This paper outlines the case studies of two librarians who work closely with graduate students in fine arts programs. Realizing that graduate students can often experience a unique form of research anxiety, both librarians collaborated with faculty to embed themselves into the research methods courses of their programs. Both librarians found that the chance to work one-on-one with graduate students resulted in a reduction of their anxiety, an increase in information literacy skills, and a strengthened partnership between the librarians and the departments.
Campus and community collaboration through cultural events I t is 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, and the library is hopping. Dozens of people pack into a small lecture room and listen intently as a faculty member's son and daughter give a cardtheater performance of "Momotaro: The Peach Boy." In the nearby seminar room, a lively group crowds around a table to learn how to make cucumber sushi rolls. The hallway bustles with students and community members waiting to try their hand at calligraphy or try on a yukata. Picture books of Japanese folk tales in English and Japanese compete for attention with Japanese architecture books, graphic novels, and maps. Clearly, it's not your ordinary weekend morning at an academic library. On No vember 18, 2006, Miami University (Ohio) Libraries hosted a Japanese cultural festival and readin called "Ohanashi: Discovering Japan Through Stories." 1 Sponsored by a grant from the Japan Foundation's Center for Global Partnership, the program sought to promote Japanese cultural education, while fostering ties between the library and campus and community organizations. Ohanashi was a fourhour event that attracted more than 600 participants from the campus and community, with some visi tors coming from more than an hour away. Librarians partnered with faculty, staff, and students from a number of departments and organizations including Education, Asian Studies, service learning, sororities and frater nities, and student service clubs. Community participants included local K-12 students and teachers, scout troops, homeschool groups, and public librarians and patrons.
This article describes how a collaborative, multifaceted, site-specific installation helped to develop information literacy in studio art students. Through the process of planning, creating, and installing the project, students learned to find and evaluate many different kinds of information, from design ideas to historical precedents, site plans, and business plans. Working with a public installation within a library, students learned to consider the economic, social, and legal issues involved within the context of their audience and location. Finally, the conceptual framework of the installation encouraged students to think critically about the role of libraries in today's information and technology-saturated society. [This article is based on a poster session prepared for the Association of College and Research Libraries conference held in Seattle in March 2009.] society, as it related to the process of art-making
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