Today I presented our library’s courses to our deans and rector at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. As head of the library I have been in charge of developing courses suitable to our students and research fellows’ needs (or at least, we think they are).
At the present, we offer 3 different courses:
- A mandatory Introduction Course
- Information Literacy 1: Academic Integrity
- Information Literacy 2: Different citation styles + Endnote
The curriculum is very much like the one being offered at other higher education libraries: Getting to know the library catalogue, collections, databases, copyright issues, plagiarism, citing other authors properly, and how to use different citation styles (APA, Harvard, Chicago, etc), plus how to use Endnote.
I have noticed that the students who write theoretical papers have improved their skills in these areas significantly after we started offering these courses. But what about those of our students (the majority) who write art texts, make art and design objects, and do not do “research” in the more traditional definition of the word: What do they need? Does the library manage to provide them with adequate courses, tailored to their specific needs?
These are just some reflections I’ve made today, so I decided to do a couple of quick searches to see whether there has been done any serious research on art students’ information literacy needs. (And, of course, there has!) Here are my first findings (to be studied later):
- AICAD. (2013). Information Literacy for Artists and Designers. [S.l.]: Canvas Network.
- ALA. (2015) Information Literacy in the Disciplines: Art. [Instruction Section Website].
- ARLIS UK & Ireland. (2013). Workshop: Getting Creative – Teaching Information Literacy to Art and Design Students. Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London, Monday 24th June.
- Badger, Ian. (2014). “Teaching Information Literacy in an Arts University“. In: REFER: Journal of the ISG, July 5.
- Brown, Jeanne, et al. (2007). Information Competencies for Students in Design Disciplines. Updated with additions July 2007. [S.l.]: Art Libraries Society of North America.
- Chappell, Duncan. (2009). “Information skills for art and design: the InfosmART project at the Glasgow School of Art Library“. Pp. 12-15. In: SCONUL Focus, 47.
- Hathaway, Andrea. (2012). Information Literacy for Art Majors: Conducting image research. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, School of Information Science, 2 February.
- Halverson, Aniko. (2008). “Confronting Information Literacy in an Academic Arts Library”. In: Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, 27(2), 34-38. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/27949493.
- Walczak, David A., Monica E. Reuter, Diane L. Sammet. (2009). “A Program for Introducing Information Literacy to Applied Art and Design Students“. Pp. 193-203. In: Communications in Information Literacy, 3(2).
Hanne Storm Ofteland 