june08b.indd


Matthew
Reynolds
and
Dale
Sauter



Engaging undergraduates in special 
collections through English composition 
Collaborating
for
student
success



Special collections and archives in college libraries have long been intimidating to 
undergraduates. They are seen by many as 
the domain of expert researchers seeking 
knowledge of arcane subjects, poring over 
dusty tomes in the furthest reaches of the 
library. 

In an atmosphere of increasingly homo­
geneous general collections, it has been 
said that special collections holdings will be 
what sets academic libraries apart from one 
another. Because of this shift, it is becoming 
increasingly important for librarians to de­
mystify these collections and actively engage 
undergraduates in their use. Perhaps one of 
the most effective strategies to accomplish 
this feat is to collaborate with campus faculty 
to develop assignments that require students 
to use special collections materials. 

However, engaging undergraduates in 
this context comes with a unique set of 
challenges. Librarians must fi rst overcome 
their trepidation of using unfamiliar research 
materials. Though familiar with traditional 
sources, many have never used the types 
of materials normally found in a special 
collection, such as maps, manuscripts, or 
broadsides. They may have never been pre­
sented with the long list of rules inherent to 
the use of special collections materials, such 
as the prohibition of ink pens or the use of 
cotton gloves to handle fragile materials. Be­
ing familiar only with the library’s OPAC and 
a handful of databases as discovery tools, 
librarians may are also be apprehensive 

of using the diverse and specialized fi nd­
ing aids maintained by special collections 
departments. 

History of the program 
Our effort to develop a program to encour­
age undergraduates to use special collections 
materials began in 2001 as a joint project 
between the East Carolina University (ECU) 
Department of English and the Verona 
Joyner Langford North Carolina Collection. 
The assignment, given to second semester 
freshman English composition students, 
asks them to select an artifact from one of 
the collections that focuses on an aspect of 
North Carolina history and then to place it 
in its historical context. The artifacts used 
by students vary widely and reflect the di­
versity of departmental holdings, including 
rare books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, 
periodicals, and broadsides both in print and 
on microfilm. Once selected, the students 
then seek secondary sources that will help 
them to explain the significance of their 
selection. 

Originally, one of the goals of the project 
was merely to get students into the library 
itself as many, particularly undergraduates, 
rarely visit their campus libraries, preferring 

Matthew Reynolds is public services librarian in the 
Verona Joyner Langford North Carolina Collection, 
e-mail: reynoldsm@ecu.edu and Dale Sauter is curator 
of manuscripts in the Special Collections Department, 
e-mail: sauterd@ecu.edu at East Carolina University 
© 2008 Matthew Reynolds and Dale Sauter 

318C&RL News June 2008

mailto:sauterd@ecu.edu
mailto:reynoldsm@ecu.edu


to find most sources online. The reasons 
for this are numerous, but from fi rsthand 
conversations with students, it is believed 
that the root cause is intimidation concern­
ing the library itself. This includes worries 
about navigating the building and not un­
derstanding the organizational system for 
library holdings. The assignment combats 
these fears by requiring students to interact 
with library staff and to make them aware of 
the types of expert assistance that is avail­
able to them for one essay, but also for their 
continuing academic careers. It is also hoped 
that giving students early exposure to special 
collections will help them 
to develop solid research 
skills and engage them 
through resources that 
are available somewhere 
other than online. 

In addition, faculty 
members often state that 
m a n y  u n d e rg r a d u a t e  
students have diffi culty 
thinking both critically 
and analytically. This 
reality greatly infl uenced 
the structure and scope 
of the assignment. When 
students were allowed 
to simply choose a topic 
related to North Carolina 
history, they tended to 
merely gather informa­
tion and repackage it in 
their papers rather than 
engage in any sort of 
meaningful analysis. Having students focus 
on a particular artifact and then place it in 
its historical context encourages them to 
think critically about the focus of their work 
by considering such factors as when and 
why it was produced and for what type of 
intended audience. 

Processes 
The assignment begins to unfold early in the 
semester. Librarians from both Special Col­
lections and the North Carolina Collection 

This
flyer
for
a
1977
protest
in
Washington,

D.C.,
focusing
on
freeing
the
Wilmington

Ten
 from
 jail
 was
 used
 as
 an
 artifact
 for

a
 student
 assignment.
 Credit:
Verona
 Joyner

Langford
North
Carolina
Collection.


who coordinate the assignment meet with 
English instructors to give them an overview 
of the assignment and to answer any ques­
tions. This initial meeting is especially impor­
tant as most of the instructors are graduate 
teaching assistants and many are themselves 
unfamiliar with the types of resources that 
will be made available to their students. Most 
have a heavy workload, usually leading two 
sections of approximately 25 students each. 
This initial session includes an overview of 
the assignment, the types of materials that 
would be ideal for students to use, and in­
sight into how the bibliographic instruction 

sessions will unfold. It is 
hoped that by getting the 
instructors familiar with 
the assignment early in 
the semester, they will 
be able to better prepare 
students for their work 
before they even set foot 
in the library for their in­
structional sessions. 

The students usually 
attend separate instruc­
tional sessions for both 
the Special Collections 
and the North Carolina 
Collection. This is neces­
sary due to differences 
in both the holdings of 
the two collections and 
differences in the way 
they operate. Though 
ECU’s Special Collections 
contains special and rare 

materials and operates like a traditional spe­
cial collection, the North Carolina Collection 
differs in that it is a hybrid collection. This 
means that in addition to holding materials 
such as rare books, broadsides, and maps, 
it also holds a significant amount of circulat­
ing materials. 

Instructional sessions for the North 
Carolina Collection are held in one of the 
library’s two smart classrooms, which are 
equipped with digital projectors and com­
puters for each student to use. During the 

June 2008 
319
 C&RL News 



session, students are shown how to use the 
catalog to conduct targeted searches for not 
only their “artifact,” but also for the types 
of secondary sources that will help them 
put it into its historical context. In addition, 
they are shown in­house finding aids that 
are maintained by the department, such as 
the Guide to North Carolina Newspapers 
on Microfi lm and the North Carolina Peri­
odicals Index. They are also 

identify the artifact that they will be using 
and begin searching for secondary sources to 
establish the artifact’s context. Both depart­
ments schedule extra staff at their service 
desks to accommodate all of the students, 
normally numbering about 25. These ses­
sions, though sometimes hectic, are often 
the most fulfilling for library staff as they 
assist these novice researchers in their work. 

Students also have the op­
shown several examples of tion to request one­on­one 
artifacts that would be suit­ research consultations with 
able for the project and led a librarian for further as­
through an exercise using sistance. 
some of the resources they 
had been shown. The class Benefits of the 
is then taken on a short assignment 
tour of the North Carolina First and foremost, the 
Collection itself. assignment benefits the 

Instructional sessions students. This is most elo­
for Special Collections have quently explained by in­
traditionally been held in structor Adrienne Rea, who 
the department’s reading led her class in the assign­
room. During the session, ment during the spring 
students are taught the ba­ 2007 semester:
sic rules for using materials    The students who par­
and how to navigate their ticipate in using artifacts 
specialized finding aids, from Special CollectionsAnother
 artifact:
 This
 is
 the
 cover

introduced to the types of gain exposure to the use ofof
 a
 short
 chapbook
 produced
 by

holdings, and are shown maverick
North
Carolina
newspaper
 primary resources as a part 
a number of examples of publisher
 W.
 O.
 Saunders
 satirizing
 of the research process 
artifacts that would be suit­ some
 of
 the
 government’s
 efforts
 early on in their college 
able for their project. This is under
the
New
Deal.
Credit:
Verona
Joyner
 careers. They are able 

Langford
North
Carolina
Collection.accomplished through use to utilize these primary 
of a portable digital projector and a laptop sources for subjects that they may have 
computer. This setup is advantageous as it previously thought were “modern” or 
allows the students to actually experience “generationally unique.” They are also 
the location (one of the most beautiful given the opportunity to understand at a 
yet remote areas in the library) and gain a more personal level some of the historical 
level of comfort before they begin work in events they had studied before in high 
the collection itself. It also allows for the school classes. For some, it opens up an 
secure environment necessary to show the interest in some aspect of history that 
students examples of materials suitable for was previously nonexistent. For a few, it 
their assignment. draws them into considering the options 

Instructors often opt to hold a second of history, archaeology, or preservation as 
work session in either Special Collections career choices after their experiences with 
or the North Carolina Collection itself. these rare and unique pieces of history. 
These sessions give the students additional In fact, several award­winning papers 
supervised work time that will help them to have been produced by students complet­

320C&RL News June 2008



ing the assignment, including winners of 
the W. Keats Sparrow Award, which rec­
ognizes excellence in research and writing 
by students in the university’s English 1200 
composition classes. The most recent win­
ner, awarded in the spring of 2007, wrote a 
paper that used a handstitched bonnet as a 
springboard for a discussion on rural farm 
life in North Carolina. 

Other benefits have included a steep 
rise for both departments for each year that 
the assignment has been in place in terms 
of circulation statistics and the number of 
reference questions answered. The number 
of bibliographic sessions held and students 
reached by the assignment has risen, as well. 
During the 2006–07 academic year, the de­
partments hosted a combined 58 sections of 
English classes comprising more than 1,300 
students. As the sizes of incoming freshman 
classes continue to increase, there is no rea­
son to think that these numbers will decline 
in the foreseeable future. 

Problems encountered 
Though there have been relatively few 
problems with the assignment, several of 
them do warrant a mention. Perhaps the 
biggest problem is the nature of the collec­
tions used for the assignment itself. Many 
of the resources used by students are from 
rare collections and are fragile by nature. 
We have used two strategies to address this 
issue, including allowing students to take 
digital photographs of these materials and 
encouraging the use of materials featured 
in the Eastern North Carolina Digital Library 
(digital.lib.ecu.edu/historyfi ction/), which 
features over 500 digitized works, includ­
ing books, maps, and museum artifacts. 
The Digital Library is especially attractive 
to many students as they like the ability to 
access special materials at any time and in 
any place. 

There are also problems with stress in 
the collections. This is especially diffi cult 
in the North Carolina Collection, where 
some materials circulate. As the semester 
unfolds and more of the students begin 

their research, some find that their desired 
sources have already been checked out. We 
have attempted to alleviate this problem by 
acquiring second and even third copies of 
some of the most­requested materials. 

The other issue that we have encoun­
tered is a lack of space for bibliographic 
instruction. The Joyner library has only two 
instructional classrooms, which are shared 
among all of the library’s departments. This 
makes scheduling sessions exceedingly 
difficult. Instructors who do not contact 
library staff early in the semester often fi nd 
themselves unable to schedule sessions on 
a preferred date, proving frustrating to both 
instructors and library staff. As the likeli­
hood of acquiring additional instructional 
space is low, all that can be done is to try 
to impress on the instructors the necessity 
of contacting collection staff as early in the 
semester as possible. 

The future of the assignment 
There are several plans for the future of the 
assignment. The first is to continue to iden­
tify materials for digitization and inclusion 
within the Eastern North Carolina Digital 
Library to expand the available pool of on­
line special collections resources. 

There is also a need to develop a more 
effective assessment tool for instructional 
sessions. Though a simple online assess­
ment form is currently employed, student 
response to requests to fill out the form 
has been very low, and a new approach is 
necessary to generate feedback needed to 
improve the assignment. 

In addition, staff from the North Carolina 
Collection are currently constructing online 
tutorials using Camtasia software that will 
allow students to learn some of the skills 
currently taught in the instructional sessions 
at the time of their choosing and at their 
own pace. 

Despite the minor problems that we have 
encountered with this project, it is hoped 
that this type of assignment, designed by 
librarians and institutional faculty, can serve 
as a model for future collaborations. 

June 2008 
321
 C&RL News