Past or Portal? Enhancing Undergraduate Learning through Special Collections and Archives

Front Cover, Past or Portal? Enhancing Undergraduate Learning through Special Collections and Archives, 2012.

Front Cover, Past or Portal? Enhancing Undergraduate Learning through Special Collections and Archives, 2012. GGA Image ID # 1722d6a8ff

Past or Portal? provides a host of examples of the effective involvement of undergraduates with primary sources found in archives and special collections in nearly fifty different institutions. We hope that it will inspire librarians and faculty who are new to teaching using these resources, as well as those who have been using similar methods for years.

Edited by Eleanor Mitchell Peggy Seiden Suzy Taraba

Association of College & Research Libraries
A Division of the American Library Association
Chicago, 2012

978-083898610-3

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

THE ARTIFACT

  • COLORADO COLLEGE
    The History and Future of the Book, a Half-Block Course at Colorado College 
    Steve Lawson and Jessy Randall
  • EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY
    Rebooting the Old North State: Connecting Undergraduates with State Focused Special Collections Materials
    L.K. Gypsye Legge, Matthew Reynolds, and Dale Sauter
  • JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
    Teaching by the Book: The Culture of Reading in the George Peabody Library 
    Gabrielle Dean
  • JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
    The Scholar's Bookshelf: Recreating a Premodern Library for the Classroom 
    Earle Havens, Ph.D.
  • MERTON COLLEGE
    Oxford University: Speed-dating' in Special Collections: A Case Study 
    Julia Walworth
  • THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
    Seeing through the 'Priest's Eye': Teaching Medieval Codicology and Book History through William of Pagula's Oculus sacerdotis
    Eric J. Johnson
  • ST. JOHN'S UNIVERSITY
    "A Special Collection": A Fine Arts-Library Collaborative Project 
    Claudia Sbrissa and Blythe E. Roveland-Brenton
  • SKIDMORE COLLEGE
    Artists' Books: Esthetics, Media, Communication 
    Ruth Copans and John Anzalone
  • UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
    Crazy for Pamela in the Rare Books Library: Undergraduates Reflect on Doing Original Research in Special Collections
    Sarah Arkebauer, Toni Bowers, Lauren Corallo, Eoin Ennis, Rivka Fogel, Jessica Kim, Michael Masciandaro, John Pollack, Tatum Regan, Tyler Russell, Sandra Sohn, Marykate Stopa, Jessica Sutro, and Valeria Tsygankova
  • WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY
    Putting the Material in Materiality: The Embedded Special Collections Librarian 
    Megan Mulder and Carolyn Jones
  • WHITMAN COLLEGE
    What is Primary: Teaching Archival Epistemology and the Sources Continuum 
    Michael J. Paulus, Jr.

THE PEDAGOGY

  • COLORADO COLLEGE
    Archival Sound Recordings in Undergraduate Education: The Ruben Cobos Collection of Indo-Hispanic Folklore
    Victoria Lindsay Levine
  • CONNECTICUT COLLEGE
    Building a New Model: Faculty-Archivist Collaboration in Architectural Studies 
    Nova M. Seals
  • DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
    A Novel Approach: Teaching Research through Narrative 
    Stephanie Boone and Jay Satterfield
  • EMORY UNIVERSITY
    Teaching First-Year Writing with 'All the Detritus, Debris and Ephemera" of Literary Manuscripts 
    Elizabeth A. Chase
  • HARVARD UNIVERSITY
    Common Ground: A Collaboration between the Harvard University Archives and the Harvard Yard Archaeology Project
    Barbara S. Meloni
  • MILLERSVILLE UNIVERSITY
    Engaging the Text
    Carla Mary Rineer and Marilyn McKinley Parrish
  • NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
    Computing in the Humanities @ NYU Libraries 
    Janet Bunde, Deena Engel, and Paula Feid
  • PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
    "Pulling on the White Gloves ... is Really Sort of Magic": Report on Engaging History Undergraduates with Primary Sources
    Doris Malkmus
  • UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
    Lighting Fires in Creative Minds: Teaching Creative Writing in Special Collections 
    David Pavelich
  • UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER
    Special Collections Instruction in the Sciences: A Collaborative Model 
    Barbara Losoff, Caroline Sinkinson, and Elizabeth Newsom
  • UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON
    More than Gold Leaf: Teaching Undergraduates in Capstone Courses about the Scholarly Use of Medieval Manuscripts
    Julie Grob
  • UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
    Making It Personal: Engaging Students with Their University 
    Ellen D. Swain
  • UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
    Teaching Research and Learning Skills with Primary Sources: Three Modules 
    Ryan Bean and Linnea M. Anderson
  • UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN
    Teaching Digital History Through the University Archives: The Case of Nebraska U: A Collaborative History
    Peterson Brink, Mary Ellen Ducey, Andrew Jewell, and Douglas Seefeldt
  • UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
    Student as Historian/Student as Historical Actor: Documenting the Student Experience at the University of Oregon
    Heather Briston
  • UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC
    The Special Collections Laboratory: Integrating Archival Research into Undergraduate Courses in Psychology and Music
    Shan C. Sutton
  • UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
    Teaching Cultural Memory: Using and Producing Digitized Archival Material in an Online Course
    Robin M. Katz
  • UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING
    When Did Sacajawea Die Anyway?: Challenging Students with Primary Sources 
    Rick Ewig

THE PROGRAM

  • AUGUSTANA COLLEGE
    Faculty Buy-In: Encouraging Student Use through Faculty Stipends Sarah M. Horowitz and Jamie L. Nelson
  • IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
    Collaboration between the Iowa State University Honors Program and the Special Collections Department (ISU Library)
    Tanya Zanish-Belcher, Laurie Fiegel, and Ashley Rosener
  • OBERLIN COLLEGE
    Building a Book Studies Program at a Liberal Arts College 
    Laura Baudot and Wendy Hyman
  • UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
    "The Links in the Chain": Connecting Undergraduates with Primary Source Materials at the University of California
    Sherri Berger, Ellen Meltzer, and Lynn Jones
  • UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING, LARAMIE
    Books IN History; Books AS History: Teaching Undergraduates in the Toppan Rare Books Library University of Wyoming
    Anne Marie Lane
  • WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
    Where Do We Go From Here?: Evaluating a Long-Term Program of Outreach and Making it Better
    by Suzy Taraba

THE WORK

  • BRYN MAWR COLLEGE
    Real Objects, Real Spaces, Real Expertise: An Undergraduate Seminar Curates an Exhibition on the Medieval Book of Hours
    Marianne Hansen
  • CARLETON COLLEGE
    Exhibiting Artists' Books: Three Perspectives from a Curatorial Seminar 
    Laurel Bradley, Kristi Wermager, and Gabriel Perri Silberblatt
  • DICKINSON COLLEGE
    Finding Value and Meaning through Work/Study in the Archives 
    James W Gerencser
  • DICKINSON COLLEGE
    Social Networking Software in the Archives: Using Blogs to Engage Students with Primary Sources
    Malinda Triller
  • LAFAYETTE COLLEGE
    Waiting to Excel: Undergraduate Research Partnerships in Special Collections at Lafayette College
    Diane Windham Shaw
  • MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY 
    The Swing Around the Circle
    Sarah Dauterive and Ryan P. Semmes
  • RAMAPO COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY
    The American History Textbook Project: The Making of a Student-Centered Special Collection at a Public Liberal Arts College
    Christina Connor and Steven P. Rice
  • SWARTH MORE COLLEGE
    The Early Novels Database and Undergraduate Research: a Case Study 
    Rachel Sagner Buurma, Anna Tione Levine, and Richard Li
  • TULANE UNIVERSITY
    Amistad Research Center Case Study 
    Christopher Harter
  • UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
    Learning as Doing: Undergrads Using Special Collections for Conservation and Material Culture Studies
    Deborah C. Andrews, Vicki Cassman, and L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin
  • UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII, HILO
    UH-Hilo & the Christensen Photographic Collection: Preserving a Piece of Hamakua's History
    Kerni A. Inglis and Helen Wong Smith
  • UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MADISON
    "Science Circa 1859: On the Eve of Darwin's On the Origin of Species": A Class-Curated Exhibit
    Robin E. Rider

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Eleanor Mitchell
Eleanor Mitchell is Director of Library Services at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. She also co-edited the ACRL title, Past or Portal? Enhancing Undergraduate Learning through Special Collections and Archives with Peggy Anne Seiden and Suzy Taraba. Her articles have appeared in Libraries Unlimited, and ALA publications.

Peggy Anne Seiden
Peggy Anne Seiden is College Librarian at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, PA. She also co-edited the ACRL title, Past or Portal?Enhancing Undergraduate Learning through Special Collections and Archives with Suzy Taraba and Eleanor Mitchell. Her articles have appeared in Reference and User Services Quarterly, The Reference Librarian, Library Trends, and various ALA publications.

Suzy Taraba
Suzy Taraba is Director of Special Collections and Archives at Wesleyan University. She holds BA and MALS degrees from Wesleyan and the MS in Library Science from Columbia. Before returning to her alma mater in 1997, she held special collections positions at the Bakken Library of Electricity in Life (now the Bakken Museum), Columbia, Duke, and the University of Chicago. Suzy is a former chair of ACRL's Rare Books and Manuscripts Section. Fostering undergraduate excitement about special collections and archives is one of her favorite parts of her job.

Library of Congress Catalog Listing

  •  Main title: Transforming information literacy programs : intersecting frontiers of self, library culture, and campus community / Carroll Wilkinson and Courtney Bruch, editors.
  • Published/Created: Chicago : Association of College and Research Libraries, A Division of the American Library Association, 2012.
  • Description: vii, 263 pages ; 23 cm.
  • ISBN: 9780838986035 (pbk.)
  • LC classification: ZA3075 .T73 2012
  • Related names: Wilkinson, Carroll Wetzel, editor of compilation.; Bruch, Courtney, editor of compilation.
  • Contents: Surveying terrain, clearing pathways / by Courtney Bruch and Carroll Wetzel Wilkinson -- Ethnographic study of information literacy librarians' work experience : a report from two states / by Celene Seymour -- Critical information literacy : definitions and challenges / by James Elmborg -- A well-worn path...and beyond : charting feminization in academic instruction librarianship / by Noël Kopriva -- Hitching your wagon to institutional goals / by Anne E. Zald and Michelle Millet -- Merging critical thinking and information literacy outcomes-making meaning or making strategic partnerships? / Robert Schroeder -- Crossing the instructional divide : supporting K-20 information literacy initiatives / Jo Ann Carr -- Settling uncharted territory : documenting & rewarding librarians' teaching role in the academy / by April D. Cunningham and Carrie Donovan -- Information literacy reality check / by Nancy H. Seamans.
  • LC Subjects: Information literacy--Study and teaching (Higher)
  • Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
  • Series: ACRL publications in librarianship; 64
  • LCCN: 2011050153
  • Dewey class no.: 025.5/2777
  • Invalid ISBN: 9780838994122 (kindle); 9780838994139 (epdf)
  • Type of material: Book

 

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