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Object literacy at University College London Library Services

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2017

Tabitha Tuckett  and
Elizabeth Lawes
Tabitha Tuckett
Affiliation:
Rare-Books Librarian, Special Collections, UCL Library Services, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK Email: t.tuckett@ucl.ac.uk
Elizabeth Lawes
Affiliation:
Subject Liaison Librarian: Fine Art, History of Art & Film Studies, UCL Library Services, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK Email: e.lawes@ucl.ac.uk
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Abstract

University College London (UCL) Library Services holds extensive Special Collections that are employed in various teaching and public engagement activities. Students and academic staff at the UCL Slade School of Fine Art have the opportunity to participate in the Slade Small Press Project that uses the UCL Small Press Collections as inspiration, recognising the current trend for printed material and text as a visual medium. UCL's BASc students, and participants at library public events focused on non-creative subjects, study ways in which the physical aspects of rare books contribute to understanding the text, with surprisingly creative outputs. While museums have recently adopted Object Based Learning (OBL) as a teaching strategy, this form of learning has long been familiar in libraries, particularly for special collections. However as readers increasingly access library text digitally, and perceive text as unaffected by medium, they are losing the skills to interpret physical books and printed material (skills we term ‘object literacy’), making OBL approaches more important than ever for library staff. In keeping with the UCL 2034 strategy, the Connected Curriculum encourages participation in research at all levels of study and OBL methods enable interdisciplinary enquiry and collaborative practices.

Type
Research Article
Information
Art Libraries Journal , Volume 42 , Special Issue 2: Information Literacy in UK and US Art Libraries , April 2017 , pp. 99 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © ARLIS/UK&Ireland 2017 

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References

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