Fall 2020 Instruction Sessions

With many more Baylor University courses being offered online or as hybrid versions this semester, the Armstrong Browning Library has provided study spaces for more students than in the past few semesters. The temporary increase in online courses has, understandably, meant fewer requests from faculty to bring their classes to the Armstrong Browning Library or to develop instruction sessions utilizing Armstrong Browning Library collections. We still have had faculty members request instruction sessions for their online or in-person classes.

Virtual Instruction Sessions:

Since so many of the classes coming to the Armstrong Browning Library request a tour, either as part of their instruction session or for their entire instruction session, we created a virtual version of the tour this summer. For the virtual tour we created a series of short videos. Each video highlights one of the spaces covered by our in-person tour. This was so instructors could choose either all the videos or just the spaces which they normally request for their class session.  As faculty began preparing to teach online during the fall semester, the Armstrong Browning Library shared the tour with faculty when we received requests for virtual tours.

A few of the classes which have previously come to the Armstrong Browning Library to utilize our resources for instruction sessions asked to collaborate on a virtual version of their standard sessions. One of the English 2301, British Literature courses has come in to analyze the presentation and transmission of Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” from its first publication to the present. For this course, we selected fewer examples of the text from our collection than we did for previous in-person sessions. Then we photographed the volumes together and individually focusing on the same parts of the books and the same selections within the poem. The images were added to a slide presentation along with bibliographic information about each volume and guiding questions to help students analyze the volumes.

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In-Person Instruction Sessions:

Though many of the faculty who routinely bring their students to the Armstrong Browning Library are teaching online this fall, a few still had in-person classes and several of those instructors reached out to collaborate on socially distanced lessons using books, manuscripts, art, and artifacts from our collections. All of our instruction sessions were set up in the Hankamer Treasure Room this fall.

Baylor’s photography classes came to study the Julia Margaret Cameron photograph collection and examples of Victorian photography. We spread out resources so that there were only 1-3 items per table (depending on the table and the item’s size). This allowed 1 student to be at each table at a time. We stationed ABL staff members with the bound volumes of photographs so that we could turn the pages for students.

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We look forward to more in-person instruction sessions in the spring and we are prepared to help faculty teaching online find ways to integrate the Armstrong Browning Library’s collections into their courses, as well.

Freedom Schools Visit the Armstrong Browning Library

We had a great day last Friday (July 12, 2019) at the Armstrong Browning Library!

Freedom School Scholars at the Armstrong Browning Library, July 12, 2019

Freedom School Scholars at the Armstrong Browning Library, July 12, 2019

Nearly 40 middle grades scholars from the Transformation Zone at Indian Springs Middle School who are currently enrolled in the Baylor Freedom Schools Program visited the library for a tour. The Baylor Freedom Schools Program is a free literacy enrichment program. It utilizes interactive curriculum along with field trips and special guests to provide meaningful learning for enrolled students.

The Armstrong Browning Library was honored to host the scholars for one of their fieldtrips. The visit began with an introduction to the library and its history in the Martin Entrance Foyer by ABL Curator Laura French. The scholars then divided into four groups and toured the rest of the building with guidance from French, ABL Director Jennifer Borderud, Rare Books Catalog Librarian Amy Runyon, and ABL Library Host Kacie Collin.

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The tour emphasized the life and works of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The artifacts and artwork on display formed the basis for discussions on the lives of the Brownings. The tour also provided the scholars an opportunity to get a close look at the library’s collection of stained-glass windows, many of which illustrate the poetry of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

The tour ended in the Cox Reception Hall where scholars created their own stained-glass window designs based on a selected poem. Scholars chose to draw what was literally happening in the poems they chose or to use shapes and colors to create an abstract expression of what their poem was about. Scholars selected from poems by the Brownings, Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman, as well as by Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Gwendolyn Brooks, Gary Soto, Sandra Cisneros, and Juan Felipe Herrera.

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The ABL would like to thank Dr. Lakia Scott, Yasmin Laird, and Alexis Hooker for bringing their scholars to the ABL and providing us the opportunity to share Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning with the Baylor Freedom School scholars.

Thank you also to Amanda Gardner for the photographs used in this post.

Fall 2018 Instruction Sessions in the ABL

In Fall 2018, the Armstrong Browning Library (ABL) was privileged to either host or contribute materials to 16 instruction sessions. There was one class from each of the following departments: music, art, German, and a University 1000 course. The rest of our instruction sessions were evenly divided between English and history, with each department having 6 class visits.

ABL's Director, Jennifer Borderud, gives University 1000 students a tour of the ABL.

ABL’s Director, Jennifer Borderud, gives University 1000 students a tour of the ABL.

Two classes kicked off their semesters with tours of the ABL in August. Baylor’s Chamber Singers, who practice in the ABL’s McLean Foyer of Meditation twice a week, took a tour of the library to learn the history of the building and to view materials from the library’s Browning Music Collection. A University 1000 came for a tour as well, so they could learn why Baylor is home to one of the most beautiful academic libraries in the United States and discover some of the rich resources that can be found here.

History 1307 students analyze primary sources.

History 1307 students analyze primary sources.

In September, our first section of English 2301: British Literature came twice. The first visit was to compare and contrast our collection of 18th-century editions of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the second was to compare and contrast publications of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales from 1600 to the present. The Central Libraries Special Collections collaborated with us and provided half of the Chaucer texts. Also, in September, we carried a selection of 19th-century abolitionist literature to Moody Library’s Active Learning Lab (Moody 104) for a History 1307: World History since 1500 class’s instruction session. The Texas Collection, the Baylor Libraries Book Arts Collection, and the Central Libraries Special Collections all contributed resources to an examination of written records of slavery in the United States.

Our ABL Teaching Fellows, past and present, chose to bring their courses to the library during October. The month started with 2017 Teaching Fellow Paul Gutacker bringing his 8:00 a.m. History 2365: History of the U.S. to 1877 class to the library to analyze primary sources relating to 19th-century reform movements. Midway through the week, 2018 Teaching Fellow Joel Iliff brought his History 2365: History of the U.S. to 1877 class to analyze primary sources relevant to the themes he was covering. While the history classes overlapped in their topics and themes, each instructor selected very different sets of resources. At the end of the month, our second Teaching Fellow for 2018, Dr. Ginger Hanchey, brought her three sections of English 2301: British Literature to the ABL for a tour of the building one day, and then brought them back a second day for the opportunity to survey items from the collections which corresponded to the main themes of her course.

ABL resources waiting to be opened by students.

ABL resources waiting to be opened by students.

In between the Teaching Fellows instruction sessions at the beginning and end of October, additional English faculty brought their courses to the ABL. English 5304: Bibliography and Research Methods came to the ABL to learn how to find archival and rare book collections using digital resources and then to explore the variety of resources which are found in special collections. And another English 2301: British Literature class visited the ABL for a short tour of the building and rare materials display of manuscripts relating to the authors they were reading.

November saw the return of 2017’s Teaching Fellow for one last session, and while we are happy to open the library early for instruction sessions (or stay late on occasion) those mornings do require an extra cup of caffeine. In the middle of the month, Art 3356: 19th-Century European Art came for a day to study 19th-century printed illustration styles and techniques. And our final instruction session of the semester involved escorting German 4320: Special Topics in German through the ABL as an exemplar of what constitutes beauty and how such determinations are made.

We at the Armstrong Browning Library are always pleased when faculty members request to bring their classes to the building for tours or instruction sessions utilizing the collections. We are looking forward to returning classes and those coming for the very first time in Spring 2019. For more information about class visits, contact ABL Curator Laura French.

A Curator at California Rare Book School

By Laura French, Curator, Armstrong Browning Library

What is Rare Book School?

Rare book school is a professional (or personal) development opportunity for librarians, curators, academics, antiquarian book sellers, and book collectors to complete an intensive, one-week study of a discrete topic within bibliography and the history of the book. Terry Belanger founded the original Rare Book School at Columbia University in 1983. It has since moved to the University of Virginia.

Attendance at Rare Book School has developed into a sort of rite of passage for librarians working in or interested in working with special collections. Special collections are the research materials that libraries collect which are too valuable, rare, or fragile to leave the library. (The Armstrong Browning Library is made up almost entirely of special collections.) By their very nature of these materials requires additional training beyond what a librarian typically learns in their graduate program. The fastest way to learn the proper way to look after specific types of materials within special collections is to attend a course on that material type or custodianship issue at a rare book school.

Over time several similar institutes have developed. These include:

California Rare Book School

Texas A&M’s Book History Workshop

The Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminars

London Rare Book School

Ligatus Summer School

University of Otago’s Center for the Book’s Australasian Rare Book School

Institut d’Histoire du Livre

The Montefiascone Conservation Project’s Study Programme

What Class Did I Attend? & Why?

This past summer I attended California Rare Book School’s course “Better Teaching with Rare Materials”. The class was led by Michaela Ullmann, Exile Studies Librarian in Special Collections at the University of Southern California, and Robert Montoya, Assistant Professor and Director of the Doctoral Programs in the Department of Information and Library Science in the School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering at Indiana University, Bloomington. The course trains librarians and teaching faculty how to design instruction sessions utilizing special collections materials which will increase students’ primary source literacy.

This course provided me the opportunity to spend one full week focusing on instructional strategies prior to my first semester teaching with the Armstrong Browning Library’s collections. I wanted to attend this course, in part, because this past year the Society of American Archivists and the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Rare Books and Manuscripts Section jointly approved “Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy.” The course also allowed me time to increase my familiarity with the new guidelines prior to the start of the Fall 2018 semester.

What Did We Do?

The five days were broken up into: direct instruction, discussions, and fieldtrips to a variety of special collections and cultural heritage institutions within driving distance of UCLA. The class covered topics such as: setting up an instruction program, special collections pedagogy, strategies for collaborating with teaching faculty, in class assignments and exhibit curation, digital instruction tools, digital scholarship tools, curriculum mapping, and assessment techniques. There were frequent discussions of the instructors, participants, and guest speakers’ successes and failures in each area. Participants were encouraged to envision how they would implement or adapt each of the topics covered for their institution.

The fieldtrips were a valuable component of the course. We visited Special Collections at UCLA, USC, and Occidental College and the Museum of Tolerance. It was so helpful to see the variety of institutions’ instruction space and to hear about the kinds of instruction that they are doing.

What Was the Result?

This course was a great way to prepare for the fall instruction sessions. I came away with plans to create materials which will describe the possible ways the Armstrong Browning Library’s collections can be used by faculty in their courses and new ways to promote instruction sessions to Baylor faculty.

Sociology Class on Death and Dying Visits the ABL

Amanda Smith and a student look closely at items relating to Robert Browning’s death.

Students in Amanda Smith’s upper-level sociology class on death and dying recently visited the Armstrong Browning Library. During their quick stop, Jennifer Borderud, director of the ABL, gave the students a short introduction to Victorian poet Robert Browning (1812-1889) and to the history of the Library and its collection. The students then examined artifacts in the collection relating to Robert Browning’s death to gain insight into nineteenth-century funeral and bereavement practices.

The items on display included a sketch of Browning made by painter G.D. Giles on 24 November 1889, shortly before Browning’s death. Browning signed the sketch and included a few lines of poetry: “Here I’m gazing, wide awake, Robert Browning, no mistake!”

Sketch of Robert Browning by G.D. Giles, 24 November 1889.

Also included in the display were photographs of Browning taken after his death by Ralph W. Curtis, a program and ticket for Browning’s funeral at Westminster Abbey, a lock of hair taken after Browning’s death by a family member, and an album of newspaper clippings relating to Browning’s death collected by his son and daughter-in-law.

Program from Robert Browning’s funeral at Westminster Abbey, 31 December 1889.

Ticket to Robert Browning’s funeral at Westminster Abbey, 31 December 1889.

Students also viewed letters written by Robert Browning on mourning paper after the death of his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning in June 1861. The students observed that letters written in 1861, shortly after Barrett Browning’s death, had wide black lines around the edges while letters written a year later, as the mourning period came to an end, had narrow black lines around the edges.

Letter from Robert Browning to William Surtees Cook, dated 18 July 1861.