I had a roommate in New York City who advised me that before any interview, it’s critical to learn as fully as possible the history, mission, and practices of the institution you’re hoping will hire you. Seems like a no-brainer, right? But no one had ever told me this. I took it quickly to heart, and the approach helped me land a job as editor at Viking Penguin in the city.

Back in Fort Worth several years later, I was invited to interview with the Carter to lead their publishing program. I began researching their publishing activity and was amazed by the number of books they had generated since 1961, the year they opened, as well as by the quality of their books and stature of their publishing partners, like Abrams, Aperture, Knopf, the Smithsonian, and a range of highly regarded university presses. This was a museum seriously dedicated to publishing on the study of American art.

This ethos has not changed at the Carter, but the field has evolved in many ways since my tenure began here. The process and tools for generating image files to achieve the most accurate reproductions possible have made great leaps forward, advances in digital printing have made high-quality short-run books a reality, and platforms for born-digital publishing have sprung up across the industry.

In December of last year, we launched our scholarly Carter Bulletin using the Getty’s innovative Quire platform, a digital publishing channel that provides an elegant solution for creating dynamic and visually rich ePublications. The platform is designed for longevity and sustainability, providing a very stable publishing base. More economical than a traditional catalogue, an eBook also provides a broader range of accessibility than traditional books, which often top out at a print run of less than 5,000 copies. The Carter Bulletin, conversely, is freely available to anyone with the link—and, if they wish, viewers can also order a printed and bound copy from the dropdown menu.

The Carter Bulletin is meant to advance scholarship on the Museum’s collection and underscore the institution’s longstanding commitment to knowledge creation through independent scholarship. It will be a serial ePublication, with a new volume published every three years.

This inaugural issue addresses the legacy of a key artist, both in the Carter’s foundational collection and in art depicting the American West: Charles M. Russell. The Museum has published numerous books on Russell’s work, but this first issue of the Bulletin adopts a different approach in which four short essays, along with a serial cartoon, offer a new assessment of the artist’s life and creative output and reframes his creative practice as an attempt to craft a nostalgic, celebratory vision of the Old West.

Make some time to see what’s new! The Carter Bulletin is accessible to all on the Museum’s website.