Course description
The MA in Library and Archive Studies is taught in collaboration with The University of Manchester Library. This is major multi-site research library with National Research Library status. It includes the stunning John Rylands Research Institute and Library with its world-leading collections of archives and rare books and cutting-edge digital practices. The Rylands Library has close links to research and teaching through the John Rylands Research Institute and Library and the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures.
These relationships give students on the MA in Library and Archive Studies the opportunity to engage with a wealth of academic specialisms closely linked to Library and Archive Studies, in addition to benefitting from broad-ranging core modules centred on the fundamentals of librarianship, archival practice, and records and information management.
This MA focuses on contemporary practices in collection-led librarianship and archival studies. Its curriculum offers students unique access to the world-leading special collections and archives of the Rylands. With its home in the Institute for Cultural Practices, it offers students an extraordinary opportunity to position archives and libraries in the context of the broader cultural heritage sector. Through highly engaging placement opportunities, students are offered unique opportunities to work alongside University of Manchester Library staff as well as professionals in other Manchester-based archives and records management organisations.
Additionally, students are offered a choice of optional courses in a variety of specialist topics linked to rare books curation, information governance and compliance, exhibitions and public engagement, digital practices, and community engagement. Students are also given the option to take modules from and gain experience with a variety of research specialisms within the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures in art gallery and museum studies, arts management and policy, creative and cultural industries, digital media and culture, and heritage studies.
Aims
The aim of the MA in Library and Archive Studies is to introduce students to the theory, practice, and collections that will enable you to:
• 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 an understanding of specific areas in libraries and archives, including opportunities to engage with placements in specific specialist areas;
• gain experience and expertise necessary to progress in careers relating to libraries, archives, records management, and other information professional fields.
Outcomes
After finishing this programme of study, students receiving the MA in Library and Archive Studies will be able to:
• demonstrate, through both written and oral communications, their personal understanding of historical and current issues and debates in the library and archive field;
• apply critical skills to assess, reflect on, and challenge structures, issues, and initiatives in libraries and archives;
• use established research skills to critically analyse and contextualize primary and secondary sources relevant to the field of library and archive studies;
• practice the core capabilities of the field of library and archive studies as defined in the Charted Institute of Library & Information Professionals’ Professional Knowledge and Skills Base and the Archive & Records Association’s Competency Framework.
Special features
Placement Experience
Work placements within the standard duration of study offered as an optional module.
Placements offer students the opportunity to undertake meaningful work experience alongside professional archivists, librarians, and records managers at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library, at the University of Manchester’s other libraries and cultural institutions, and at libraries and archives in and around Manchester. Placements take place between November and May, and are supported by academic mentoring and supervision and placement mentors. Placements form part of the elective course options and are assessed in Semester 2 via placement reports, reflective accounts, and blogposts. Part-time students can choose to undertake placement in Year 1 or Year 2. Students benefit from at least 20 days industry experience on a relevant project, hosted on site and remotely by a sector business or organisation, supported by the host supervisor and an academic supervisor. There is also the potential for students to develop their own placement, subject to the approval of the course unit convenor and course director.
World-class Libraries
The University of Manchester Library is the third largest academic Library system in the UK and one of only five designated National Research Libraries. Consisting of more than ten million items and operating across almost twenty sites, including the world-renowned John Rylands Library, Manchester offers its MA students an unparalleled research collections environment.
Universität Heidelberg Exchange
The Institute for Cultural Practices at the University of Manchester has partnered with the Heidelberg Center for Cultural Heritage to offer a student exchange programme. Students will learn alongside students from Universität Heidelberg in Manchester during the academic year and can apply for funding for a month-long study trip to Heidelberg each June.
Teaching and learning
Sessions for the semester 1 compulsory modules will be delivered entirely in-person at the John Rylands Research Institute & Library and at the Oxford Road campus. In these compulsory module sessions, students will interact with practicing librarians, archivists, and records managers and will often engage directly with rare and unique material from the collections of the Rylands and sector-leading technologies.
Each module session will include 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). Between these sessions’ activities, students will participate in small-group or full-seminar discussions. Students will then be expected to read scholarship about that session's activities and discussions following the meeting.
Weekly summative assessments will include reflections that ask students to synthesize each session's activities, discussions, and reading. Every other week summative assessments will require students to write authentic documents commonly produced in libraries and archives: a collection development policy, a selection policy, an equality and equity impact assessment, descriptive metadata, a cataloguing and classification strategy, an exhibition brochure, a strategic plan, a repatriation plan, a grant application, and a community engagement plan.
Students will be required to annotate these documents and to include citations of the scholarship that inspired the shape and aims of their plans.
In semester 2, students will take their third compulsory module: Records & Information Management Practice. This module introduces students to the theory, legal frameworks, and professional application of records and information management practice in the UK and internationally.
Also in semester 2, students select two or three additional optional units from a range of areas including information governance, compliance, collections promotion, description, rare print, decolonisation, exhibitions in libraries and archives, manuscripts, cultural policy, curation, information and knowledge management, palaeography, law, and publishing. Throughout the programme, students will receive group and individual tutorials including dissertation supervision. Additionally, students will have access to research-and-practice-based skills training from the ICP Research and Training Programme as well as from Library workshops. These extracurricular experiences offer guidance on work placement, professional practice, digital literacy, and research skills.
Guidelines and schedules for placements and dissertations are set out transparently and in full in the joint ICP MA programme handbook. Each student will have access to academic advisement (two meetings per semester) and the office hours of all course tutors and lecturers.
Course unit details
You will undertake units totalling 180 credits.
Compulsory Modules
• Strategic Practice in Libraries (30 credits)
• Managing Archives and Special Collections (30 credits)
• Records and Information Management Practise (15 credits)
• Dissertation (60 credits)
Optional Modules
• Work Placement Module (30 credits)
• The Art of Medieval Manuscripts (30 credits)
• Open Knowledge (15 credits)
• Translating the Medieval Past (15 credits)
• Business Strategies for Arts, Culture, and Heritage (15 credits)
• Decolonise the Museum (15 credits)
• Intangible Cultural Heritage (15 credits)
• The Arts and International Cultural Relations (15 credits)
• Exhibitions in Libraries and Archives (15 credits)
• Law, Information Governance, and Compliance (15 credits)
• Curating Arts (15 credits)
• Palaeography, Codicology, Sources (15 credits)
• Promoting Libraries and Archives (15 credits)
• Describing and Cataloguing Rare Print (15 credits)
• From Papyrus to Print (15 credits)
• Publishing: History, Theory, Practice
• Up to 30 credits of a language
Compulsory Modules :
Strategic Practice in Libraries (30 credits)
Students will engage with contemporary debates in and best practices for working within and leading libraries in the UK and internationally. Students will practice their leadership skills through the production of authentic documents related to strategies for and management of contemporary libraries such as:
- collection policies, equity and diversity plans, and engagement campaigns for community cocreation;
- strategic library management: resource management in research libraries; managing risk and reputation; the future of library spaces and technology design; building a culture of collecting;
- leadership: leading with authenticity and managing in the workplace; designing vision and values; promoting EDI; creating a dynamic organisation;
- libraries in society: open libraries and the future of publishing; the socially engaged librarian, open knowledge in HE;
- developing effective services: user-focussed service design; measuring and improving; user engagement and collaborative working;
- managing information: ethics and the law in libraries; information literacy and critical thinking;
- leading in the sector: consortia and partnerships; advocacy and influencing.
Archives and Special Collections (30 credits)
The compulsory Archives and Special Collections unit will offer students first-hand practice with rare and unique materials and an overview of the many systems that archivists and other records managers use to ensure these materials are selected, curated, described, made accessible, and preserved ethically. Students will practise the many facets of managing archival material, rare documents and artifacts, and records by producing authentic resources such as access policies for reading rooms, repatriation agreements, and finding aids. This will include:
- understanding rare and unique material: collections and records management and development; collections formatting; internal policies and international frameworks; archives, special collections, and the law;
- structuring collections and records: standards and descriptions; enabling discovery; versioning the record; international interoperability; preservation and collection care;
- engagement and advocacy: teaching and learning with archives and special collections; exhibitions and public engagement; community archives;
- digital infrastructures: digital preservation; digitisation; digital platforms and formats;
- digital practices and approaches: collecting born digital; visual and sound records and collections; collection-and-record-centred practices; research-led technical development;
- special collections laboratory: scholarship in archives and special collections; academic partnerships and community collaborations.
Course unit list
The course unit details given below are subject to change, and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this course of study.
| Title | Code | Credit rating | Mandatory/optional |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dissertation | SALC60090 | 60 | Mandatory |
| Records and Information Management Practise (RIMP) | SALC61052 | 15 | Mandatory |
| Strategic Practice in Libraries | SALC63321 | 30 | Mandatory |
| Archives and Special Collections | SALC63391 | 30 | Mandatory |
| Wondrous Transformations: Translating the Medieval Past | ENGL60872 | 15 | Optional |
| Art of European Medieval Books | HART61642 | 30 | Optional |
| Law, Information Governance and Compliance | SALC60412 | 15 | Optional |
| Records and Information Management Practise (RIMP) | SALC61052 | 15 | Optional |
| Reading the Middle Ages and Renaissance: Palaeography, Codicology, and Sources | SALC70040 | 15 | Optional |
| Duplicates And Variants: Describing And Cataloguing Rare Print | SALC70092 | 15 | Optional |
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Scholarships and bursaries
For information on available funding, please visit the School's funding pages or search the University's postgraduate funding database .
Facilities
The University of Manchester has world-class facilities.
We have the third largest academic library system in the UK along with a £24 million learning facility.
As a student of the Graduate School, you'll have access to excellent training within a dedicated postgraduate space where you can meet with each other, access resources, organise events and participate in a thriving academic community.
Find out more on the Facilities page.