A state-of-the-art electronic resource center—the Lita Annenberg Hazen and Joseph H. Hazen Center for Electronic Information Resources—will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday, November 3. Situated within Thomas J. Watson Library, the new center—which is the first of its kind in any art museum in the United States or abroad—will provide visiting scholars, the academic community, and the Metropolitan's professional staff with increased access to art historical and other scholarly resources available through CD-ROMs, the Internet, and other electronic media. The Hazen Center will also serve users with new means of accessing the Museum's unparalleled collection of books and periodicals. The general public, via the Museum's Internet Web site, currently has access to the catalogue of Watson Library, one of the most comprehensive libraries of art and archaeology in the world, and will soon have selected access to the Hazen Center's resources as well.

The new center—which honors the memories of Lita Annenberg Hazen and Joseph H. Hazen, renowned philanthropists who dedicated their efforts toward projects in research science and the humanities—has been established through a grant of $2 million from the Lita Annenberg Hazen Foundation. The Museum is particularly grateful to Cynthia Hazen Polsky, a Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum, and her family, who are all trustees of the Foundation.

"With the Hazen Center for Electronic Information Resources—unique of its kind in any art or archaeology museum here or abroad—new technologies are put to use that broaden immeasurably the breadth and scope of art historical research," commented Philippe de Montebello, the Museum's Director. "Important art historical databases are now available to curators, scholars, and other researchers through the Hazen Center. This generous grant reveals a prescience on the part of the Foundation's trustees that has helped equip the Museum to meet the technological demands of the next century."

On behalf of her family, Cynthia Hazen Polsky stated: "We are so pleased that this center, named for my beloved parents, will always be part of the life of the Metropolitan. It is remembrance of them which seems to all of us to be most in keeping with their great admiration for all that the Metropolitan holds and represents, and with their own enthusiasm for advances in technology and learning."

The Hazen Center for Electronic Information Resources will have six computer terminals, at which users will be able to search Watson Library's online catalogue as well as access the online resources of other libraries and cultural institutions in New York, throughout the United States, and around the world. An Electronic Resources Librarian will provide training and assistance in the use of the Hazen Center to Museum staff and visitors and will develop and maintain the center's Web-based and other electronic resources. Art historical indexes, such as the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) and the Répertoire d'Art et d'Archéologie (RAA), will be immediately accessible. Users also will have the option to view CD-ROMs or search the Internet on a given subject, including viewing images from and information on museum collections around the world.

Future plans for the center include selective access to the Museum's text- and image-based collections management system, currently being developed to provide information on the Museum's more than two million works of art.

In celebration of the opening of the Hazen Center and to further its mission, a panel discussion, open to the public, "Art Museums and Technology for the 21st Century," will be held in the Museum's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium on April 16, 1998, at 6:00 p.m. Panelists will include Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Metropolitan Museum; Michael R. Bloomberg, Chairman of Bloomberg Financial Markets/Bloomberg News and a new Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum; and Robert P. Bergman, Director of the Cleveland Museum of Art and Chairman of the American Association of Museums. Tickets are $30 each; for reservations, call (212) 570-3949.

Lita Annenberg Hazen (1909–1995), sister of the Honorable Walter H. Annenberg, was a prominent figure in science philanthropy, a trustee of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the Scripps La Jolla Research Center, and the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Her long-time involvement at The Metropolitan Museum of Art included strong support of the Asian Art Department's acquisitions activities as well as the Museum's general operating needs.

Joseph H. Hazen (1898–1994)—attorney, film producer, and art collector—was Vice-President and Director of Warner Brothers prior to his formation of a highly successful partnership with Hal B. Wallis. Together, Hazen and Wallis produced such Hollywood film classics as Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) and Come Back, Little Sheba (1952), a series of comedies with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and the historical epic dramas Becket (1964) and Anne of the Thousand Days (1968). Mr. Hazen shared his wife's commitment to philanthropy in the sciences and humanities. Through the Joseph H. Hazen Foundation he provided support to many institutions, including the Aspen Institute, the Fogg Art Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum. A new center for outpatient cardiology services at Mount Sinai will be named for him.

Thomas J. Watson Library, in which the new Hazen Center is housed, is the central research library of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Founded in 1880, the Museum's library now serves an international community of scholars, including curators, museum professionals, and visiting researchers. Its collections of approximately 450,000 catalogued volumes, 2,500 periodical subscriptions, extensive holdings of auction catalogues, and other materials reflect the encyclopedic collecting scope of the Metropolitan Museum.

Watsonline, the online catalogue of the library's holdings, can be accessed through the Metropolitan Museum's Internet Web site at http://www.metmuseum.org, through a Telnet connection.