Supporting the educational mission of the university by incorporating special collections material and primary source literacy into the classroom
Leveraging Distinctive Collections for Deeper Engagement
Lisa Carter, Associate Director, Special Collections and Area Studies, The Ohio State University
Curators and archivists at The Ohio State University Libraries have a long legacy of engaged teaching with primary sources. As the OSU Libraries aligned resources to have more impact across campus and in the classroom, special collections and area studies librarians increased their efforts to embed their expertise and resources in key topic-oriented and research methodology courses. Currently, they partner with disciplinary faculty to redesign classes and curriculum to take advantage of the Libraries’ distinctive collections. Programs and exhibits are leveraged to enhance course content and to present student work. Curators transport unique and rare items to meet students where they are. As the curators, archivists, and area studies librarians have succeeded in this area, the special collections and area studies program have met new challenges to keep pace with the demand for primary source-driven teaching. Carter will share the over-arching framework and strategic resource allocation that makes this work possible. She will provide some concrete examples of how this work happens at OSU and share some initiatives on the horizon.
“I Dwell in Possibility”: Redefining and Expanding the Rules of Engagement for Teaching with Special Collections
Lance Heidig, Reference & Instruction Librarian, Cornell University
Just as special collections materials inspire awe in students, providing them with memorable, transformative experiences, so teaching with special collections should build on these responses by engaging, informing, and inspiring our student researchers. Armed with the recommendations and “best practices” outlined in the recent ACRL Framework for Information Literacy and SAA-RBMS Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy, special collections instructors can now apply an array of evolving instruction options to their individual and unique situations. There is no single right way to teach with rare books and artifactual materials. More traditional methods (show-and-tell presentations in small group settings) are still appropriate for some classes, but increasingly special collections instruction involves hands-on active learning sessions in a variety of spaces (both inside and outside the special collections library). At Cornell we’ve added flexible furnishings in the form of folding tables of various sizes on wheels that can quickly convert our classrooms from lecture-mode to hands-on exercise mode or into computer labs. Instruction has become increasingly collaborative, incorporating more people, such as colleagues from other units and subject librarians from across the library system, or faculty members, with whom we co-design classroom experiences, assignments, and learning outcomes. In this session we will review these and other instruction options for teaching with digital collections, instruction for large lecture classes, pop-up exhibitions, and other “possibilities.”
