KU News Release

KU librarian wins international award for eBook on Kansas artists

"Man Reading," a watercolor on paper by Topeka artist Mary Huntoon.

LAWRENCE — Susan Craig, head of the Murphy Art and Architecture Library at the University of Kansas, recently won the Worldwide Books Award for Electronic Resources, presented by the Art Libraries Society of North America.

Craig was awarded for her decade-long effort to develop a unique biographical resource featuring 1,700 Kansas artists. “The Biographical Dictionary of Kansas Artists (Active before 1945)” was published on KU ScholarWorks, a digital repository for scholarly work created by KU faculty and staff.

The searchable archive, or eBook, makes it possible for researchers to locate an artist by name, town or subject. KU ScholarWorks creates a living dictionary, and a stable URL allows libraries across the country to catalog the work.

“I had studied art history, I was an art librarian, but I couldn’t find much — if any — information on Kansas artists,” said Craig, who joined KU Libraries in 1970.

The dictionary contains listings for artists from throughout Kansas. A few hometowns include El Dorado, Newton, Peabody, Howard, Manhattan, Wichita, Ottawa and Topeka. The book is online at the ScholarWorks Web site.

Craig’s efforts attracted the attention of AskArt.com, an online resource that features more than 52,000 American artists. The site is used primarily for collectors and art galleries, and it offers a tremendous amount of information crucial to the art world. The current agreement provides six months of access campuswide, and AskArt.com has agreed to seek private support to underwrite the cost of long-term use.

People are indeed finding Craig’s publication — it has been in the top five most-searched articles on ScholarWorks since it was posted in August.

But it’s the personal connections that mean the most to Craig.

“I do continue to get great feedback about the book,” said Craig. “I recently received a letter from a 96-year-old woman in Virginia about her sister’s entry as well as a man whose great grandfather was a mural painter in Leavenworth. A bank in Wichita has a corporate collection of regional artists and is using my book to update their records. I love knowing people have found it and used it.”

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