co-ordination Committee, and is a member of the Arts & Humanities Research Council’s Peer Review College.

At the British Library he leads the Mellon-funded 21st Century Curator Project, a program that encourages staff to remain engaged in learning and to take advantage of new technologies entering the field, while helping them pass along traditional skills that are disappearing from the library school curriculum (historical bibliography, paleography, and so forth). Bury also leads the Web Archiving Programme, created to address the fact that many resources today live online and are ephemeral. Without efforts to preserve them, a digital black hole may occur. The selective UK archive is available at www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/.

AMERICAN COLLECTIONS AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY
The British Library houses the foremost collection of American books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, and sound recordings outside of the United States. Stephen Bury oversees not only these holdings, but also line-manages the British Library’s Eccles Centre of American Studies. Founded in 1991, the Centre has two broad aims: to promote the Library’s North American materials and to support American Studies in schools and universities. His familiarity with such holdings will undoubtedly be an asset to the Frick Art Reference Library, given the scope of its resources and its own celebrated initiative, the Center for the History of Collecting in America.

AT ONCE AN ART HISTORIAN AND A LIBRARIAN
Dr. Bury comes to the Frick exceptionally sensitive to the needs of the position, given his dual background as a librarian and an art historian. As an undergraduate, Bury studied history at Balliol College, Oxford, and went on to earn advanced degrees in Library and Information Studies at University College, London, and the University of Oxford. Subsequently he completed his master’s degree in Victorian Studies and undertook doctoral studies in Art History at Birkbeck College, London, where he wrote his PhD dissertation on art critic and social thinker John Ruskin. Interested in the practice of making art as well, he taught and lectured through the 1980s and 1990s at the Chelsea College of Art & Design, Royal College of Art, Central St. Martins College of Art & Design, and Camberwell College of Arts. His courses ranged from printmaking to book arts to fine arts. He has supervised PhD candidates at most of these schools as well as been the external examiner of PhDs at the University of Leeds, Goldsmith’s College, and the University of Sheffield. As a curator, Bury has presented some fourteen exhibitions. He organized several shows on artists’ books for the Chelsea College of Art & Design and has also curated for the London Institute Gallery and for the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Dundee. His British Library exhibitions include Translation/Illustration (2000), Iris Murdoch (2002), 1922 (2002, with Colin St. John Wilson), and Breaking the Rules: The Printed Face of the European Avant Garde (2008). Bury has written exhibition catalogues in conjunction with such projects and contributed to numerous other publications. He is a frequent editorial contributor to art journals, and his reviews of exhibitions have appeared in Art Monthly, Print Quarterly, The Times Literary Supplement, and elsewhere. He is a former Chair of the Board of Trustees at Matt’s Gallery, London, and of Book Works.

ABOUT THE FRICK ART REFERENCE LIBRARY
The Frick Art Reference Library was founded in 1920 by Helen Clay Frick as a memorial to her father, Henry Clay Frick (whose art and mansion were bequeathed to the public, later becoming The Frick Collection, one of the world’s most treasured house museums). In founding the Library, she vowed to provide a curious and growing public of art researchers with resources as valuable to them as her father’s art collection came to be to the world’s art lovers. The mission of the Library was, and remains, to make available to a broad community of researchers materials for the study of art in the Western tradition from the fourth to the mid-twentieth century. With its emphasis on object-oriented research, the Library amassed a photoarchive that now boasts images of more than one million works of art, many of which are unpublished. The Library owns over 350,000 books, periodicals, online resources, and annotated auction and exhibition catalogues. The collection is unrivaled in the United States, and is one of the world’s most valued art research centers and the most comprehensive resource on the history of collecting and patronage.

BASIC INFORMATION
General Information Phone (Collection): (212) 288-0700
General Information Phone (Library): (212) 288 8700
Web site: www.frick.org
E-mail: info@frick.org (general public inquires, press address given below)
Where (Collection): 1 East 70th Street, near Fifth Avenue.
Where (Library): 10 East 71st Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues
Hours (Collection) open six days a week: 10am to 6pm on Tuesdays through Saturdays; 11am to 5pm on Sundays. Closed Mondays, New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day. Limited hours (11am to 5pm) on Lincoln’s Birthday, Election Day, and Veterans Day.
Hours (Library): 10:00am to 5:00pm, Monday to Friday, and 9:30am to 1:00pm Saturdays. Closed Sundays, Holiday weekends, Saturdays in June and July, the month of August. Following its August closing, the Library will re-open to the public the day after Labor Day
Admission (Collection): $18; senior citizens $12; students $5; “pay as you wish” on Sundays from 11am to 1pm.
Admission (Library): use of the Library is free
Subway: #6 local (on Lexington Avenue) to 68th Street station; Bus: M1, M2, M3, and M4 southbound on Fifth Avenue to 72nd Street and northbound on Madison Avenue to 70th Street; crosstown M72 stopping eastbound on Madison at 70th Street or westbound on Fifth Avenue at 72nd Street or 69th Street

PLEASE NOTE TO YOUR READERS: Children under ten are not admitted to the Collection
Collection Tour Information: included in the price of admission is an Acoustiguide Audio Tour of the permanent collection, provided by Acoustiguide. The tour is offered in six languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish.
Museum Shop: the shop is open the same days as the Museum, closing fifteen minutes before the institution.
Group Visits to the Collection: Please call (212) 288-0700 for details and to make reservations.
Public Programs: A calendar of events is published regularly and is available upon request.
#156, February 18, 2010

For further press information, please contact Heidi Rosenau, Head of Media Relations & Marketing, or Alexis Light, Media Relations & Marketing Coordinator
Media Relations Phone: (212) 547-6844
Fax: (212) 628-4417
E-mail address: mediarelations@frick.org