L-60: Introduction to Archives for Rare Book Librarians
21-25 July 2008
1) How useful were the pre-course readings?
1: Very. 2: Very useful for laying a groundwork for the class. 3: Useful. But I wish it was more clear to bring DACS [Describing Archives: A Content Standard] with us (the entire book, not just the chapters assigned to read). 4: Very useful; excellent selections. 5: The pre-course readings were relevant and interesting. I really liked the book by Roe [Arranging and Describing Archives and Manuscripts]. 6: Very useful. Having all of DACS, not just the portion it was suggested we copy, might have been helpful. 7: Very useful; I appreciated the division into required and recommended. 8: The readings treated topics that were relevant and that were subsequently discussed in the course. All were useful for current and future use. 9: Useful.
2) Were the course syllabus and other materials distributed in class appropriate and useful (or will they be so in the future, after you return home)?
1-3: Yes. 4: Yes; all handouts were very helpful, and it was nice to have been given a binder to put them all in. 5: The handout binder was very helpful, and will be useful at home. 6: Yes. 7: Yes! Especially the processing manuals. 8: The instructors prepared documents and reference sites for both class and later study, which should be helpful. 9: The syllabus was OK, but could be improved. A list of acronyms could have been very helpful.
3) What aspects of the course content were of the greatest interest or relevance for your purposes? Was the intellectual level of the course appropriate?
1: Yes: deeds of gift, archival processing, professional standards, and networks. 2: Engaging with people who have a lot of experience in the field. 3: Getting started in archives. 4: The class was fantastic, and covered all relevant areas. I like that BL and JD specifically targeted the course to those with previous training in rare books, so we didn’t need to spend time going over those standards and practices. The processing and description practicums were great illustrations! 5: Really liked learning about processing and description. The intellectual level was appropriate. 6: Yes: arrangement/description, and DACS. Also the discussion of levels of description. Really liked the outreach lesson, too. 7: Arrangements and descriptions were most relevant, but all aspects were useful and interesting. 8: The course provided a serious overview of many significant aspects of archives management, as well as similarities and differences with rare book librarianship. 9: Level appropriate; but maybe too much on archives in general, this is not an archives introductory course, but is keyed especially to rare book librarians.
4) If your course left its classroom to visit Special Collections (SC) or to make other field trips away from your classroom, was the time devoted to this purpose well spent?
1: Yes. 2: I believe so. 3: We went to the Library of Virginia [Richmond] and the Archives at VSU [Virginia State University, Petersburg]. It was a long day, but well worth the drive. 4: The field trips were fantastic, and well-chosen for the contrast they provided of two very different archives settings. 5: The field trip to Richmond and Petersburg was very educational and eye opening; would have liked more time at the Library of Virginia. However, it was useful to compare it with the VSU Library. 6: Yes. It was a very wisely chosen pair of collections, a real study in contrasts. 7: Not sure. It was a very interesting contrast, but the presentations at each place were not really general, specifically, for our own class, and tended to be showing off the collections and facilities more than not. 8: The field trip to the Library of Virginia and VSU Special Collections was quite valuable and provided the opportunity to see widely varying collections, facilities, and management. 9: Yes; especially the library at VSU.
5) What did you like best about the course?
1: The instructors worked well together. The content was current and pertinent. 2: Learning about how other people handle these things. 3: I loved the class discussions. BL and JD had a lot to share, and it was very interesting. 4: BL and JD; they complemented each other very well, were extremely knowledgeable about every aspect of archives, and were fun to listen to everyday. For a first time offering the course, I think they did very well. 5: The field trips and practicums. Also liked exercises comparing websites. 6: The instructors were extremely engaged and passionate about what they do and what it conveyed. 7: A lot of hands-on work and exercises combined with a lot of opportunity for discussion and questions. Having two instructors instead of one was good, too. There was a lot of “chiming in” from both, resulting in more than one perspective on various issues. 8: The team approach to instruction allowed students the chance to engage different perspectives of archival practice and theory, and was very successful in my estimation. 9: The field trip to Virginia State University.
6) How could the course have been improved?
1: At times, there was more material than there was time. 2: The lack of time to finish the hands-on project was frustrating. Also, what sometimes seemed like conflicting instructions during the hands-on portion was difficult. However, the hands-on portion was still well worth the time! 3: I wish we could have watched or viewed a completed collection here at UVa, or one being completed. I think that would have helped with our own processing, since we are rare book librarians and not archivists. 4: More time for processing! (Obviously, we couldn’t take tons of time, and the time we had certainly showed what is necessary for processing an archive, but it would have been nice to have more than ten minutes.) 5: Please give more instructions for processing and description practicums. It would have been helpful to have one day in a computer lab to go through exercises needing a computer. 6: Would have loved to have been able to finish processing my box! Confronting actual issues as they arose was a great lesson, and it brought up a number of interesting concerns. 7: A little more finessing of the time management. A little more time and space allotted to the arrangement and description exercise; passing out UVa’s processing manual ahead of time. 8: More time could perhaps be devoted to the hands-on processing exercise, although its brevity was in itself an object lesson. (In other words, MPLP: more product, less processing). 9: I believe that the content of this course overwhelmed the time allotted and sometimes the organization. On the other hand, it’s a first time and a useful concept. I think that it might have worked better if one of the instructors was a rare book librarian. I sometimes felt like we were being caricatured – do not come to RBS to suffer this – enough at home.
7) We are always concerned about the physical well-being both of the RBS teaching collections and of materials owned by UVa’s Special Collections. If relevant, what suggestions do you have for the improved classroom handling of such materials used in your course this week?
2: No suggestion. 3: The tour of SC was great, but it would be nice to be treated as a professional rather than students or children when touring the collections. I just don’t think this was thought of, that we too have experience with special collections of value and know how to handle ourselves in the stacks. 4: We were able to handle and process UVa material, which was great, but we were rather squeezed into our space, and that probably endangered the collections somewhat. 5: The tables need to be larger. There was not enough space when using the archival files. 6: I was impressed that we were allowed to arrange and describe actual archival materials from UVa. I think entrusting them made us all very cautious. No harm done. 7: N/A 8: No concerns or suggestions on this point.
8) If you attended the Sunday and/or other evening lectures, were they worth attending?
1-2: Yes. 3: Monday’s lecture [no. 511, by Richard Kuhta] was great, on the future of rare book libraries. 4: Yes; RBS events seem to always be of excellent quality. 5: The Monday lecture was very interesting and relevant; worth attending. 6-7: Yes! 8: Both lectures were worthwhile. 9: Yes, as always a high point.
9) Did you get your money’s worth? Any final or summary thoughts, or advice for other persons considering taking this course in a future year?
1: Yes. 2: I believe so; I have no final thoughts. 3: Yes. Hopefully I will be back next summer! BL and JD worked great with each other, making this class very enjoyable and making it easy to take lots of skills from it. 4: Yes! The class was extremely enjoyable. I would recommend keeping it as small as possible, which I think made for better discussion, and allows for enough time for presentations, &c. I hope BL and JD can continue to teach together, as they each offered insights that were valuable, and they worked with one another very well. 5: RBS is always a great bargain. The instructors made it interesting and it was very educational. 6: Absolutely. 7: Yes! 8: Yes. Please offer this course again. It was a pleasure to take! 9: Yes–yes; BL is a great instructor.
Number of respondents: 9
PERCENTAGES
Leave Tuition Housing Travel
Institution Institution Institution Institution
gave me leave paid tuition paid housing paid travel
100% 100% 89% 100%
I took vaca- I paid tui- I paid for my I paid my own
tion time tion myself own housing travel
0% 0% 11% 0%
N/A: self- N/A: Self- N/A: stayed N/A: lived
employed, re- employed, with friends nearby
tired, or had retired, or or lived at
summers off scholarship home
0% 0% 0% 0%
There were 6 rare book librarians (67%), 2 general librarians with some rare book duties (22%), and one librarian who divides time between rare books and archives (11%).