Tag Archives: archives

We Have Glue and a Dream: A Case Study on Just for Fun Outreach at the Lemmen Library and Archives

Peer-Reviewed Article, , ,

Leigh Rupinski, Archivist for Public Services and Community Engagement
Katelyn Fletcher, Research Services Assistant
Grand Valley State University Libraries

Abstract

Although the archival field has come a long way towards making outreach a more integral function of archivist positions, it remains difficult to fully define and assess. Categories of outreach are broad, often focusing on time-consuming or budget-hefty projects such as exhibitions and workshops. Less has been written about “just for fun” outreach; the kinds of activities that center fun and joy with less immediate payoff in assessment and impact reports. However, they remain one of the only ways to engage the community with archival holdings outside of the Reading Room or classroom. It is through these more modest outreach efforts that archivists can reach further than traditional audiences and embrace the idea that archives are for everyone.

This case study will discuss three examples of how just for fun outreach in the Lemmen Library and Archives at Grand Valley State University has created a community-centered space that encourages students to interact with the archives, even if they are not actively researching with the holdings.

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The Ol’ Medical Colouring Book: Reducing Student Stress Through Playful Library Outreach

Peer-Reviewed Article, , , , ,

Angélique Roy,
Health Sciences Librarian, Bracken Health Sciences Library,
Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

Brendan F.R. Edwards
Curator, W.D. Jordan Rare Books and Special Collections,
Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

Abstract

While student stress and anxiety have long been recognized as challenges in higher education, libraries have increasingly adapted their roles by integrating playful activities throughout the academic year to actively support student mental well-being. The Ol’ Medical Colouring Book was designed with health sciences and history students in mind to serve as a de-stressor activity during the exam period and features images from antiquarian anatomy and botany texts found within the library’s collection. It was created by a second-year History student as part of an experiential learning internship, co-supervised by two librarians. The initiative included two three-hour pop-up events where the historical texts were displayed for students to browse and discuss the history and provenance of the works alongside the colouring book. The librarians then sought an ISBN for the book acknowledging the work of the intern and a copy was deposited in Library and Archives Canada as well as the university’s institutional repository. The Ol’ Medical Colouring Book was received with enthusiasm by students and faculty alike, and remains a popular activity during the busy exam season. This article explores the intersection of student mental health initiatives, rare and special library collections, and the use of play-based activities to promote wellness and fun within the academic library setting.

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Musical Maps of the World in the 21st Century: Leveraging Librarian Expertise in the Development of Visualization Tools for Music Research and Pedagogy

Peer-Reviewed Article, , ,

by M. Nathalie Hristov, MLIS
Professor and Music Librarian
University of Tennessee

Kathryn A. Linton
Music Librarian for Instruction and Outreach
Vanderbilt University

Joshua Ortiz Baco
Assistant Professor and Digital Scholarship Librarian
University of Tennessee

1. Impetus for the Development of Emerging Digital Tools and Technology for Musicological Research and Pedagogy

Currently, traditional scholarly resources enable musicologists to trace the origins of numerous musical systems, styles, and instruments through the painstaking process of wading through physical volumes from several world regions to find commonalities. While there has been a significant rise in the digitization of music archives, the content represents only a small fraction of the vast collections of historical documents related to music in libraries across the globe.[1] Furthermore, digital collections in music are stored differently among thousands of libraries with their own unique set of finding aids and organizational structure. Considering the limited amount and fragmented nature of digitized historical documents in music, the time-intensive process of extracting content from multiple sources poses challenges for researchers looking for connections between musicians and musical ideas. Thus, major discoveries in musicological research are few and far between when compared to those in other disciplines. In a variety of ways, music scholarship has lagged in terms of digitized resources and technological innovations. [2] Nevertheless, music scholars and digital humanists in the last couple of decades have begun exploring methods for moving musical research forward into the technological era with greater global access and emerging technologies.[3]
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An Apology* For Avoiding Accompanying Material in the Promotion of Library Collections

Peer-Reviewed Article, , ,

By Samuel T. Barber
California State University, Fullerton

*”Mid 16th century (denoting a formal defense against an accusation): from French apologie, or via late Latin from Greek apologia ‘a speech in one’s own defense'” – Oxford English Dictionary

Introduction – the task

This article describes an ongoing project designed to present archival library collections at Cal State Fullerton. These collections include contemporary 1970’s video recordings of speeches, addresses, marches, events, etc. made by visiting public figures to the university campus. Though eclectic, the collection is dominated by radical and activist voices emerging from underrepresented groups which reflect the politics and struggles of contemporary Orange County, Southern California, and – indeed – the wider United States. Notable speakers include Angela Davis, César Chávez, Sal Castro, Dennis Banks, Humberto Noé “Bert” Corona and Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales. The original video recordings were digitized some years ago. However, their subsequent presentation was limited to streaming via an institutional page on the Internet Archive which few students, faculty, or even staff were actually aware of. Furthermore, no metadata records existed to support discovery from the library catalog. As a result, despite their importance, there was extremely limited institutional and student knowledge of either the existence of the recordings or of the original events themselves. A clear and fundamental task was therefore presented to us as it would to any library professional: to expose these hidden collections, representing as they do an important element of our institutional history and the history of the communities in which we work and reside.

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Trading Eights: Teaching Collaboratively with Primary Sources

Peer-Reviewed Article, , , , , , , ,

By Jill E. Anderson, Humanities Instruction Librarian
and Kevin Fleming, Popular Music & Culture Archivist
Georgia State University Library

Introduction

This case study focuses on how Kevin Fleming, Popular Music and Culture Archivist, and Jill Anderson, Humanities Instruction Librarian, have developed a series of “Teaching with Primary Sources” library workshops at Georgia State University, an R1 public university. We designed these workshops to introduce faculty and graduate-student instructors to creative strategies for incorporating primary sources into their instruction. Drawing on historical comic books in the archivist’s collections, the active-learning exercises we devised for these workshops are meant to encourage attendees to consider and share their own ideas about instruction with archival and other primary source types. Rather than presenting ourselves as all-knowing “experts,” we aim to make ourselves available as possible partners for this kind of instruction. With these workshops, we hope to foster attendees’ own imaginative ideas about teaching with primary sources, while at the same time encouraging instructors to consider including us as partners in their classrooms. We received a 2019 Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council (GHRAC) Award for Excellence in the Educational Use of Historical Records for these workshops. In this article, we will describe our collaborative processes in the context of the evolution of our workshops. We will begin by discussing our initial collaboration in support of the librarian’s Honors freshman seminar, describe the evolution of our instructor workshops, and close with a discussion of our embedment in a College of Education and Human Development graduate course on Children’s and Adolescent Literature as a direct result of these workshops.

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