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Contents - Special Collections & Archives at UCSC

Instruction with Special Collections & Archives

Philosophy

UCSC Special Collections and Archives’ instructional program empowers students of all experience levels to engage critically and creatively with primary sources through hands-on engagement with our distinctive collection materials. 

Instruction sessions center primary source literacy, material engagement and analysis, creative making, and criticality surrounding absences and silences in the archival record. 

Learning Objectives

Special Collections and Archives staff partner with faculty to develop experiential, student-centered primary source literacy instruction. We offer specialized knowledge of rare books and manuscripts, printing and bookbinding, archival practice and theory, preservation, copyright and fair use, and other topics to enrich instructional visits.

Guided by the RBMS/SAA Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy, our learning objectives include:

  • Conceptualize: Students can identify primary sources and understand their role and application within iterative research projects. 
  • Find and Access: Students can use effective tools and strategies to find relevant primary sources, and they can understand the implications of absences and silences. 
  • Read, Understand, and Summarize: Students can examine, comprehend, synthesize, and articulate primary sources’ material and textual qualities.
  • Interpret, Analyze, and Evaluate: Students can critically evaluate primary sources for appropriateness and signs of bias and subjectivity; students can evaluate gaps, contradictions, and elisions that emerge from analysis of available resources.
  • Use and Incorporate: Students can use and cite primary sources respectfully and ethically, respecting privacy and cultural contexts and adhering to copyright laws.

Planning an Instruction Session

Step 1: Complete the Instruction Request Form.

Please submit this form at least two weeks before your planned class visit. As a rule, earlier is better, as schedules tend to fill well in advance of each new quarter.

Our instructional space can accommodate a maximum of 20 students. If you have a larger class, please plan for multiple visits. We can also discuss providing instructional support in other modalities.

Step 2: Receive scheduling confirmation from Special Collections & Archives.

Sam Regal, the Instruction and Exhibitions Librarian, will contact you to confirm our availability.

Step 3: Meet with Special Collections & Archives staff to discuss specifics. 

The I&E Librarian will work with you to schedule a consultation, which can be held in-person or on Zoom. You'll align on planned learning outcomes, instructional materials, and a lesson plan. 

Step 4: Attend the class visit.

Instruction in Special Collections & Archives is a collaborative effort, and to this end, faculty must be present during class visits. 

Instruction Menu

Explore our collections for a high-level overview of our collection strengths.

Welcome graphic

Introduction to Special Collections and Archives

Students visit for a general introduction to UCSC SC&A and learn the basics of research and engagement with primary sources. Introductory visits can include hands-on engagement with collection materials in a number of modalities, including gamified SC&A Bingo!

Archival Box

Hands-On Primary Source Analysis

Students use their senses to critically evaluate collections materials curated for their relevancy to course curriculum. Customizable worksheets are used to frame student learning.

Accordion book

Artists' Books Analysis

Artists' books are a particular strength of our collections. Often articulated as experimental and sculptural bookforms, these artworks can serve as unique means of framing interdisciplinary research engagement. Worksheets can be used to structure student learning. We can also integrate making activities, including bookbinding and printing, to further activate these materials.

Stack of old books

Introduction to Early Printed Books

Students engage in critical material analysis of our collection of early printed books (pre-1700). These visits often include a worksheet structured to help students identify these works’ representative characteristics. Attention is also paid to the ways these books’ material qualities–their substrates, their binding style, their marginalia–illustrate their historical value and long social lives. 

Cuneiform tablet illustration

History of the Book

We’re focused on developing our collections to better represent the history of the book and writing technologies at a global scale. We facilitate hands-on student engagement with these collections, including a 4000-year-old cuneiform messenger tablet, a Burmese palm leaf manuscript, medieval sheet music and papal bulls, and supernatural stories in Japanese. SC&A staff can deliver short book historical lectures and facilitate historical making activities, including papermaking, coptic bookbinding, printing on a replica common press, and more. 

Printing press illustration

Creative Making with Special Collections and Archives

We offer a variety of critical making activities designed to activate our collections and create additional opportunities for experiential student learning. We enjoy working with faculty to develop activities that serve to deepen and enrich course curriculum. 

Activities can be adapted to suit learners of all levels and include zinemaking, buttonmaking, bookbinding, paper marbling, papermaking, arranging type and printing on a BookBeetle (tabletop replica common press), medieval calligraphy with historical inks, and more!

Community group illustration

Community Archives

Rebecca Hernandez, our Community Archivist,  welcomes the opportunity to visit classes and present information about the Community Archiving Program. As the inaugural Community Archivist, she can speak about what makes community archives different from traditional models, the formation of the program, and community engagement strategies. When students are encouraged to view their own communities as sites where history is made, and recognize that they play a vital role in that history as changemakers, they gain a fresh perspective on archives and the practice of collecting information for future generations.

Fiat slug logo

University Archives

Kelsey Knox, our University Archivist, works with faculty to engage students with the UCSC University Archives. University Archives is the official repository for selected inactive campus records that have enduring administrative, legal, or research value, including administrative records, records documenting UCSC history, campus life, and culture, faculty papers, and more. Engaging with University Archives gives students the opportunity to not only learn about the place in which they live, learn, and work, but also to realize that they too play a role in the university’s history and legacy.

Preparing for Your Visit

  • Please instruct students to arrive to Special Collections & Archives with clean, dry hands. 
  • Students will be asked to store their bags and heavy coats by the reference desk. 
  • Food and drink are not permitted.
  • Students must only use pencils for note-taking. We can provide the pencils!