Break the Stereotype! Critical Visual Literacy in Art and Design Librarianship

The authors consider an approach to visual literacy instruction that is rooted in the philosophies and practices of critical librarianship and feminist pedagogy. They explore the extent and limitations of existing standards, frameworks, and pedagogical models to support an idea of critical visual literacy, particularly in the context of art and design schools and creative career-focused institutions. By examining practices and examples from other disciplines, the authors identify strategies for teaching critical visual literacy in context. These pedagogical models inform the design and revision of two workshops for art and design students.

Continue Reading →

A Short History of Visual Literacy: The First Five Decades

The origins and history of Visual literacy (VL) are summarized in this article, from the 1960s writings of John L. Debes, Marshall McLuhan and others of the Rochester School, to the influence of the Internet in the 2000s. ERIC and Google Scholar searches are used to analyse the evolution of its literature over time.

Continue Reading →

Toward a New Vision for Media Literacy Instruction

In 2007, film critic Kevin B. Lee began publishing “video essays,” which he described as videos that “take footage from films and reconfigure them using editing, text, graphics and voiceover to reveal startling observations and insights, visualizing them in ways that text criticism can’t,”1 on his blog Also Like Life. When I started working at the University of Maryland’s Nonprint Media Services Library (now Library Media Services) in 2013, I knew I wanted to incorporate this technique into our instructional efforts. Traditionally, NPMS’s instruction had focused on finding audiovisual materials; our new objective was to teach students how to create something new from the items in our collection.

Continue Reading →

Students as Curators: Visual Literacy, Public Scholarship, and Public Health

Designing a public exhibition is one way for students to meet the goals of the Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education quoted above. Students able to combine visual literacy with strong writing will be better prepared“to function creatively and confidently in the working environments of the twenty-first century” (Weber 2007). Scientists rely on visual images, animations, and 3D models to convey research findings and concepts, yet educational research shows that students“do not necessarily automatically acquire visual literacy during general instruction,” but must be explicitly taught these skills (Schönborn et al. 2006). Exhibition design provides a powerful pedagogical approach, helping students learn to “author” in a manner distinct from traditional writing.

Continue Reading →

Sequential Art in Library Credit Instruction: Exploring Multiple Literacies Through Graphic Novels, Comics, and Comix

Sequential art is a unique storytelling medium that combines visuals and content in a deliberate, specific delivery in order to engage audiences on emotional and cognitive levels. Consequently, graphic novels, comics, and comix are a rich educational medium for undergraduate credit instruction in academic libraries, precisely because this alternative delivery of content can effectively educate many learning styles. This article documents the development and implementation of an undergraduate, upper division credit-bearing course in an academic library that examined multiple types of literacy through the medium, with commentary on instructional strategies for other academic librarians and professors.

Continue Reading →

Pin This: Working with Faculty to Enrich the Classroom Environment via Pinterest

Focusing on academic libraries and librarians who are extending the boundaries of e-learning, this collection of essays presents new ways of using information and communication technologies to create learning experiences for a variety of user communities. Essays feature e-learning projects involving MOOCs (massive open online courses), augmented reality, chatbots and other innovative applications. Contributors describe the process of project development, from determination of need, to exploration of tools, project design and user assessment.

Continue Reading →

Library Graphic Design Best Practices and Approval Processes

The purpose of this paper is to explore graphic design best practices and approval processes used by librarians. This paper used an online, qualitative survey to collect data on librarians’ design processes and best practices. The responses were reviewed to determine categories and themes of librarians’ design processes and best practices to gain an understanding of the state of graphic design in libraries.

Continue Reading →

Information Literacy Contributions from Archives and Special Collections: Developing Information Literate Students in the Library Workplace

Theories, methodologies, frameworks, and scholarship have been built around information literacy and libraries worldwide for over fifteen years. In academic libraries, information literacy experiences traditionally include instruction sessions and classes, activities in library learning spaces, and interactions with librarians. Often overlooked but equally as important to augmenting the student experience is employment in academic libraries and its relationship to information literacy in the workplace. This is particularly true with regards to the contribution of special collections and archives, as most scholarship associated with information literacy and special collections has been focused on instruction and teaching with primary sources.

Continue Reading →

How the University of Maryland Architecture Library Avoided Closure and Emerged as a Professional Library

In June 2014, the dean of libraries at the University of Maryland announced the libraries’ plan to close the architecture branch library over the summer due to permanent budget cuts that had been handed down from the state of Maryland. After many e-mail messages, a petition, phone calls, and letters, the dean of libraries gave the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation a reprieve of one semester to come up with some creative alternatives to closing. This article explores the process from announced closing to task force report and final decision.

Continue Reading →

Hands-on Learning in Special Collections: A Pilot Assessment Project

This study examined how hands-on work with original primary materials affects students’ information literacy and critical thinking skills. The project team developed rubrics to evaluate document analyses from before and after student time in special collections. Most scores did not vary significantly between the pre- and posttests, although students’ ability to analyze the materiality of documents did improve. They also examined papers from classes that had and had not used special collections against the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ information literacy rubric and found no significant differences. The authors hope this project will serve as a pilot for future assessment of student learning in special collections.

Continue Reading →

Growing the Art Image and Visual Literacy Garden: The Journey to Create a Practice Guide for Student Employees

Expanding upon my poster titled “Art Instead of Just Images: Training Students to See Beyond the Screen” presented at the 2016 ARLIS/NA + VRA Third Joint Conference in Seattle, I detail the current journey of my project to create a practical guide for student employees to understand and manipulate images of art.

Continue Reading →

From the Studio to the Archive: Art Students and Information Literacy Activities

The university archives are so often the domain of “dusty historians” or serve as a source for nostalgia to encourage potential donors. As any archivist will tell you, however, these collections are cabinets of curiosity for the 21st century, containing ephemera and visual material that span the course of the institution. Engaging students with these collections can promote information and visual literacy objectives, as well as encourage retention by strengthening personal connections to the university itself. This article explores two assignments designed for studio art students using the archival resources at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, and describes their results.

Continue Reading →

Describing Images: A Case Study of Visual Literacy and Information Science Students

This paper reports on a study that examined the development of pedagogical methods for increasing the visual literacy skills of a group of library and information science students. Through a series of three assignments, students were asked to provide descriptive information for a set of historical photographs and record reflections on their experiences via blog posts.

Continue Reading →

Audiovisual and Chill: An Evaluation of Video Digital Libraries and Catalogues

This research investigates how well video digital libraries and catalogues used in academic libraries meet user expectations. This is in the context of increasing use and demand for online audiovisual content by the wider community, as well as growing use of audiovisual materials for teaching, learning, and research at academic institutions. It also aims to give an understanding of how well libraries are meeting the challenges of delivering audiovisual materials to users in an on-demand world.

Continue Reading →

Words versus Pictures: Leveraging the Research on Visual Communication

Librarians, like many other occupations, tend to rely on text and underutilize graphics. Research on visual communication shows that pictures have a number of advantages over words. We can interact more effectively with colleagues and patrons by incorporating ideas from this research.

Continue Reading →

Visual Literacy Synthesized: A Content Analysis of Syllabi to Build a Better Visual Literacy Course

This paper implements a content analysis approach to examine syllabi of existing visual literacy and media literacy courses for themes that meet best practices as established by the ACRL standards. These themes have then been combined into a syllabus template representative of a course that will meet the commonly accepted needs of contemporary students in higher education. The template includes recommended readings and assignments.

Continue Reading →

Visual Literacy Practices in Higher Education

In our media-driven age visuals are increasingly frequent and prominently present in society and their importance and influence across academic disciplines is growing. This makes it essential to enable learners to become visually literate and justifies the need for teaching visual literacy competencies. Yet, there has been little research on visual literacy practices undertaken across academic subjects and institutions in higher education. Moreover, the key challenges and factors of success for achieving visual literacy education haven’t been studied to date. Accordingly, this research aimed to elucidate the issues most relevant to visual literacy and to identify practices undertaken by universities/ faculties and academic libraries. Explorative and descriptive research was conducted using literature analysis and an online questionnaire distributed to an international group of visual literacy practitioners.

Continue Reading →

Visual Literacy Meets Information Literacy: How Two Academic Librarians Combined Information Science and Design in Their Careers

The two authors of this chapter both worked in graphic design departments before obtaining their Master of Library & Information Science degrees, and subsequent professional positions in academic libraries. Framed within a context of visual literacy, this chapter describes each author’s experiences with graphic design and how the skills gained from those experiences lend themselves well to academic library outreach, instruction, web design, and archival work.

Continue Reading →

The “Eyes” Have It: A Digital Media Lab in an Academic Library

Multimedia design center, digital media lab, makerspace, scholars’ lab—there are many names for the ways that academic libraries are embracing a wider definition of the “library as space” concept, “where new and emerging information technologies can be combined with traditional knowledge resources in a user focused, service-rich environment that supports today’s social and educational patterns of learning, teaching, and research” (Freeman 2005, 3). While actively renovating and reinventing spaces for information/knowledge commons areas, the rationale for this movement is to provide an environment where students have access to equipment and space to experiment. The underpinning of this movement encompasses two key missions of academic libraries: to develop skills in information literacy and to encourage critical thinking among college students.

Continue Reading →

Teaching Visual Literacy Skills in a One-Shot Session

Just as one-shot information literacy sessions can be implemented in college classes to improve students’ research capabilities, similarly-styled sessions on image research can increase their visual literacy skills. The desired outcome of teaching an instructional session is to provide students with the tools and confidence they need to effectively use high-quality visual materials in their undergraduate years and beyond.

Continue Reading →