Trinity College
Trinity College, founded in 1823, is an independent, private liberal
arts college in Hartford, Connecticut. The College has an enrollment of a
little over 2,000 students, and the most popular majors (out of 37) are
Political Science, Economics, History, English, and Psychology.
The TEAGLE Interview
The interview for the TEAGLE project took place on February 1, 2006.
The following library staff and faculty participated in the interview:
1. Richard S. Ross College Librarian
2. Jeffrey H. Kaimowitz, Head Librarian, Watkinson Library & Curator,
Enders Ornithology Collection
3. Peter Knapp, Special Collections Librarian & College Archivist
4. Sally Dickinson, Special Collections Librarian & Cataloger
5. Pablo Delano, Associate Professor of Fine Arts (Studio Arts,
Photography, Design, Drawing)
6. Sean Cocco, Assistant Professor of History
7. Dario Del Puppo, Associate Professor of Modern Languages and
Literature; Director of Italian Programs
8. Barbara Benedict, Charles A Dana Professor of English Literature
(18th Century)
9. Margaret Lindsey, Director, First Year Program; Trinity Portraits,
Medieval Literature
Available local special collections
The Watkinson Library, founded in 1858, was formerly a private research
library located in downtown Hartford. It was acquired by Trinity College in
1952 and serves as the special collections library for the College. Today
its roughly 200,000 volumes comprise Trinity's rare book and manuscript
holdings and the College Archives along with its own collections. The
Watkinson's subject strengths embrace Americana in a wide variety of fields
with a concentration on 18th and 19th century materials, voyages and travels,
historic printing and book illustration, fine printing and private press
publications, and 18th and 19th century American and European periodicals.
The Enders ornithology collection is one other part of the collection that
stands out, featuring materials from the 16th century on, among them the
engraver Havell's copy of Audubon's Birds of America. For more information,
see http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/library/watkinson/ .
Collection management
Besides Jeffrey Kaimowitz, Head Librarian of the collection, two FTE
library staff work in the Watkinson library. Each staff member has a
different background and specialty (e.g. classics, history, architecture).
Together, the librarians are responsible for tasks such as collection
development, preservation, user support, exhibitions, cataloging and
instruction. The collections grow through gifts and purchases.
Cataloging of the special collections has yet to be completed, and
digitization projects are not carried out at the moment. The feeling is that
access through cataloging is a higher priority at this point in time, and
digitization projects would require extra funding and a rationale in terms of
the selection of materials.
Marketing and use of the Special Collections and Archives
The non-circulating Watkinson collection is open to the general public, as
it remains a 'public institution'. For this reason, the College until
recently extended opening hours to the weekends, but unfortunately, this is
currently not possible.
The Head Librarian of the Watkinson library, Mr. Kaimowitz, believes that
the collections are underused as the many important holdings could probably
benefit College teaching more than they do today. Many faculty, when
approached by the Watkinson staff, are surprised to find such a rich special
collection at a small liberal arts college. The awareness of the special
collections among faculty is very uneven: some faculty members use the
collections intensively, whereas others seem to be unaware of their
existence. One of the issues in using primary sources at the Watkinson
library is the fact that some of them are not written in English, the only
language many students are able to read. It should be noted that the Trinity
College Library subscribes to collections such as "Early English Books
Online," which helps to extend the collections of primary sources available
to faculty and students, although this restricts the experience of the user
to the content of the text instead of the ability to see and/or hold a 500
year old item.
The collections are marketed by the Library in a variety of ways: the
Library produces brochures, extensive web pages, topical guides, and every
year exhibitions are organized in the Trumbull Exhibition Room, usually with
a catalogue. To add to the visibility of the Watkinson's collections, its
staff would like to see its exhibition space relocated close to the
Watkinson's entrance. The Trumbull room is located behind the Watkinson
Reading Room and can be easily overlooked by visitors. In addition, new
faculty in relevant disciplines are contacted by the librarians, and invited
to tours. As a follow up of these tours, faculty typically would bring in
classes to work with relevant materials.
Selected examples of using primary sources in undergraduate
teaching
Sessions at the Watkinson library might be co-taught by faculty and
librarians (including Watkinson library staff); an example is Ed. Studies
300: Education Reform - Past & Present. This course, in which students
analyze US educational reform across different historical periods, includes
several sessions that involve the use of primary sources:
- Library staff teaches Information Resources - Print and Digital,
which includes an orientation to primary sources (in this case, 19 century
common school text books);
- A special session is held at the Connecticut Historical Society (guest
lecture);
- A session is organized concerning student protests at Trinity College,
using a wide range of types of materials from the college archives (e.g.
newspapers, magazines, statistics, etc.;
- Student assignments for this course include postings in Blackboard in
which they "identify and locate source materials, using information literacy
skills" for different parts of the course.
Pablo Delano, Associate Professor of Fine Arts, is an advocate of a practical
approach when it comes to the use of primary sources in teaching. In his
introductory Design Course, he uses art history books and examples of
typography in original texts across different historical periods. Students in
his course can make a connection between computer fonts and the development
of typography over time. Mr. Delano is also involved in the Hartford Studies
Project, which will result in a 90 minutes documentary film (for more
information, see http://www.trincoll.edu/UG/UE/HSP).
The project uses a wide variety of primary sources (photographs, newspapers,
oral history, videos) across local organizations and in print and digital
formats. The project also creates archives (e.g. a video archive) which do
not have a final 'destination' as yet.
Barbara Benedict, Professor of English Literature, uses primary sources
from the Watkinson library intensively for her courses on 18th century
English literature. Students have to conduct research on a small scale and
present their findings to the class.
Sean Cocco, Assistant Professor in History, is planning to use primary
sources on every level: even in introductory courses in early history,
students can be exposed to primary documents and have the experience of
connecting to earlier periods of history through those. For more advanced
students, the aim is to have them do research on a small scale that will ask
of them to add a new perspective on a certain topic.
Dario Del Puppo, Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Literature
and Director of Italian Programs, uses primary sources to teach students
basic codicology and an understanding of the difference between 'work' and
'edition' (what is the impact of editions, form on the text, the content?).
He would use parts of older texts, like the frontispice to demonstrate
developments of texts in different editions over time.
Margaret Lindsey, Director, First Year Program teaches a course where she
uses the Trinity Portraits. Students have to do research on the people in the
portraits and sometimes find people who are still living and conduct
interviews. In this way, students add to the history of the college.
Dick Ross, College Librarian, teaches a course on witchcraft, in which he
uses original documents to illustrate this part of history. He also finds the
Early English Books Online are very useful.
The added value of using primary sources in teaching
All agree that students learn from being confronted with original
documents. If these are historical artifacts, students better understand the
period of time because they can see (and sometimes hold) an item that is
unchanged but originated from another era. In addition, students learn how to
ask the right questions and make choices when processing historic information
for a critical edition of a text, they learn about the complexity of book
production or lost technologies, and last but not least, original documents
inspire an emotional connection with a certain part of history.
Assessment of student learning
The courses that are co-taught include an assessment part that measures
information literacy skills. In other teaching, this element, or the
'results' of using primary sources, is not measured separately.
How can a project like the Teagle Project help? What other areas are a
future priority?
The first priority, when it comes to use of primary sources in
undergraduate teaching, is providing access for the College's primary user
groups, but also to non-Trinity users as well. Therefore, the conversion of
catalog cards to online records for all holdings in special collections
continues to be a very high priority.
Contacts
The Watkinson Library
Trinity College
300 Summit Street
Hartford, CT 06106-3100
Jeffrey H. Kaimowitz, Head Librarian, Watkinson Library & Curator, Enders
Ornithology Collection
Tel. 860-297-2266
Peter J. Knapp, Special Collections Librarian and College Archivist
Tel. 860-297-2269
Sally Dickenson, Special Collections Librarian and Cataloger
Tel. 860-297-2267
