Updating 3

 The third and final of my updating posts.  

This one catches something I missed along the way as I moved my website from one platform to another.  It didn't require much reflecting or introspection; but in the end it did require a lot of research.

On my previous website, somewhere on the About page, I had listed which of my books were in which collection across the world.  

For some reason this information appeared absolutely nowhere else on my computer or on any of my inter web places.  Sadly, when we moved, I hadn't paid attention and this information was lost.

I still had the collections listed, on my new website, but I had little (if any) recall of which of my books were in which collection. Not great and a real trap for young players when migrating information and updating websites.

Fortunately for me, a lot of my books at the State Library of Queensland are searchable. If I type my name into the catalogue search, they have done the grand job of listing them all properly - lucky me.  

More good fortune shone upon me as many of the books that have made their way to the U.S. were sold through 23 Sandy Gallery in Portland, Oregon and the marvellous owner at the time Laura Russell was a  meticulous record keeper and always advised me which books had sold and to whom.

I also knew that Beyond Books and Burning had gone to the National Library of Iraq, and even now as I type I am thinking one of my Subversive Stitch books is in some collection in the UK and I am not sure which one; so clearly the job is not yet done!

So one day I set about painstakingly tracking each book down, recording where it was, what year it was made etc. Except for my (very!) recent  remembering about the UK and A Subversive Stitch, I felt confident that I had got them all.

Having done such a big job I thought I would organise them several ways. First up, if people want to visit an Institution - they can see which books it holds. I only screen shotted the first page of each of the records.

If somebody professed interest in seeing a particular book; I would be able to point them in the right direction, or give them options, by having the books organised this way.

And then finally, more for my own purposes, I listed the books by year of production so I could find them more easily in photographic records, or on the blog.

And so now, I truly have an excellent record of whereabouts in the world my books are!

Having said that, I am yet to put the information on the website, but that's not far away.

A nice discovery was serendipitously made along the way. At first I put my name into the search engine on the State Library of Queensland's website (rather than the catalogue search) and got a ping.

I expected more pings!  However when I looked closely I realised that the mention was in their Annual Report.

Intrigued, I went looking into the Annual Report and found this lovely wee mention:

So there I was, being rewarded, with discovering a mention, for my bad behaviour of not cataloguing my books. I feel very very fortunate that I was able to track them all down.

This series of Updating posts has formed part of my art life and art work that is not about the making or creating of art.  The work involved in all three (imagery, words and collections) form part of what I think of as Art Extenders - (teaching, writing and promoting). Things that take my art and skills out into the world, beyond the walls of the studio.  

These posts all fit into the promoting part of the extender section.

 I am now thinking a post about the Extenders might be worth doing sometime too...