Beyond Manuscripts: Teaching with Special formats in Special Collections

Jackson, Petrina; Benjamin, David; Lutz, Christie; Quagliaroli, Jessica; Roveland-Brenton, Blythe; Casey, Pamela; Fraser, Alison; Panciera, Benjamin; Reynolds, Alison

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Beyond Manuscripts: Teaching with Special formats in Special Collections

Jackson, Petrina; Benjamin, David; Lutz, Christie; Quagliaroli, Jessica; Roveland-Brenton, Blythe; Casey, Pamela; Fraser, Alison; Panciera, Benjamin; Reynolds, Alison

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/11213/18040

Date: 2021-06-09

Abstract:

Description:

This panel features archivists, librarians, and curators leading classes that incorporate largely non-textual collection materials, ranging from architectural drawings to vinyl records, posters and zines to artists’ books and textiles. How are classes with these objects different from presenting students with folders of printed or manuscript material to digest in a classroom setting? Creating courses around unusual or sometimes unwieldy archival objects can raise specific challenges, from basic issues around classroom size and handling, to students’ abilities to grasp the archival context of specific objects. Panelists will discuss the challenges that these types of materials present to them, and creative solutions they have developed to engage students with these objects in a meaningful way. Panelists will also consider how teaching with special formats creates opportunities for discussions around issues of power dynamics, empowerment, and underrepresented groups in archives and special collections. David Benjamin, University of Central Florida will speak about teaching with his institution’s collections of folk art and artists’ books from women artists and people of color. Pamela Casey, Columbia University, will explore how students engaging with the physical materiality of architectural drawings, photographs, and models, rather than encountering these in a book or a professor’s slide presentation, can lead to critical discussions around authorship and labor in design practices. Alison Fraser, University at Buffalo will describe how she uses artists’ books and repurposed materials in the archives to introduce students to ideas around the book as object, the importance of form as well as content, and how these objects confront students to consider the traditional power structures of poetry publication. Christine Lutz, Rutgers University Libraries regularly leads classes using posters, zines and vinyl records, engaging students in discussions around what ""should"" be in an archive, and whose stories get told. Benjamin Panciera, Connecticut College will speak to the initial struggles of working with artists’ books in a classroom setting, and how developing a more interactive instruction session led to deeper student engagement, with students empowered to focus on what interested them. Jessica Quagliaroli, Yale University, will describe how teaching with architectural drawings, records, and maps are used to have students critically examine and discuss urban renewal and redevelopment. Alison Reynolds, Georgia Institute of Technology will talk to the use of textiles and fabric samples in a classroom setting, and how these objects can stimulate discussions around audience, purpose, and socio economic power structures. Blythe Roveland-Brenton, Binghamton University will address some of the challenges of teaching with posters -- ephemeral objects that powerfully combine words, image and design, and which have the power to both mobilize and polarize.

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