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Using the Special Collections for Library Outreach

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Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors
Column by Cindy Frank

The University of Maryland’s Architecture Library, housed in the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, is lucky enough to have its own Special Collections room. However, for the past several years, it has been a hidden gem. The books were rarely requested and current faculty seemed unaware of the collections. The enthusiasm of a new graduate student employee caused me to re-visit the collection with an eye towards getting more of the School community in there.

The Special Collections consist of approximately 1,500 items, including eighteenth and nineteenth century oversize monographs, plates from Le Castel Beranger Oeuvre de Hector Guimard, small brochures on seventeenth century building techniques, and Josef Albers’ Interaction of Color study set.

The Special Collections room is climate controlled and many items are fragile, so we began by discussing logistics with the Maryland Libraries conservation team. The Head of Preservation was enthusiastic and brought one of her managers to visit, who happened to know the collection quite well. He was able to suggest certain monographs for display and volunteered to discuss the collection during the open house, as well as protect certain volumes from over-eager hands. We wanted visitors to be able to actually touch the books if they wished, so we chose several books that were sturdy enough to be handled, and displayed them separately from more fragile items.

The open house took place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, from 4:30 PM to 6 PM. The library closes to the public at 4 PM, and we intentionally limited the audience to the School and Library communities. An architecture student designed invitations, which were printed and placed in all faculty mailboxes. The event was advertised on the School’s Facebook page, and via printed posters in studio. Email invitations were sent to Libraries staff, as well as the School community.

The conservation staff and my students pulled out certain monographs, including DesGodetz’ Rendering of Antiquities that were displayed on top of the flat files within the Special Collections room. Other items of interest were brought out to the two large tables in the reading room of the library. We used foam wedges to support larger monographs, and acrylic cradles for smaller books. One table had books and plates that could be touched; the other table had Charles Garnier’s Le Nouvel Opera de Paris open to the section through the theatre. The Head of Conservation stood next to that monograph and turned pages when asked.

I am delighted to report that my campus library colleagues stopped by, and so did many faculty and students of the School. One of the architecture historians asked me for some scans of the plates of Paris shop fronts, for her Modern Architecture seminar. The architecture program Director asked if we would open the Special Collections room for the Spring open house. Another professor suggested we do this again based on a particular theme, for example: Ancient Rome, European Churches, or Colonial America. There is enough material to feature several unique holdings from the Collections. The majority of students who attended were in the architecture program, and they were quite excited to see oversize books with plans, sections and elevation drawings spread out.

The good will and enthusiasm has carried over the winter break into this semester. On the first day of class, one of the studio professors brought his students up to look at our Letarouilly 3-volume set. The open house reminded the faculty of the resource that they have down the hall as well; I am interested to see if there is an uptick in the number of items requested from the Special Collections during this semester. I highly recommend this type of event to get people into the library. Although it took some planning and coordination, the interest it generated was well worth the effort.

 

The Pidgeon Digital Archive

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Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors

Column by Barbara Opar

While online resources like streaming video are being increasingly integrated into architectural education, new content often becomes available and yet is not widely known. One such case is the Pidgeon Digital Archive. The Pidgeon series began as slide-tape lectures and was a mainstay of many schools of architecture and design in the 1980s.The online archive was launched in 2007 but not widely marketed to audiences in the U.S.

What is the Pidgeon Archive?  It is a resource started back in 1979 by Monica Pidgeon. Monica Pidgeon was once editor of both Architectural Design and RIBA Journal. As editor of AD from 1946 to 1975, Pidgeon was responsible for establishing AD as the preeminent journal of architectural ideas. When she retired, Pidgeon decided to create and distribute a series of slide-tape sets in which architects and designers talked about their work. Since being recorded, major figures like Buckminster Fuller, Philip Johnson, the Smithsons and James Stirling have died.  As Peter Murray, her successor, states in the March-April 2010 issue of Architectural Design: “The complete archive is not only a testament to Monica’s wide-ranging enthusiasm for architects and architecture, it brings to life a whole generation of architects and their thinking in a way that the printed media cannot. (p.109). The original series consisted of 200 half hour lectures and Murray began digitizing them at the rate of 60 a year. His next step was to add new material, so Renzo Piano was recorded. The greats of the past and the images they selected to showcase their work now appear alongside major figures in contemporary architecture like Frank Gehry, recorded both in 1981 and 1997.

The Pidgeon Archive lectures are clear and the images synchronized to move along with the talk. Content can be sorted by speaker, talk title and year recorded. In 1955, the likes of Walter Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Richard Neutra were all recorded. You can also hear Reyner Banham talk about the importance of Buffalo’s grain elevators (1982) or a 2015 lecture by Norman Foster on why he became personally involved in work at the Chateau Margaux.

It is worth exploring the Pidgeon Digital Archive which like resources such as Kanopy and On Architecture can only add to your student’s understanding of the world of architecture.

 

The Changing World of the E-book

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Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors

Column by Barbara Opar, Syracuse University Libraries

Love them or lump them? How do you feel about e-books in architectural libraries? VOTE HERE

Odds are some of you have reservations. But let’s take another look at the e-book in the academic architecture library.  E-books have been part of library collections for almost two decades, but in many quarters there is still confusion about them. Librarians in arts-related disciplines are sometimes reluctant to select e-only content. Will the user be able to access the title easily? Will they stop coming into the library? Users are troubled by the inherent inconsistency. But for good or bad, e-books are here to stay. In most arts libraries, we will continue to live in a parallel universe and the physical book will be purchased and used alongside the e-format. However, strides have been made in e-book production and we must look to the benefits of 24/7 accessibility while reminding ourselves of the inconsistencies across platforms.

E-book has become an umbrella term and is often applied to the contents of any book accessible in electronic form. In academic libraries, e-text is a more appropriate term. Students and faculty today do not routinely use devices like the Kindle or Nook to access materials provided by their institutions.

The e-text revolution began with Project Gutenberg in 1971. The often told tale has Michael Hart keying the text of the Declaration of Independence into a mainframe computer at the University of Illinois. Hart’s initial vision was to create a library of 10,000 public domain titles. That goal was reached in 2003. As time passed, Hart turned to different delivery options like Adobe Acrobat. The concept of the e-text changed too.  Initial collaborative efforts of an altruistic nature were overshadowed by commercial ventures.

It is, however, these commercial ventures which have made the difference in the number and expanded selection of architectural titles available to libraries. While librarians have chosen and will continue to add individual e-book titles to the collections for which they are responsible, the enhanced access to e-content has largely come through commercial vendor packages. Humanities oriented and science related vendors have created packages of e titles available to libraries on a subscription or purchase basis. The cost of subscriptions varies and is determined by a number of factors including consortial arrangements, FTE, and even the number of other vendor products held by the institution. The cost of purchase can often be spread out over several years. Most often large packages are held for ‘end of year’ fund availability.

For libraries then, one benefit is the ease of purchase. They are able to add extensive content without individual selection. Cost per title is also under market. A library without strong holdings with respect to sustainability can quickly build a collection.

Who are the vendors? JSTOR, one of the strongest humanities e-journal content providers, has added books to its holdings. Like their e-journal content, the text is high resolution, displays well, and the platform is easy to use. The fields of architectural, landscape and planning history are well represented. Architectural guidebooks, studies of masterworks, and monographs on architects make up the majority of content A few titles from the 1970s are included, with the bulk of the texts having imprints from the last decade. Titles include:  AIA Guide to Chicago (2014), American Architects and their Books 1840-1915 (2007), Creating Medieval Cairo (2008), Design after Decline: How America Rebuilds Shrinking Cities (2012), Hijacking Sustainability (2009), Hitler’s Berlin: Abused City (2012), and Making Suburbia: New Histories of Everyday America (2015).

Similar content is available from the ACLS Humanities site sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies and the University of Michigan Library. Alberto Perez Gomez’ Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (1983), FLO, a Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted (1983) and The Horace’s Villa Project (2006) are some of the titles included in this package.  A table of contents allows for easy selection of content. Book reviews are included.

Another e-content provider is Ebrary. Constructing a New Agenda: Architectural Theory, 1993-2010 (2010) by A. Krista Sykes, and Harry Francis Mallgrave’s important anthology- Architectural Theory: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870 (2005) are hosted here. But Ebrary also includes the 11th edition of Architectural Graphic Standards. This collection then contains titles core to the discipline. The titles are available for download or online reading. The number of simultaneous users is often limited and capped by the vendor.

An especially well-rounded collection of architecture titles comes from EBSCO. EBSCO’s content spans the entire field of architecture and its related bodies of knowledge. The collection is rich in design related resources like Designing Interior Architecture: Concept, Typology, Material, Construction (2013), Digital Workflows in Architecture: Design-Assembly-Industry (2012) and Solar Architecture: Strategies, Visions, Concepts (2012).  The Sociology of Architecture: Constructing Identities (2011) and The Globalization of Modern Architecture: The Impact of Politics, Economics, and Social Change on Architecture and Urban Design since 1990 (2012) are among those works dealing with architecture and society. But theory and history have not been left out. The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, Pier Vittorio Aureli’s important work from 2011 and Alan Colquhoun’s Modern Architecture (2002) are included in this database of significant and sought after works.

There are also any number of publisher collections which focus on specific aspects of the discipline. Early American Imprints, Early English Books Online, Early European Books and Eighteenth Century Collections provide access to an extensive corpus of architectural treatises and pattern books.

Books 24/7, Credo Reference and Sage Knowledge are among other sources of e-content. Books 24/7 has rich content with respect to all aspects of sustainability. Credo Reference includes titles like 100 Ideas that Changed Architecture. Sage Knowledge is an important provider of sociological content. For engineering related resources, Knovel and Springer are key content providers. A recent Springer addition is Architectural Design: Conception and Specification of Interactive Systems (2016)

So solid architectural content is definitely available online. Are there downsides? Yes, as with   any technology. Content display varies among vendors. The ability to go back and forth between individual chapters is difficult. Downloading issues exist. Limits on printing are problematic and vary across vendor platforms. In some packages, books are actually checked out. Until recently, many e-books were published well after the print title, necessitating either a waiting period or duplication of content. This is however changing and more titles are coming out simultaneously in print and e version.

E-books will only grow in importance. The benefits?  24/7 access as has been noted. The ability to easily provide multiple copies of a title is key for libraries. Faculty can also embed content links in course management software such as Blackboard.

But it is the strong content that should be the deciding factor. If a library has a number of packages as outlined above they can truly support distance education. Course reserves become easier to both process and access. For many courses or research topics, the patron can do most of their library work at anytime and anywhere. But remember that it is the library that makes all of this possible.

Material Order: Building Collections and Creating Community

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Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors


Column by Mark Pompelia, Visual and Material Resource Librarian, Rhode Island School of Design

Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s Frances Loeb Library (GSD) and Rhode Island School of Design’s Fleet Library (RISD) announce the launch of a consortium of libraries with materials collections. Responding to expressed need for material description and access in an open source environment, Material Order provides a shared cataloging utility and collection management system, as well as a framework for a growing community.

The partnership began in 2011 to pursue a shared cataloging and search system. In 2012, RISD received a National Forum grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to organize an international symposium that clarified the fundamental issues and challenges, formulated solutions, and promoted the role of libraries in serving material collection curricular and research needs of faculty and students in art, architecture, and design disciplines.

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries, held in June 2013 at RISD, assembled a roster of international keynote speakers, funded fifteen participant librarians and directors from stakeholder institutions, and ultimately gathered nearly one hundred attendees for a multi-day and multi-format event, including a workshop for over forty librarians. Speakers, participants, and attendees all communicated the growing need for students in art and design programs to become better educated when selecting and using materials in projects.

Wide acknowledgment of the absence of a resource for material classification and description in design-related fields, unlike those found in materials science and engineering, fueled the conversation further. The existence of such consensus provided the basis for an emerging community—loosely knit but united around a common development: libraries supporting art and design programs are developing collections of material samples in order to support the curriculum and research in their institutions.

The GSD-RISD materials database project team was introduced to CollectionSpace (CS), part of the LYRASIS family of platforms, at a June 2015 meeting at Harvard University that included the Materials Collection at the GSD library. With its strong and proven experience in developing management platforms for object-based collections, CollectionSpace was selected as the right partner for further defining and developing this project to completion.

CS staff and GSD-RISD project team members conducted frequent group teleconferencing meetings to examine CS functionality for the materials database and for development of a consortium of materials collections. CS staff reviewed the GSD-RISD -derived database schema and gained a thorough understanding of the project as both shared and local implementations. With that clarity and the experience of other CS client projects, CS staff re-purposed a sizable portion of existing programming to be redeployed for Material Order.

Material Order’s shared cataloging utility is cloud -hosted and -accessed by multiple institutions, which will facilitate the larger goal of building the consortium. Both GSD and RISD have recently launched the full database and are beginning to use it. At the same time, GSD-RISD are defining and developing foundational and guiding policies, procedures, and documents to establish and sustain the use of a shared database.

This current academic year will offer a concentrated outreach effort including both broad and targeted communication and presentations on the features, benefits, and operation of Material Order, which include the use of the cataloging tool and its authorities, resource creation, and community development. In an effort to expand the consortium, we will be contacting institutions that have previously expressed interest in the database development and will be offering recorded and live demonstrations of the system through the year. We will also be attending conferences through the year to network with colleagues and that will support development of the consortium.

Going Global: Using an Institutional Repository to Give Local Documents a New Life

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Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors

Column by Leslie Mathews, Head, Art + Architecture Library, Virginia Tech

Assessing the Art + Architecture Library collections this summer, I came across some unique items from Virginia Tech’s Community Design Assistance Center (CDAC), a research and outreach center within the College of Architecture and Urban Studies. The Center, located in downtown Blacksburg, provides underserved communities in southwest Virginia with low-cost planning and design assistance while providing students with an opportunity to get paid to work on conceptual plans for real projects. The Center produces spiral bound print publications of conceptual designs created for their clients. Because of their ungainly spiral bindings and potentially low usage I initially considered these items candidates for remote storage. However, after looking into circulation statistics, I found many had significant circulation. Looking more closely at the reports, I found this was a unique collection, relevant to students and locals interested in design for green spaces and urban renewal. I wanted to showcase these unique, local, and highly visual items while simultaneously promoting the valuable work of the Center. I immediately thought of digitizing these items, or making the already digital versions available online, since the Center has been continuously producing reports since 1988.

I reached out to Director of CDAC Elizabeth Gilboy to ask if she had digital copies and if she would like them to be made available online. She was happy to respond yes to both questions and I have now begun the work of adding the documents to our digital institutional repository, VTechWorks, which is crawled by Google and public to the world. At VT Libraries, our dedicated staff works directly with clients to facilitate the loading of data into VTechWorks. This process allowed me to hand off the CDAC account to our Repository Collections Specialist, Melissa Lohrey, who is working with CDAC to extract the necessary data, load it into VTechWorks, and add the appropriate metadata. This allows VT librarians to promote the service as a streamlined process that is advantageous to scholars and others affiliated with VT who want their information not only to be available, but also highly searchable and findable. The documents will also be discoverable as PDFs, Word Documents and a variety of other formats through our iteration of Shared Shelf within the Artstor database.

Now the reports are publicly available online, CDAC can further outreach efforts to potential clients and grant making authorities while inspiring others to do similar work or perhaps provide the impetus other groups need to make a case for urban renewal. Based on statistics tracking views and downloads at the city level, I have been surprised by the level of international interest. Several reports have been viewed in Canada, France, Germany, Australia, and Iran as well as cities from across the United States.

To see the CDAC page on VTechWorks, go to http://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/71429. Note that usage statistics are publicly viewable from the last link on the lower right hand column.

Revealing the Hidden Beauty of Artists' Books Through Events and a Virtual Catalog

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Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors

Column by David Eifler and Molly Rose, University of California, Berkeley

Academic Arts and Architecture libraries have long collected artists’ books for their intellectual and artifactual value. Yet, many of these  works remain concealed in special collection vaults with  their beauty undiscoverable behind arcane bibliographic records.  Traditional exhibits put them on display, but only reveal at best a few facets of their meaning, visual and tactile elements.

UC Berkeley’s Environmental Design Library began collecting artists’ books in earnest 15 years ago under the direction of then head librarian Elizabeth Byrne.  Using endowment funds provided by faculty and other visionary donors, our librarians have selected 5-15 works each year to enhance  our collection on the built environment: architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning.  Now numbering nearly 250 works, the Environmental Design Library’s artist book collection is visually stunning and represents the work of a diverse array of artists from within and outside the United States.  Given that many artists books are created to entice viewers to touch, turn pages and interact with the pieces, we have tried a number of ways to make these more accessible to our faculty and student patrons.  Stored in our rare book vault for reasons of security and preservation, patrons can request individual titles from our reference desk Monday – Friday from 1-5.  However, requesting these materials requires that patrons  are able to identify the work based on the bibliographic information provided in our catalog, which often does not do justice to the visual aspects and content of each piece.

Therefore, to better publicize their existence, two exhibitions were organized: one in 2011 and another in 2014.  The Environmental Design Library’s  beautiful glass exhibit cases provided a perfect venue to view the works and pages we’d selected to display, but we frequently heard visitors talk about how they wished they could interact with the artists books in their entirety.


One of four display panels of artists’ books in our exhibit Design Book Art 2 in the winter of 2014.

 

Alex Selenitsch notes, “Typically, an artist’s book is a work that becomes evident as you hold it, open it up, go back and forth and then close it up again.  Often there is a controlled narrative built into the physicality of the book, so that size, weight, texture, stiffness and binding are foregrounded.  Nearly always a tangible experience of the book is necessary to absorb it totally.”  (Selenitsch, Alex, and National Gallery of Australia. Australian Artists Books. National Gallery of Australia, 2008.)

Our desire to provide that tangible experience led us and two university staff colleagues (Lauri Twitchell is a book artist working in the Landscape Architecture Department and Jennifer Osgood an artists’ book aficionado working in another campus library), to hold our first “Hands On: An Evening with Artists’ Books” event in August, 2015.  From 4-6 PM on a Friday we displayed 17 artists’ books on tables for guests to physically explore.  To foster a relaxed, convivial atmosphere we provided refreshments and encouraged students, faculty, community members, and library staff to come to the event as a way to start  their weekends.  The event was a success, mixing 35 artists’ book devotees and as well as interested faculty, students and library colleagues and administrators.

Visitors enjoying the tactile experience of our first Hands On artists’ book event, August 2015.

Two months later we held “Hands On-2” and publicized our artists’ book collection on our website with a LibGuide that included images of the works we would have at the event.  Incorporating static images of the artist’s books into an online guide made them more identifiable and memorable for library staff and patrons and we decided to expand the LibGuide to include images of the works being shown in our three subsequent events. We quickly realized we could unveil our entire artists’ book collection by providing images of each work in an “all artists books” tab and distribute it to faculty and interested patrons. In this way, we’ve created a comprehensive visual guide to our artists’ book collection supplemented by periodic in-house events that encourage  patrons to experience the works the way they were intended — first hand.

Current LibGuide of all artists’ books in UC Berkeley’s Environmental Design Library

We’ll continue to hold Friday afternoon “hands on” events twice a semester and will update our LibGuide as we’re able to expand our artists’ book collection.  Our hope is that faculty will find ways to incorporate artists’ books into their courses on design and structure, and that university and community patrons will increasingly request to handle the books at our reference desk based on what they’ve seen online.  These artistic works are too beautiful to hide behind glass cases or bland bibliographic records and we keep looking for new ways to share them.

* * * *

David Eifler is the Environmental Design Librarian and Molly Rose the Environmental Design Library Circulation Supervisor at the University of California, Berkeley.

 

How to Manage Your Online Scholarly Identity

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Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors

Column by Anne E. Rauh, Science & Engineering Librarian, Syracuse University Libraries

What is the first thing you do when you receive an announcement about a speaker or a new colleague joining your institution? Do you want to find out more? I know I do. What happens when you search for yourself online? Do you discover old webpages listing outdated works and previous employers, or a true reflection of you and your work? Today a number of mostly free tools are available to collect and present accurate up-to-date information about scholarly identity.

When librarians and faculty ask me what they can do to curate their online profiles, the first tool I recommend is LinkedIn. With more than 400 million members in 200 countries worldwide, Linkedin allows you to create connections that represent your real-world professional relationships while expanding your network. Although largely a business-oriented social networking tool, Linkedin can serve academics too. Whether interacting with architecture firms, seeking to place students in internships, following alumni as they progress through their careers, or looking to find out more about publishers and material vendors, LinkedIn can help. An established network can help you find employment opportunities, recruit candidates, identify collaborators, highlight achievements, and notify colleagues and peers of job changes and other achievements. However, while LinkedIn does highlight academic work, scholarly identity is not the main focus. For that the internet offers some more specialized tools.

My top recommendation for a tool to profile scholarly work is Google Scholar Citations. This feature of Google Scholar requires very little effort and after initial set up, automatically populates a scholar’s profile with their citations. After logging in using your Google account information and verifying the publications Google Scholar has located are in fact yours, you can add affiliation information and keywords about research interests to enrich your profile. If publications are not automatically populated they can be added manually. Profiles update automatically or can be moderated as new works are published. In addition to a list of publications, Google Scholar Citations shows metrics such as h-index and total number of citations. These profile pages are easily found when searching in Google Scholar.

Scholarly communication practices are changing with websites integrating scholarly publishing and social networking. This does promote interaction and sharing of scholarly materials. Referrals from social media aid in discovery. Two widely used academic social networking tools are Academia.edu and ResearchGate. Academia.edu boasts more than 39 million members and ResearchGate claims over 10 million. Academia.edu users come from all disciplines while the majority of ResearchGate users are from the health and life sciences. Despite its name, Academia.edu is not an institution of higher learning or a consortium of academic institutions but rather a domain name registered before restrictions were placed on the use of ‘edu’. ResearchGate is the largest academic social networking site and does require a referral or institutional affiliation which can be verified. Both tools encourage authors to upload papers and share within their network. Users can also request that authors upload and share papers not currently available. When papers are uploaded, they are attributed and a profile is created showcasing all the authors’ works.

Both tools have received a fair amount of criticism from user communities. Users of ResearchGate complain about the number of system-generated notification emails. Whenever a paper is uploaded, an automatic email is sent to co-authors inviting them to use the tool. ResearchGate has also  been criticized for how it calculates journal impact as well as its auto-generation of author profiles  Both tools are frequently confused for open access repositories and do not fulfill institutional or funding agency requirements to share work. Both sites also encourage authors to disregard copyright agreements, something that publishers are not ignoring. If you are interested in what you as an author can do to retain copyright, see AASL’s October 2015 column post by Amy Dygert.

Your institution may also have solutions to help manage online scholarly identity. At Syracuse University, we have SelectedWorks and Experts@Syracuse. SelectedWorks is a feature of SURFACE, our institutional repository, hosted by Digital Commons. This feature allows authors to profile their work in an organizational format that works for them. It links to content hosted in the institutional repository and allows for uploading and linking of additional content. Experts@Syracuse is driven by Elsevier’s Pure. It connects to Scopus author profiles, and local information such as appointments and grant information is added by the institution. Ask your library or research office if there are similar offerings at your institution.

If you are curious what any of these look like in action, I maintain the following sites:

 

 

CATTt: An Anti-Method for Architectural Research

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Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors

Column by Cathryn Copper, Woodbury University, School of Architecture, San Diego, CA

In the early 1990’s, when the Internet became easily accessible, Gregory L. Ulmer, Professor of English at the University of Florida, Gainesville, set forth new methods for conducting research and academic writing in an age of electronic hypermedia in his book Heuretics: The Logic of Invention.

His method, or anti-method, is an artistic experiment. Ulmer states that all the art (and architecture) that has been created is only a small portion of what could have been.[1] Thus, Ulmer’s method demands the researcher stretch their imagination. If the researcher can let go of structure, then the mental experience will lead to invention. Professors of architecture have embraced Ulmer’s method to help students develop research topics, primarily at the thesis level.[2] 

The method—known as CATTt—requires the researcher to create multi-level arguments. This is achieved through five progressions.

C         =          Contrast (opposition, inversion, differentiation)

A         =          Analogy (figuration, displacement)

T         =          Theory (repetition, literalization)

T         =          Target (application, purpose)

t           =          tale (secondary elaboration, representability)

Ulmer refers to CATTt as an anti-method, however the anti-method indirectly reflects some of the information literacy methods librarians are repeatedly challenged to communicate to architecture students.

Contrast is at the core of a good research argument. The intention is to investigate alternative viewpoints. Marc J. Neveu, in his lecture Theses for a Thesis, elaborates that contrast is a reaction to something and your position must constantly be in flux.[3] When the researcher plays devil’s advocate, their mentality shifts. At a fundamental level, librarians instruct students to evaluate various perspectives to draw attention to potential bias and accurately represent the research topic. Ulmer challenges the researcher to do the same, but with a more momentous reason, because when the mentality shift happens new ideas come to fruition. Consequently, it can be argued that this is what librarians have been encouraging through information literacy.

Analogy requires the researcher to borrow thoughts from other disciplines.[4] Ulmer states that analogy is where method becomes invention.[5] Libraries encourage this through multidisciplinary databases and curated collections. However, librarians can become stronger advocates of analogy by teaching by example. We sit at the center of an intertangled web of university departments that provides ideal opportunities to collaborate across disciplines. Ulmer suggests researchers look outside their disciplines to nurture progressive thinking. For example, architecture librarians could do this by borrowing the idea of design thinking from our architecture colleagues to solve problems and generate new initiates.[6]

Theory is the obligation to fundamental research that librarians crave. Ulmer’s formula recognizes that it takes theory to make theory and that an academic researcher is part of a scholarly conversation. To join the world of academic research one must reference back to clearly established notions.[7] Accordingly, this is one of the six newly adopted frames in the Association of College & Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.[8]

Target is the audience for the research. This is an information literacy concept librarians communicate frequently to help students identify the purpose of the potential resource and the appropriate output format.

Finally, is tale or the cat’s tail/tale.[9] This is the representation of the research, and according to Neveu the aspect architecture students struggle with most.[10] At this point, the research project leaves the library and relocates to the studio where students make an effort to translate their ideas into drawings.

Ultimately, Ulmer’s pedagogy lets go of the nonsensical structure that one should have a thesis first before beginning to research.[11] Instead, CATTt demands the student conduct research in order to develop a topic. Librarians preach concepts like reviewing a list of references and developing a search vocabulary for this exact reason (and then some). One obvious semi-flaw in Ulmer’s method is that he implies that the researcher is not necessarily looking for accurate information.[12] He argues it is more important for the researcher to learn to make interdisciplinary connections—something librarians teach through tools like concept mapping, in addition to finding accurate information.

Seemingly, librarians have unintentionally embraced Ulmer’s concepts through aspects of information literacy instruction. I would argue that this connection should be more intentional. The discipline of librarianship is so rooted in structure that opportunities to nurture creativity are often missed. Creativity does not just happen in the studio. Architecture librarians have the obligation to inspire students and faculty through information. Why not take it one step further and incorporate the CATTt method into information literacy instruction? Working with architecture faculty to gain insight into the mindset of their students, architecture librarians could employ the CATTt method to help students think about research in a whole new way. Architecture faculty would then be able to better link library instruction to student learning outcomes and the finished design project. After all, if we let go of structure, and look at a topic critically through a new lens, according to Ulmer it will lead to something influential.

 

[1] Gregory L. Ulmer, Heuretics: The Logic of Invention (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 3.

[2] Marc J. Neveu, “Theses for a Thesis” (lecture, Hammons School of Architecture, Drury University, Springfield, MO, November 1, 2008).

[3] Marc J. Neveu, “Theses for a Thesis” (lecture, Hammons School of Architecture, Drury University, Springfield, MO, November 1, 2008).

[4] Marc J. Neveu, “Theses for a Thesis” (lecture, Hammons School of Architecture, Drury University, Springfield, MO, November 1, 2008).

[5] Gregory L. Ulmer, Heuretics: The Logic of Invention (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 8.

[6] IDEO, “Design Thinking for Libraries,” Global Libraries. December 31, 2014, http://designthinkingforlibraries.com/.

[7] Marc J. Neveu, “Theses for a Thesis” (lecture, Hammons School of Architecture, Drury University, Springfield, MO, November 1, 2008).

[8] ACRL, “Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education,” January 11, 2016, http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework.

[9] Gregory L. Ulmer, Heuretics: The Logic of Invention (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 9.

[10] Marc J. Neveu, “Theses for a Thesis” (lecture, Hammons School of Architecture, Drury University, Springfield, MO, November 1, 2008).

[11] Jacob T. Riley, “The CATTt Method: In Defense of Heuretic Pedagogy,” http://jtriley-dragline.blogspot.com/p/introduction-to-catttheuretics.html.

[12] Jacob T. Riley, “The CATTt Method: In Defense of Heuretic Pedagogy,” http://jtriley-dragline.blogspot.com/p/introduction-to-catttheuretics.html.

Music in the Library

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Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors


Column by Maya Gervits, Director of the Barbara & Leonard Littman Library, College of Architecture & Design, New Jersey Institute of Technology

According to a recent Andrew Mellon Foundation report, many academic institutions are now investigating partnerships between the arts and other academic disciplines to foster connections between them [1]. During these discussions, music has received special attention. It has been proven that musical compositions can inspire higher brain functioning and unlock creativity [2]. Albert Einstein, who credited some of his discoveries to musical perception, believed that music is the driving force behind intuition. Links between music and spatial-temporal skills, those important in solving problems, have been discovered by neuroscientists. Mozart and Vivaldi effects [3] are discussed in scientific journals. There are many associations to be found between music and architecture, music and visual arts, and design. They have been discussed over the centuries and were part of the reasoning behind the Littman Library’s attempt to engage students in the College of Architecture and Design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in further exploration of these connections by hosting musical events.

The relationship between architecture and music is well documented. Leon Battista Alberti believed that the same characteristics that please the eye also please the ear. Palladio echoed this by noticing that, “the proportions of the voices are harmonies for the ears; those of the measurements are harmonies for the eyes. Such harmonies usually please very much without anyone knowing why, excepting the student of the causality of things”. [4]  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe called architecture the “frozen music,” while 19th century art critic Walter Pater came to the conclusion that “all art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.”  We discuss rhythm, proportion, and ornamentation in both music and visual arts, and search for harmony between them.

Typically associated with German Romantics, the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk described as a complete, unified, or as it often referred to, a “total work of art”, was formulated in 1849 in Richard Wagner’s “Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft“ ( “The Artwork of the Future” ). Although, Hans Sedlmayr insisted that it existed long before that time [5]. Initially related to the synthesis of  arts in opera, it also has been manifested in Charles Baudelaire and
Stéphane Mallarmé’s poetry, Josef Hoffmann’s and Joseph Maria Olbrich’s architecture, James McNeil Whistler’s paintings, Sergei Diagilev’s ballet, and Alexander Skriabin’s musical compositions. The 20th century provided more tools to rethink the boundaries between the visual and musical. Creation of the “total work of art” was the ultimate goal of the Bauhaus program and the cornerstone of their educational system. Oscar Schlemmer’s “Triadisches Ballett” and Wassily Kandinsky’s experimental performances, rooted in his synesthesia (ability to see sounds), are just two of several Bauhaus projects created as an interplay of music, dance, and painting. “Poème électronique” and “Philips Pavilion” at Expo 58 – collaborative works by Edgard Varèse, Le Corbusier, and Iannis Xenakis, which combined electronic music, projections, and architecture, also came into existence with the purpose of creating a “total work of art.”

Understanding the idea of the “total work of art” can be an important lesson for students and, recently, more attention has been drawn to it. Gesamtkunstwerk has once again become a subject of numerous discussions, proving that this idea is still relevant. The exhibition, “Der Hang zum Gesamtkunstwerk” in Kunsthaus Zurich (1983) and in Vienna (1984), a recreation and performance of Skriabin’s “Prometheus” at Yale University (2010), and the latest collection of essays, “The Death and Life of the Total Work of Art,” presented at the Bauhaus Colloquium in 2013, highlight the historic meaning of the term, and apply it to more recent events and works. Technological advancements provide the tools that allow for the creation of immersive artistic experiences, which remove “the borderline between object and observer, stage and audience, art work and spectator,” [6] and create projects that can be considered a “total work of art” of the 21st century. Although some of its political implications have been criticized, the idea of aesthetic unity of all the arts and their “wholeness” deserves attention, even if only for the purpose of providing students with more well-rounded educations that help to contextualize what they learn at school. Building on these ideas, in the spring of 2015, the Littman Library at the College of Architecture and Design at NJIT began “Music in the Library,” a series of concerts performed by the Montclair Trio [7] – musicians affiliated with the John J. Cali School of Music at the Montclair State University.

Although open to the whole university community, the concerts are mostly focused on the needs of the College of Architecture and Design population. The concert series directly supports several courses, including “Music for Designers,” which is focused on the theory and history of music, its relation to culture, and its use in cinema, digital and interactive media. Each concert is accompanied by a short lecture and PowerPoint presentation related to the theme of a concert, providing context as well as background information. Students design posters advertising the series. A book exhibition further enhances each event. The collaboration with musicians–a group of talented and dedicated educators–helps to develop programs that are both popular and educational. These events take place in an intimate “chamber-like” environment of the college Library which is located in the physical center of the building. Folding chairs that can be easily assembled form an auditorium. The Library remains open and fully functional during these events, which usually take place at night. Light refreshments help to create a pleasant and relaxing atmosphere. Free of charge, funded and supported by the college administration and alumni, these concerts have become popular and well attended. They help to alleviate stress, expand students’ horizons, improve their exposure to music, link performed musical compositions to the subjects of study in classes and studio, provide a historical context, and establish the Library as a place which can provide cultural and educational opportunities, often not possible within a curricular setting.

 

 

[1] https://mellon.org/about/annual-reports/2014-presidents-report/#higher-education

[2] E. Glenn Schellenberg Music and Cognitive Abilities in Current Directions in Psychological Science, v.14,n.6,2005.p317-320; R. Root-Bernstein Music, Creativity and Scientific Thinking Leonardo, v.34,n.1,2001,pp63-68

[3] K.Nantais and G.Schellenberg The Mozart Effect: an artifact of Preference. Psychological Science, July 1999.v.10,n4,pp370-373; L.Riby The joys of spring: Changes in Mental Alertness and brain functions Experimental psychology, vol. 60, 2013,p.71-79.

[4] M. Trachtenberg  ”Architecture and Music Reunited: a New Reading of Dufay’s Nuper  Rosarum Flores and the Cathedral of Florence” in Renaissance Quarterly, is.54,2001,p, 740.

[5] Hans Sedlmayr Der Verlust der Mitte: Die bildende Kunst des 19 und 20 Jahrhunderts als Symptoms und Symbol der Zeit. Frankfurt am Mein, 1985.

[6] .Hans Ulrich Reck  Immersive environment: the Gesamtkunstwerk of the 21st century? At: http://www.khm.de/kmw/reck/essays-ecrits-writings-saggi-ensayos/english/immersive-environments-the-gesamtkunstwerk-of-the-21-century/

[7] Montclair trio – Robert Radliff, Aurora Mendez and Paul Vanderwall

Landscape Architecture Students Play With Legos to Learn About the Library

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Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, Column editors

Column by Megan Lotts, Art Librarian
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

One of the most interesting aspects of the Art Library Lego Playing Station is coming into the library each day to see what has transpired at the table.  Some days it appears a group of grubby young children have been let loose at the table and Legos are strewn everywhere, including the floor. Other days I find elaborate models that tell stories about the students, their lives, their imaginations, and their dreams” (Lotts, 2015).

When I started the Art Library Lego playing Station in 2014 at the Rutgers University Art Library, located in the heart of New Brunswick, New Jersey, I was looking for ways to connect with the departments with whom I am a library liaison.  I wanted to form deeper connections with the Landscape Architecture and Mason Gross Visual Arts, departments that are located a 15-30 minute walk from the Art Library.  Coming from a background in Art & Design, I was concerned that these students did not know or understand the value that the library has to their education I also wanted to learn more about who the students, faculty, and staff are in these departments and how the library could best support these individuals.

Shortly after installing the Lego Playing Station, I contacted the Chair of the Landscape Architecture Department, Dr. Laura Lawson. After a brainstorming session we came up with an active learning assignment for her Environmental Design Analysis course that would incorporate the Art Library Lego Playing Station, and get her students into the library in person.  The objective of the assignment was to introduce 100 incoming freshmen in the Landscape Architecture program to me (their library liaison), the Art Library Lego Playing Station, and the resources Rutgers University Libraries have to offer.

In September 2014, I was introduced to the EDA course and gave a 30-minute lecture that included a conceptual overview of the physical space of the art library, the resources available, an overview of the Art Library Research Guides, and an introduction to the Art Library Lego Playing Station (Lotts, 2015). Following my presentation Dr. Lawson introduced the assignment to the students and explained what would be required of them.  Within days the Art Library Lego Playing Station saw an enormous increase in play and models made.  Figure 1 shows 4 students working together to create a model for their assignment.

Figure 1  Students from Landscape Architecture EDA course.  Photo credit:  Megan Lotts

Since this collaboration with Dr. Lawson and her EDA course I have seen an increase in reference questions from the Landscape Architecture students and a decrease in my office candy supply.  I have learned more about the needs of the LA department and now hold weekly office hours in the Blake Hall lobby, where the department resides.  This gives students, faculty, and staff an opportunity to see me in person each week to ask questions or let me know anything new happening in their department.  These hours also give me the opportunity to learn more about the individuals who are part of the LA community as well as share with them what is happening in the Rutgers University Libraries.

In conclusion, the Art Library Lego Playing Station has explored and expanded the conventional research functions of an academic library through encouraging creative problem-solving techniques associated with art and design and makerspaces (Lotts, 2015). If you would like to read a more about the Art Library Lego Playing station or an in depth version of this collaboration please read the paper, Playing with LEGO, Learning about the Library and ‘Making’ Campus Connections: The Rutgers Art Library Lego Playing Station, Part One, noted in the additional readings section.

Additional Readings:

Lotts, Megan. “On the Road, Playing with LEGO, and Learning about the Library: The Rutgers Art Library Lego Playing Station, Part Two.” Journal of Library Administration. Vol. 56, Iss.5 (Summer 2016).

Lotts, Megan. “Playing with LEGO, Learning about the Library and ‘Making’ Campus Connections: The Rutgers Art Library Lego Playing Station, Part One.” Journal of Library Administration Vol. 56, Iss.4 (Spring 2016).

Lotts, Megan. “Lego® Play: Implementing a Culture of Creativity & Making in the Academic Library.” ACRL Conference Proceedings, 409-418.

Top 4 Tips: 

  • When acquiring Legos, consider crowd-sourcing and asking for donations.  This can be much cheaper and easier than purchasing the bricks from Lego, craigslist, ebay, or a garage sale.
  • Create signage for your Lego Station and consider creating a comment box.  You can also invite patrons to take pictures not Legos, to detour possible thefts.
  • Find a good table or space where the Legos can be spread out and players have room to move.  Remember Legos and players can be noisy so keep this in mind when locating your Legos.
  • Find partners and co-collaborators.  Think about who else might have interest in Legos or making things.  Consider partnering with another course or organization within your campus or community.

 

Landscape Architecture Research Guide: http://libguides.rutgers.edu/landscapearchitecture

Rutgers Art Library Research Guide:  http://libguides.rutgers.edu/artlibrary

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