" To
enhance undergraduate learning in the liberal arts by
promoting use of library special collections"
Participating
Institutions
|
Using Special Collections in the
Undergraduate Learning Environment
A Teagle Foundation-funded
Project [1]
Final Report: September 2006
by
Ann Okerson, Principal Investigator
I. Goals/Assumptions
Academic and cultural institutions possess
numerous distinctive and unique special collections of print
and other media documents of many kinds. There is abundant
evidence, written and anecdotal, that the use of such materials
in the undergraduate learning environment can be a rich source
of educational benefit. In particular, students can discover
themselves as active learners, pursuing lines of original
research even at very early stages in their educational careers.
The benefits of such engagement can be significant.[2] For
example, two of our project partners and colleagues, Linda
Lerman (Librarian) and Steven Berizzi (Faculty) at Norwalk
Community College welcomed the Teagle grant as an opportunity
to work with students to help them "see themselves as
researchers, and learn to 'ask the right questions,' skills
valuable to anyone in whatever professional or private circumstances." All
of our participants share that perspective.
The project proposal began by observing that the state of
Connecticut houses many kinds of special collections of potential
interest for educators and at the same time is home to a diverse
collection of institutions of higher education with interest
in the undergraduate learning experience. We believed not
only that cooperation and collaboration among academic institutions
could devise strategies and best practices that would benefit
all, but also that undertaking this project with a group of
institutions in one state would enable us to think together
broadly about the kinds of collections and resources that
could be put to use within the state's institutions. We assumed
that students could become engaged with and excited about
primary source materials that they could see and examine for
themselves, and that this effect would be redoubled when the
collections dealt directly with the institutions and communities
within which they lived.
A second point of departure was our concern
that in an age of increasing reliance on digital resources,
there is both the opportunity and responsibility to engage
students through attentive study of the traditional artifacts
of textual and intellectual culture. The libraries and archives
of the future will be distinctive precisely for the unique
and special collections they possess and hence will have an
increasing focus of mission on preserving such materials and
making them available to both the scholarly and broader public.
Concern for "the
artifact" is widely expressed,[3] but
we believed we had a further opportunity to explore concrete
possibilities for assuring not just the preservation of traditional
materials but also the continuity of the cultural practices
that will treasure such materials and thus assure that the
necessary steps for their preservation will be taken. Then
they can hope to be read and interpreted as vital elements
in our cultural heritage.
In our project proposal, we set out to assist students in
interacting with special and source collections of primary
materials in ways that help them develop their:
- fundamental understanding of the role of historical materials
in the shaping of human understanding;
- skills in manipulating such materials;
- ability to interpret documents and artifacts as part
of a larger research enterprise; and
- grasp of the history and culture represented by particular
artifacts.
Our "deliverables" for a project of limited duration
and scope were appropriately modest – and ambitious.
We believed that we could put together a community of faculty,
librarians, and administrators from a diverse collection of
Connecticut institutions, all of whom would be happy to work
together to understand and take advantage of opportunities.
One set of outcomes (particularly through the workshops) would
be positive impact on teaching and institutional practice
in those places that joined in the eighteen months of the
project. And we also believed that the project was worth doing
for what it would teach us about taking the practices more
broadly into our institutions, about encouraging other institutions
to engage in similar pursuits, and about promoting innovative
teaching and learning on a broader stage. During this project,
we have made a great start.
II. Methodology
We undertook the Teagle project by:
- Creating a coalition of interested institutions and
individuals at those institutions who would work together
for the duration of the grant project.
- Identifying some key resources that we could draw upon,
the existing strengths and weaknesses of our institutions,
and the collections we knew about for advancing the project.
- Constructing and operating a series of workshops that
would bring together experts with interested collaborators
around a small set of themes and projects and allow focused
progress in identifying and making use of materials of
prospective high value in undergraduate learning.
- Developing, as appropriate, additional resources (such
as reading lists, bibliographies, descriptions of techniques)
on which faculty, librarians, and administrators entering
this area or looking to deepen their familiarity could
draw.
- Recording and reporting our progress as the first step
of a more important and sophisticated second stage of
assessment of results. We would both do assessment
of what we had done but also study assessment
of work in this field, with a view to assisting those
who pursue special collections-based teaching understand
how best to measure their own progress and that of their
students. We recognized that this would be challenging
and would need to break some new ground. In fact, the
assessment part of our project is one that will continue
in a modest way and will deliver some post-project results
to be added to the description of our work.
- Creating, from the outset, a simple and attractive
Web site, to provide a way to communicate effectively
with all participants and prospective participants. We
have built it consciously as well as a record of the project
and its activities. We will preserve the Web site as a
record of this project and as a resource for others interested
in the topics we addressed. An important component of
the site is still to come, in terms of identifying key
Connecticut repositories for prospective users, both students
and teachers. We also set up a listserv to facilitate
communication among the community of participants as it
grew over the duration of the project.
III. Narrative
The grant was awarded at the end of 2004 and set to conclude
at the end of September 2006. We began to tackle the work
of solidifying partnerships with the institutions that had
joined our proposal and recruiting a half-time program manager
in the first quarter of 2005. We also attended a project managers'
meeting convened by the Teagle Foundation in March of 2005
at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina.
The recruitment, which was challenging due
to its half-time nature and the project's high expectations,
resulted in the hire of a continuing staff person, a seasoned
faculty member and herself a keen advocate for use of primary
materials in undergraduate teaching and learning. She supported
the work for several months, but early in the 2005-06 academic
year she resigned to pursue other opportunities. At that point,
with less than a year remaining, we decided that a new round
of recruitment would slow down the work of the project. Accordingly,
we engaged the consulting support of two expert individuals
[4] and the assistance of a staff research
assistant [5] to develop project activities and bring the
project to conclusion. Principal Investigator Ann Okerson
devoted between 5-10% (variously) of her time over the months
of the grant.
Our partners came from Albertus Magnus College, Connecticut
College, Fairfield University, Naugatuck Valley Community
College, Norwalk Community College, Quinnipiac University,
Trinity College, Wesleyan University, and Yale University.
As will be evident, this collaborative brought together university
and four-year institutions of national and regional reputation
with a record of interest in the liberal arts, as well as
two innovative and committed community colleges from the state.
Originally, we had begun to approach some state universities
of the region as well, but we were unable to engage appropriate
leadership there within the relatively short time frame of
our activity.
At the outset, we called for participants
to form a small but dedicated cross-institutional steering-advisory
group to help plan and promote the Teagle grant activities.
This group met by conference call on a monthly basis during
the design and implementation phases of the project. Brief
minutes of those conversations are available on the Web site.
These individuals were consistently "there for us" with
good ideas, responses to questions, and PR, particularly for
the workshop events. One could not ask for a finer team.[6] The
Web design was done by a former Yale humanities librarian,
now a long-time Web consultant; and was supported by a member
of Ann Okerson's staff [7] as
well as Yale's technical staff.
The bulk of the collaborative work of the project centered
on five meetings conducted in 2005-2006: an opening conference,
two all-day workshops on ways to locate and use non-print
materials, one all-day workshop on issues affecting collaboration
between academic institutions and the other cultural institutions
(historical societies, museums, archives, etc.) whose collections
are of great interest for academic use, and a closing meeting
to discuss and review issues of assessment. The schedule of
meetings was as follows (and the substance of their work is
outlined in the following paragraphs):
- Opening Conference: June 13, 2005
- Oral History Workshop: October 22, 2005
- Eyes on Connecticut – a workshop on visual literacy:
March 3, 2006
- Partnerships with Connecticut Historical Societies, Museums,
and Archives: June 16, 2006
- Assessment issues – reviewing the AX-SNet project
and its potential for usefulness in this area: August 14,
2006
IV. Deliverables
The direct deliverables of the project comprised our group
activities and the interpretation and assessment of those
activities. This report therefore includes only by reference
activities now reaching into the classrooms at our participating
institutions, as it is outside our scope to do a detailed
study of the learning practices of the institutions that joined
with us. There are signs of increased connectedness and activity,
but we will also review below the constraints under which
such activities continue to work.
A. The workshops were well attended and
particularly well received. The evaluations (available on
the Web site) were uniformly high and e-mail messages of thanks
were the rule rather than the exception. These events added
value as well by the work that had to be done to prepare for
them and to document them afterwards, including substantial
handouts made available to the participants and the descriptions,
to the extent possible, which are available on the Web site
at: <www.library.yale.edu/teagle/events.html>. Particularly
valuable was the active participation of librarians and faculty
who contributed their time and energy in order to understand
possibilities they judge important for their institutions
and students.
B. In addition, our NELINET consultant made a series of site
visits to the nine institutional participants,
interviewing key stakeholders (a mix of library and faculty
contacts) at each. The written summaries of those site visits
are also available on the Web site at: <www.library.yale.edu/teagle/Sitevisits.html> and
will be described briefly below.
The least effect and prospect, soberingly, is found in those
institutions with few or no special collections of their own
nor easily realizable ambitions for them. Naugatuck Valley
Community College and Albertus Magnus College both fall into
this category. The resistance is not intrinsic, however, for,
at Naugatuck Valley, one leader is looking to build an oral
history project for the college that will both capture the
history of the place and also be done in a way that teaches
the techniques and disciplines to students who participate.
Norwalk Community College, moreover, has a core number of
dynamic individuals with both successes and ambitions, including
a plan to connect local history work with a Lifetime Learners
Institute associated with the college, where many of the students
will themselves come with personal experience and investment
in the subject of local history. The Librarian there has done
cutting-edge outreach with local historical societies and
repositories, from which all of us learned a great deal.
The other smaller institutions in the project have disparate
experiences and prospects, again closely correlated to their
collecting history and archives. For example, Fairfield University
has little or no special collections material, but what they
have has been used in some encouraging ways. They reported
experience with a college project a few years ago to develop
a record of the 1960s and their culture at Fairfield, which
produced an interesting collection of material, at the same
time as it taught skills and disciplines. Quinnipiac University
and Connecticut College resemble each other in having quite
small but high quality special collections on particular themes,
collections that they have used wisely and well (Connecticut
College has materials from Eugene O'Neill and pertaining to
the history of New London, while Quinnipiac University has
a unique collection dealing with the Irish famine of the 19
th century, whose use by the students and teachers overflows
into study tours to Ireland and the like).
Three of the institutions in the project have substantial
special collections and make substantial use of them. Trinity
College surprises its own faculty with the wonderful riches
of the Watkinson Library, incorporated into the college in
1952, and though many faculty use its treasures (especially
in 18 th/19 th century Americana and ornithology), others
remain unaware of what is there. The library's outreach programs
are energetic. Many faculty there (and there is good evidence
for this elsewhere) are also interested in using primary source
collections in digital form, i.e., ones that come from outside
the college. Wesleyan and Yale Universities, not surprisingly,
have the largest resources to draw upon and use them actively.
The library at Wesleyan estimates that 50 of 350 faculty use
special materials regularly with their teaching – a
healthy percentage considering that many of the others are
not in the relevant humanities and social science areas. Outreach
has been one of the special passions of the Special Collections
librarian there, and she has been enormously successful at
it, generously sharing her tips and experiences with the rest
of the group.
At Yale, the project interviewed representatives of Manuscripts
and Archives, the Arts Library, the Beinecke Rare Book Library,
the Medical Historical Library, the Babylonian Collection,
the Oral History Project in American Music, and the British
Art and Yale Art Galleries. Of interest were the observations
of Medical Historical that their location a distance from
the center of campus is a deterrent not so much for location
alone as for the lack of a classroom onsite to use for visitors;
but we also heard of the practice of the Babylonian collection
to provide a "kit" of materials introducing its
world-famous cuneiform collections to classes in a way that
incorporates concerns over preservation with best practices
discerned over the years. And, we made a note to make our
own the expression of Pamela Franks in the Yale Art Gallery,
who likes to say she practices the "snowball method" to
use successes in one area to encourage others to join in using
materials in the classroom.
C. Finally, some of the workshop presentation materials
and other resources, which have independent value,
are available on the Web site. These include:
- On the home page, a lengthy, annotated bibliography about
teaching with special collections.
- Reference in the workshops to projects and activities
that interested persons can follow up, for example, Abigail
van Slyck's State Street course at Connecticut College;
Andy Horowitz's New Haven Oral History Project; the Connecticut
State Library's History Online project (CHO); or the several "visualization" course
projects at Yale.
- Bruce Stave's (Stave is a leader in use of oral histories
in documentation and classrooms) reading and resources list;
the Davis-Funded Yale project's reading list of digital
images in and around Connecticut; Linda Lerman's detailed
list of online Connecticut resources; Llyn Kaimowitz's practical
advice about students' use of repositories.
D. A less tangible, but nonetheless key, deliverable of
the project is embodied in the community of
those who have come to know one another and find common purpose
in the course of this work. Across the nine academic institutions,
but also among the community of collections owners and managers
in Connecticut, we now have a better idea of where allies
and sources of expertise are to be found. Much more work can
and should be done, of course. We will address in the next
section the afterlife of this project, but have to signal
that a number of the individuals and groups involved will
be in their continuing efforts an important part of that afterlife.
E. Assessment. Assessment was an important
part of the project from the start. The opening conference
included a presentation on appropriate measures for the project.
If successful, assessment should be an integral part of any
project, and data gathering was suggested at different moments
as the project moved forward. Based on the goals and planned
activities of the project, the following measures were suggested:
- Impact of each of the workshops on future courses using
primary sources and on activities initiated within libraries
(special collections departments if existing). This proved
hard to do, given time and resource constraints.
- Satisfaction of the attendees with each of the workshops.
- Satisfaction with cross-institutional collaboration within
the project and impact of the project on future collaboration.
At the second workshop, which focused on visual literacy,
William Rando closed the workshop with a lecture on assessment " Using
Assessment to Enhance Instruction and Library Service." The
lecture reported on research concerning the impact of using
images in teaching. As part of the ELI project conducted at
Yale, an assessment model had been developed and field-tested
in a collaborative setting with faculty, teaching center staff
and librarians. The model consists of different rubrics and
tries to map the intended learning outcomes with the way the
teacher actually uses images in teaching and appropriate library
services.
Assessing the Teagle Project: the workshops.
In general, each of the participant institutions was represented
by one or more librarians and faculty members. In some cases
attendants would represent other departments of their institutions,
such as a Learning and Teaching Center. For some of the workshops,
representatives from outside the Teagle participating institutions
were invited and some attended (see the participants' lists
for 'Eyes on Connecticut' and 'Partnership'). In one case,
a faculty member brought students. The total number of attendees
including speakers ranged from 19 to 43.
The participants of the workshops were handed evaluation
forms at the end of each workshop. The following questions
were asked:
- How did you hear about the workshop?
- Please tell us what particular needs you have that the
workshop fulfills (for example, courses you are teaching
or planning, projects you have).
- What would you have liked to change about the workshop
(for example, scheduling, speakers, subject matter, location,
and anything else important to you)?
- The Teagle Foundation seeks to enhance liberal arts education.
This Teagle grant is specifically aimed at "Enhancing
undergraduate liberal arts learning through the use of library
special collections." What other workshop topics would
help you to accomplish this goal on your campus?
For the first workshop on Oral History, the participants
were also asked to rate the presentations (the rating for
the lectures of the Oral History workshop were very positive).
This question was later eliminated from the evaluations. The
surveys focused mainly on how the workshops met specific needs
of the participants or could do so through future programming,
and on information that would help improve procedures and
facilities. This information was used to schedule events throughout
the project. The evaluation reports for each of the workshops
are published on the Teagle Website. To give a taste of the
feedback:
- The Oral History workshop was useful for faculty who
are seeking to integrate oral history in their courses,
in some cases writing classes, in others local history courses.
Others indicated they had acquired knowledge they would
use in starting up their own oral history project: "hearing
from experts was broadening".
- Many of the attendees of the Visual Literacy workshop
seemed to already work with images in their teaching. One
person used the model William Rando presented in her feedback
when mentioning she is using "images as evidence," while
someone else remarked that it was interesting to see what
other faculty do. Other attendees are creating digital image
collections for use in teaching and want to learn about
the different ways these materials are used in teaching
in order to better support faculty.
- The last workshop, on partnerships between cultural institutions,
provided ideas for courses that are being taught with respect
to sources and methodology. The workshop also helped the
attendees enhance understanding of the opportunities and
challenges inherent in museum archives collaboration and
provided the opportunity network with regional professionals.
General assessment of the project
The general final survey conducted in September 2006 measured
the overall impact of the project on practices in the participating
institutions regarding the use of special collections in undergraduate
teaching, as well as satisfaction with the deliverables within
the project. The survey was sent out to all Teagle librarians.
Different workshops seem to have had a different impact
on the attendees, probably in part due to the differences
between the institutions. Most respondents indicate that specific
workshops or presentations were useful to them on a practical
level. For example, one respondent indicated that he/she has
begun to incorporate some of the ideas with faculty and library
staff.
The opportunity to network and collaborate within the project
has inspired participants to think of how the network could
be sustained and broadened. Some state a definite need for
more communication among institutions. Comments include:
- "It would be good to have more gathering among sister
institutions relating to special collections."
- "It might be worthwhile considering the development
of a statewide special collections organization to arrange
meetings one or two times a year, so we can get to know
each other better and keep in touch."
For some institutions, the interviews conducted on location
with librarians and faculty also created an opportunity for
the participating librarians and faculty internally to share
and exchange views. The Project's Web site is generally useful
to participants, and could increase its value once the assessment
model is added.
The topics respondents learned most about were 'models for
using special collections in undergraduate teaching' and 'creating
special collections'. For some librarians, the project was
a starting point to think about cataloging and promoting special
collections; for others, the project created awareness of
the wealth of materials in their own libraries and those available
in Connecticut. As a follow-up, respondents are looking at
contacting colleagues and keeping in contact.
Creating a model for assessment of the use of primary
sources
In search of how assessment may help the Teagle participants
in their goals regarding the use of their own special collections,
a project has been identified, which focuses on assessment
of using primary sources in learning and teaching. The AX-SNet
(Archival eXcellence in Information Seeking Studies Network)
is a Mellon-funded international collaboration of researchers
working: (1) to improve access to primary sources; (2) to
explore the ways users seek information in archives; and (3)
to develop new ways to teach people about how to do effective
archival research. The AX-SNet Project seeks to develop a
standardized tool for evaluating archival services. The project
currently is in its second phase, in which the actual instruments
will be created and tested. For this phase of the project,
college and university archives and special collections have
been selected as the target population, because they form
the largest segment of the archival population.
The AX-SNet Project invited the Teagle participants to join
the testing of the instrument-in-development. A meeting was
organized on August 14 with representatives from the AX-SNet,
Teagle, and ELI/Davis Foundation-funded projects.Key
questions for the Teagle participants were identified:
- To what degree are faculty aware of collections of primary
sources available for them in their own institution and
in Connecticut? (Possibly also: to what degree are other
departments within the institution aware of these collections?
E.g. IT, center for teaching and learning.)
- To what degree do faculty view primary sources (special
collections, archival materials) as useful sources in their
teaching? What are their expectations?
- How do faculty introduce primary sources in teaching?
How do they get access to the materials? What support do
faculty need? What introduction and support do students
need?
- What are faculty perceptions of the impact of the use
of primary sources in teaching on student learning?
- What is the impact of the use of primary sources on teaching
methods?
A survey was designed for faculty of the Teagle participants
to research their use of primary sources and satisfaction
with library support (based on their collection of questions).
The list will be reviewed and redacted in September/October
2006, after which it will be ready for use and posted on the
Web. Use of the list could lead to a model for assessing the
use of primary sources in undergraduate teaching in a variety
of institutions, ranging from libraries with an extensive
special collection to colleges lacking special collections
and working with collections available elsewhere in Connecticut.
V. Afterlife
Our intention throughout this project was not simply to
meet and talk, then write a report and move on. We sought
deliberately to build a community of practice and awareness
in Connecticut, but also to plant seeds, provide resources,
and offer best practices that can animate further work by
participants, by others in our institutions and by other faculty
and librarians in Connecticut and beyond. Two areas of activity
have been particularly pursued with this goal in mind.
First, early in the course of the project, we gathered results
of two surveys of faculty and of librarians for their expertise,
judgment, and advice. Their comments and our experience and
attention to the issues raised gave us a perspective from
which it would be possible in the future to construct such
a survey with sharper focus and better attention to the critical
issues. We also found the results richly instructive about
both opportunities and challenges for work of this kind. The
surveys are presented on the Web site at: </www.library.yale.edu/teagle/surveys.html>.
Nineteen librarians responded to the survey designed for
them at the start of the project (June 2005). The survey results
provide information on current situation regarding the use
of special collections. As many as twelve librarians indicate
that their local collection could welcome more users. Therefore,
when asked about what aspect of the use of special collections
the Teagle project should address, 84% of the respondents
identified "encouraging use" as the most important.
Growth areas seem to exist especially within the humanities
and any course with a historical component. Many librarians
regard personal contact and awareness of the courses taught
crucial for successful outreach.
That unmet challenges definitely exist is demonstrated by
the survey for faculty. Out of 137 respondents from assorted
disciplines, 47% indicated that so far, they have not used
special collections in their undergraduate teaching. 55% of
these faculty members have a local collection available but
many have never consulted with their local librarian about
the options available to them. The use of materials of collections
outside their institution is even less common. In general,
barriers to the use of primary sources in teaching include
lack of awareness of relevant materials, time constraints
and lack of technological expertise needed to use digital
collections.
We would have liked to do more assessment work of this sort,
had time permitted.
Second, we have begun building and will continue to build
and maintain a Web site about the "repositories" (our
neutral word) of special collections in Connecticut. This
index will comprise libraries, historical societies, archives,
museums, and other holders of materials of relevance. We hope
to create a resource of sufficient quality to attract attention
of a broader community of scholars, teachers, and readers
in Connecticut and look forward to discussing how such an
index and be of most use to the community. With Teagle support,
this work was begun by our consultant. The Web page was redesigned
to accommodate such an information source; a template was
designed and is being used; questionnaires were developed
and sent by the consultant to literally hundreds of special
collections repositories in the state. Many replies have been
received and entered into the correct format and a follow-up
mailing has been done both by letter and e-mail. The actual
mounting of the information on the Teagle project Web site
will be done before calendar year end, as with the current
design it is more efficient for us to put up the majority
of the responses at one time, rather than as they are received.
This should be an immense resource for teachers and students
in the state and will give more exposure to these repository
organizations. However, maintaining such a site will prove
challenging after the grant ends.
VI. Lessons Learned
There is widespread and substantial excitement about the
possibilities for bringing students directly in touch with
materials that will engage their curiosity and provide faculty
with the opportunity to refine their disciplinary abilities.
Some of that excitement was already present, some was fanned
by the Teagle project, and we hope some was ignited by our
work. We did not find any faculty or librarians who were opposed
to the introduction of special collections materials into
the undergraduate learning experience, but naturally, some
faculty remain less interested in engaging in such work for
themselves or for their own students (for several reasons,
such as lack of ready resource, the time needed to re-vamp
classes, or perhaps that special collections do not exist
for their particular courses), and some librarians have reservations
about the appropriateness of introducing undergraduate-level
students to certain categories of scarce and valuable resources.
One continuing theme is the opportunity provided by digital
sources of information to enable contact with primary sources,
both through inspiration (digital representations encourage
an interest in the "real thing") and through access
to metadata (information that reveals the existence and accessibility
of materials in which faculty and students will take interest).
This section of our report will be a bit more speculative
than the factual outline above, but is grounded in the specifics
of our experience.
A. Opportunities:
- Opening and improving access to locally interesting collections
exciting to students;
- Introducing to students materials (oral, visual) not
normally part of a "library" experience;
- Giving students an appreciation for the uniqueness of
archival and rare materials;
- Giving students practical experience with handling high-value
materials in various media;
- Arousing excitement through access to materials that
aren't "in the textbook" – asking questions
of materials where there is no existing "correct answer",
but where the student's work under faculty supervision is
genuinely original and creates new knowledge;
- Creating of the habit of attention to materials of the
kinds utilized in this project and thus an appreciation
of the value of unique artifacts in a world increasingly
populated by digital representations of such artifacts and
artifact-free digital information; and
- Experience and inspiration that translates into continued
engagement with historical and cultural studies during the
community college or undergraduate career and beyond.
B. Constraints:
Everyone who participated in this project (apart from a
small number of experts and consultants who were compensated
for the work they did to benefit the larger group of participants)
was acting "on their own time". Time constraints
are the most challenging, because faculty and librarians find
that introducing students to the unique artifact and the unusual
collection requires more time and attention than traditional
rote and textbook learning. Issues include:
- Support for librarians in academic institutions who wish
to acquire and maintain expertise in working with faculty
on access to special collections for students;
- Support for librarians in working with faculty drawing
upon that expertise;
- Support for faculty in both generally developing acquaintance
with this material and then time and support for course
development to take advantage of them;
- Support for faculty in getting appropriate recognition
and reward for time and effort invested in nontraditional
pedagogy;
- Support for faculty and students in managing time and
access issues – down to the level of providing bus
fare for students to go from their campus to a more or less
remote location;
- Concern for security and preservation of rare and/or
valuable materials subjected to additional handling and
scrutiny – down to the level of providing extra security
staff and hours at collections.
VII. Over the Horizon
We cannot take leave of this project, which has engaged
and inspired a group of colleagues who are now friends or
better friends than we were before, without thinking a bit
about the kinds of steps we would like to see taken next,
to continue to ground this work and assure its continuation
and propagation.
First, we have worked hard and used our support well, but
we now feel the frustration of not having one more opportunity
to bring together a group of people, this time a substantially
larger group of people from at least within our own institutions,
but ideally from across Connecticut, to hear and see what
we have been able to do together. Several of the participants
and advisors have advocated for a one- or two-day event with
a designedly larger audience, not now simply exploring but
actively presenting and advocating the possibilities, with
concrete examples from our own communities. Such a "conference" could
be a very effective use of the time and energies both of those
who have worked hard on this project until now and also of
those from our institutions who have not been able to participate
till now. The effect would assuredly be the propagation of
techniques and inspiration to a much broader group in the
shortest period of time.
Second, with such a conference as a model, we would like
to explore how best to communicate more widely the core ideas
and findings of this project. This is in some ways easier
(does not require booking a hotel or paying for catering or
attracting a day of the time of busy people), but at the same
time challenging us to find the right venue. We will continue
to explore this possibility and may look to Teagle to offer
a "reference" with an appropriate editor or publisher.
Third, and most perplexing, we leave a question
that is more widely and urgently shared by many others in
academe today. At a moment when we are challenged as a profession
by such well-intentioned critics as participants in the Secretary
of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education,
the so-called "Spellings Commission/Report"[8] to
be more cost-effective and more accountable in higher education,
how can we best support faculty and students seeking to innovate
and expand the range of what is possible in such education?
The resources objectively required to support faculty seeking
to innovate and extend their teaching in these directions,
and in others that are identified nationally as among best
practices for undergraduate learning, are not immense by comparison
with our existing investments. The marginal dollar for innovation,
however, is among the hardest to find, even when the documented
value of the innovation is great.
Within higher education, competing models implicitly vie
for funds with each other. Many large questions loom, for
example: How shall a Provost best spend the next dollar that
becomes available? By hiring a new faculty member with a new
area of expertise that enriches the faculty's sense of the
richness of program it can offer? This can have the pedagogical
benefit of reducing aggregate class sizes (assuming a steady
state student population) but has the disadvantage of being
financially challenging (new tenure-line faculty positions
are among the most expensive personnel hires measured against
any quantitative unit of productivity in an institution).
By contributing to support for faculty research (on the assumption
that one benefit among many will be enhanced education for
undergraduates)? Or by contributing to support pedagogical
activity that will demonstrably enhance learning outcomes
but will likely not lead to increased visibility or economic
advantage for the faculty member?
We have little special authority to speak on this vexed
topic nor do we expect easy answers. At the same time, we
do want to report our frustration at seeing clearly that it
was precisely those faculty with the greatest percentage of
their time in direct connection with the education of students
whose academic success is least assured, who had the greatest
difficulty in identifying time and resources that would enable
them to take steps they believe would strengthen their ability
to deliver on their central professional responsibility – that
is to say, on the vocation that has brought them into and
keeps them into the undergraduate and community college classroom.
VIII. Conclusion
The work of this project has been inspiring
and rewarding and leaves us with the benefits of inspiration
and association: inspiration, in that we see more clearly
what we surmised at the outset, that we have just within our
grasp the opportunity to make teaching and learning more effective
and rewarding on multiple levels for students in many different
kinds of institutions; and association, in that we have built
a community of "unindicted coconspirators" among
the scholars and librarians of Connecticut that will live
beyond this grant period and continue to share its inspiration
with students in our institutions.
The Principal Investigator has found this work exhilarating
and encouraging in many ways and knows that she speaks for
all her colleagues and collaborators in expressing warmest
thanks to the Teagle Foundation for its leadership and support
in making this project possible. The work of the Foundation
remains of personal and institutional interest and it would
of course be a pleasure and a privilege to be able to continue
our work together in the future.
9-24-06
Notes
1. The
project Web site is: <http://www.library.yale.edu/teagle>. [Return
to text]
2. In
the Reading List that was compiled for this project and available
on the home page of our Teagle Project Web site <www.library.yale.edu/teagle> we
find citations that assume such benefits and pursue the question
of how to create or improve the experience. Fewer accounts
of actual benefit were found, but descriptions of achieved
benefit can be found in the following articles: Susan M. Allen, "Rare
Books and the College Library: Current Practices in Marrying
Undergraduates to Special Collections," Rare Books
and Manuscripts Librarianship vol. 13 no. 2 (spring 1999);
Carol Toner, "Teaching Students to Be Historians: Suggestions
for an Undergraduate Research Seminar," The History
Teacher vol. 27 no. 1 (Nov. 1993) 37-51; Ann Schmiesing
and Deborah R. Hollis, "The Role of Special Collections
Departments in Humanities Undergraduate and Graduate Teaching:
A Case Study," Libraries and the Academy vol.
2 no. 3 (July 2002) 465-480. Speakers at our Opening Conference
and the three workshop gave numerous accounts of classroom
enrichment using special collections tools and techniques. [Return
to text]
3.
See, for example, the widely cited Council on Library and
Information Resources (CLIR) report, entitled "The
Evidence At Hand." Washington,
DC, November 2001, with full text at: <www.clir.org/PUBS/reports/pub103/contents.html> [Return
to text]
4. Anja
Smit is an executive consultant currently working at NELINET.
During her work as University Librarian in the Netherlands,
Smit was previously known to senior Yale Library staff
for her work in reader services, strategic planning, and assessment.
She was delighted to put her expertise to use for the
project and proved an invaluable and enthusiastic resource.
Llyn Kamowitz, formerly a practicing librarian in Connecticut,
has been for over a decade a consultant who helps and
supports not-for-profits, particularly repositories, in their
work. Kaimowitz created, some 20 years ago, the first handbook
of CT archival repositories, and continues to be a superb
resource for our project. [Return to text]
5. Jessica
Slawski was hired to support two Yale Associate University
Librarians (Danuta Nitecki, Reader Services and Ann Okerson,
Collections). We were able to put some of her time towards
the Teagle Project and benefited greatly from her organizational
skills. [Return to text]
6. The
Advisory Committee included: Steven Berizzi (History Department,
Norwalk Community College); Danuta Nitecki (Yale University
Library, AUL for Reader Services); Ann Okerson (Yale, PI);
Anja Smit (NELINET); Suzy Taraba (Special Collections Librarian,
Wesleyan University); David Vallone (History Department,
Quinnipiac University); and Susan Walker (Assistant Librarian
and Head of Public Services, Lewis Walpole Library). Jessica
Slawski (Yale Library) served as recorder. [Return
to text]
7. Sarah
Prown is principal at ReedSparrow Web designers. A brief description
of their services can be found at: <www.reedsparrow.com/>.
Additional support (both Web and content) was provided by
Graziano Krätli,
Yale Library's International Program Support Librarian; and
also the Library's Web and Workstation Support Services team. [Return
to text]
8. This
work is available at: <http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/index.html>. [Return
to text]
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