Jenny Kreiger has been named the UO’s new Mellon Postdoctoral Scholar, the first joint position of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and UO Libraries.

Kreiger’s position is funded by a grant awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. An interdisciplinary scholar with strong interest in digital research methods, Kreiger brings significant experience working in museums and libraries to the position.

Previously, she served as a graduate intern at the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, where she developed grants for digital art history and global art history and provided research support for art and architectural conservation initiatives. As a graduate student, Kreiger contributed research, writing and design to exhibitions at the Walters Art Museum, the Toledo Museum of Art and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan.

At the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute she participated in the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project. For two years, she was library manager for a museum research collection at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology.

Kreiger earned her doctorate in classical art and archaeology and a graduate certificate in museum studies from the Univerity of Michigan and her bachelor’s in classical studies, summa cum laude, from Randolph College.

The Mellon Fellowships are part of an initiative funded by a $300,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support enhanced collaboration among campus libraries and museums and encourage increased use of library and museum assets in research, teaching and learning. The award, which leverages an additional $150,000 from the university, launches a new program led by the UO Libraries and the art museum.

The principal investigators for the Mellon Foundation initiative — Adriene Lim, dean of libraries and Philip H. Knight Chair, and Jill Hartz, executive director of the museum — also announced the 2018-2019 appointments of three Mellon faculty fellows for museum-library collaboration:

Ina Asim, associate professor of history, will pursue “The Artful Fabric of Collecting: Silk Textiles in Gertrude Bass Warner’s Chinese Art Collection and Their Historical Context.” Using digital technology, the project will contribute to making the Warner collection of Chinese textiles and related archival materials accessible to a wide audience for research, teaching and general appreciation.

David A. Frank, a professor in the Robert D. Clark Honors College, will undertake a reconsideration of UO alumnus James Blue’s 1963 documentary “‘The March’: The Cold War, Civil Rights, and the Problem of American Apartheid.” Blue’s films and archives are now at the university, and Frank proposes to conduct research and develop courses and exhibitions using “The March” to examine American history, racism and anti-racism.

Glynne Walley, associate professor of East Asian languages and literatures, will examine “Japanese Votive Slips: Play and Plays.” The UO Libraries and the art museum together house the world’s largest collection of Japanese votive slips outside Japan. These woodblock prints were originally made to be pasted onto temple and shrine buildings by pilgrims. Research and digitization of the collection will create a set of descriptions and annotations that can be uploaded as metadata to existing databases of digitized votive slips and enhance teaching.

“By partnering with UO faculty to complete innovative curricular and research projects, we will increase the use of our jointly held collections and raise awareness of the vital role of libraries and museums in preserving cultural heritage,” Lim said.

“It also reinforces the importance of the arts and humanities in the university’s research and teaching activities,” Hartz said. “We are thrilled to have the Mellon Foundation’s support of this initiative.”