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Special Collections and Archives

Buley LIbrary, Southern Connecticut State University

Instruction Sessions

One of this department's highest priorities and deepest joys is finding ways to integrate special collections materials into teaching, exposing students to materials that embody--either in their content or their physical structure or both--themes and content they are encountering in class. There is no one right way to integrate special collections materials into a class. Such encounters can vary in format and in content and, in fact, we design them so. We are sensitive to the diverse needs and schedule and curricular restraints of faculty.

Materials in a session can be centered around the core themes of a class, speaking directly to and perhaps embodying material only talked about in theory. On the other hand, a session in special collections can treat material outside of the primary scope of the class, building context for reception of the class material.

Length of session or engagement can vary too. Using one of our asynchronous introductions to materials, engagement can be as much as 10 minutes. A synchronous or asynchronous live session may be part of or a full class session. And an embedded project that incorporates special collections materials and requires visits from students outside of class time can last the duration of the semester.

Examples of instructions topics that we can provide:

  • Artists Books: Structures and Meaning
  • The History of Writing and Print History
  • What is a Primary Source?
  • Connecticut and New Haven History through Primary Sources

Covid

Child, David Lee. The despotism of freedom, or, The tyranny and cruelty of American Republican slave-masters, shown to be the worst in the world : in a speech, delivered at the first anniversary of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, 1833. Boston: Boston Young Men's Anti-Slavery Association, 1833.

Ford, Paul Leicester. Wanted--a Chaperon. New York: A.L. Burt Company, 1902.

Binding designed by Armstrong, Margaret, 1867-1944.

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