MA Library and Archive Studies

This unit will employ seminars, site visits and demonstrations to offer students training in the skills necessary for working within and leading archives and special collections today. Students will learn within the John Rylands Research Institute and Library in central Manchester, will receive engaging interactions with library staff each session, and will work directly with the world-class collections of the Rylands. Students will begin each session with an activity that demonstrates contemporary practices in a special collections and archives, will then hold a full-seminar or small-group discussion of the experience, and will read and critically reflect on the activities in Blackboard discussions. Students will engage with contemporary debates in and best practices for managing rare and unique materials at libraries in the UK and internationally. Assessments will be based on the production of authentic documents important to the care of and engagement with archives and special collections such as a selection policy, repatriation agreement, and grant application.

•  Acquire a deep and nuanced understanding of current practices in libraries and archives, including all aspects of their work around collections, curation, preservation and analysis. 
• Produce original research that reflects your understanding of specific areas in collections and archives, including opportunities to engage with placements in specific specialist areas. 
• Gain experience and expertise necessary to progress in careers encompassed by, or related to, libraries, archives and cultural institutions. 
• Appreciate the interface between physical collections and their digital representations and how the act of description enhances or presents barriers to patron interactions with materials  

In each core course session, students will interact with practicing librarians, archivists, records managers, and information professional mostly drawn from the Rylands and the Main Library as well as the Portico, The Inns of Court, Manchester Central Library, and industry. In these sessions, students will engage directly with rare and unique material from the collections of the Rylands (e.g., items of world-historical cultural significance in media ranging from newsprint to film to vellum) archive spaces throughout the city (e.g. collection care labs, reading rooms, and on-site storage areas), or with technologies utilized by library staff (e.g., the digital preservation platform DROiD). Module sessions will begin with hands-on activities that introduce core concepts through physical action and social interaction (though, always accommodating any accessibility needs of neurodiverse students or students with mobility limitations). After each session’s activities students will participate in small-group or full-seminar discussions during the second half of each course. Students will then be expected to read scholarship about that session’s activities and discussions following the meeting. Weekly formative assessments will include Blackboard-managed reflections that synthesize each session’s activities, discussions, and reading. Every-three-weeks summative assessments will require students to authentic documents commonly produced in libraries and archives: a selection policy, catalogue records, an exhibition brochure, a repatriation plan, and a grant application. Students will be required to annotate these documents with descriptions of how scholarship and real-world examples inspired their choices. 

• Develop research-based strategies for teamwork and leadership within libraries, archives, or other cultural heritage institutions 
• Practice meaningful engagement with communities and the development of long-term co-creation endeavours such as access improvement and repatriation  
• Develop transparency and communication across and beyond an organisation 
• Appreciate the standards of care necessary for material of cultural significance 
• Recognize the historical harm that underpins most historical collections and develop commitments to healing and formal means of repair with marginalized communities 

• Place debates and decisions within their historical context and lineage 
• Evaluate evidence critically, especially as it concerns records management policies, equitable distributions of labour, and patron and information access 
• Identify and redress the histories of privilege and marginalization in collections and the absences collections contain 

• Produce policy documents within an organization adhering to good practice in the information sciences field 
• Effectively utilize project- and team-management strategies 
• Build experience with the technological infrastructure that underpins relational databases, information access, and emergent forms of machine learning and artificial intelligence 

• Translate practices across cultural heritage institutions (e.g., from galleries to archives or from museums to libraries)  
• Demonstrate awareness of emergent technologies for information organization including programming, database design, and graphic design 
• Hone the ability to produce and utilize evidence to challenge authority and tradition 
• Foster empathy and agitate for humane working environments 

10 Reflective Blackboard discussion board posts- Summative- 25%

5 Annotated (i.e. containing reflections and citations on their choices), authentic (i.e. common in the library and archive professions) document assignments- Summative- 75%

• Formative: Verbal feedback in seminar discussions 
• Summative: Written feedback on weekly Blackboard discussion board posts 
• Summative: Written feedback on five annotated authentic document assignments