Oliver Sacks, Ted Muehling, Abelardo Morell. The Island of Rota. 2010. Photograph by Lauren McAlpin

I have the privilege and challenge of working with artists and other collaborators to produce artist’s books for The Library Council of The Museum of Modern Art.  These limited-edition publications are intended to explore the art of the book as they benefit and shed light on MoMA’s research collections. Read more

Okay, animation isn’t the primary function of the MoMA Library’s new face-up book scanner/copier. But it gives an idea of how it works and image quality. If you think about it, turning books upside-down to copy pages is counterintuitive—and really bad for preserving books. The “Bookeye” is designed to make quality images while minimizing stress on bound materials. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but even tech-shy researchers are using it. Read more

Grete Schütte-Lihotzky’s 1926–27 Frankfurt Kitchen incorporated socialist ideology into its efficient design. But it assumed a private kitchen. During a brief period shortly afterwards, idealistic Soviet architects took the idea one step further, experimenting with communal kitchens. Read more

Rachael Morrison. Photograph by Michael Schmelling

Having a job as Senior Library Assistant at The Museum of Modern Art Library has been a big influence on my artistic practice. I use the library for research and inspiration, and as a site of investigation. In early 2010, I began the performance “Smelling the Books“, which consists of me smelling every book in the MoMA Library collection. This performance was recently highlighted in New York Magazine as one of the many reasons to love New York. Read more

Working in a library, it is amazing how consistently one is asked, “Which is your favorite book?” I generally stutter and give a muddled reply about how I like the idea of an accumulation of books, or something along those lines. If really pressed, I have recently started mentioning that I like books about books. Read more

Visitors await entry to The Family of Man, an exhibition organized by The Museum of Modern Art, at the Government Pavilion, Johannesburg, Union of South Africa (on view August 30–September 13, 1958). From The International Council/International Program Exhibition Records. Image courtesy The Museum of Modern Art

This year marked the 55th anniversary of the opening of MoMA’s photography exhibition The Family of Man, a show that was groundbreaking in its extent—503 images by 273 photographers originating in 69 countries—its physical design, and the numbers of people who experienced it. Read more

Left to right: Robert Motherwell, Frank O'Hara, René d'Harnoncourt, Nelson Rockefeller at the opening of the exhibition Robert Motherwell, curated by O’Hara. September 18, 1965. Photograph by Allyn Baum. Photographic Archive, The Museum of Modern Art Archives

A number of notable individuals began their relationship with MoMA not as noteworthy artists and established personalities, but as conventional Museum employees. To name a few: actress Kathy Bates was a cashier in the MoMA Stores; artist Allan McCollum was hired as a preparator for the Museum’s 1980 Picasso retrospective; writer and poet Frank O’Hara curated exhibitions, mainly for circulation, at the Museum in the 1950s and 1960s; photographer Edward Steichen served as the director of the Museum’s Department of Photography from 1947 to 1961; and filmmaker Luis Buñuel worked under contract with the Museum on its Latin American Project in the early 1940s. Read more