MA Library and Archive Studies / Course details

This unit will employ seminars, site visits and demonstrations to offer students training in the skills necessary for working within and leading libraries 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 libraries, will then hold a full-seminar or small-group critical discussion of the experience and will read and reflect about the activities in Blackboard discussions.  Students will engage with contemporary debates in and best practices for libraries in the UK and internationally.

Assessments will be based on the production of authentic documents important to library leadership and strategy such as a collection development policy, a cataloguing and classification strategy, and a community engagement campaign.

• 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. 
• Encourage students to empower and resource their colleagues and their communities to reimagine the purpose of cultural institutions as engines of positive social change 

In each core course session, students will interact with practicing librarians, archivists, record managers, and information professionals mostly drawn from the leadership of the Rylands and the Main Library, but also the National Health Service, The Inns of Court, and Manchester Central Library. 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 cuneiform to parchment to photographs), library spaces throughout the city (e.g. segments of Manchester libraries actively being renovated), and with technologies utilized by library staff (e.g., the library management system Alma).

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 craft authentic documents commonly produced in libraries and archives: an equality and equity impact assessment, a collection development policy, a community engagement campaign, a cataloguing and classification strategy, and an institution strategic plan. 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 
• Empathy for community-led co-creation endeavours such as access improvement and repatriation  
• Develop transparency in communication across and beyond an organisation 

• 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 
• Building enthusiasm for working in ad-hoc and permanent teams and fostering an environment for communities of practice to take root within an organization  

• Produce policy and strategy documents within an organization adhering to good practice in the information sciences field 
• Effectively utilize project and team-management plans 
• 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 strategic thinking, confidence in leadership, and clear perceptions of personal limitations 
• Hone the ability to produce and utilize evidence to challenge authority and tradition 
• Foster empathy and agitate for humane working environments  

• Summative: Reflective Blackboard discussion board posts 
• Summative: Annotated (i.e. containing reflections and citations on their choices), authentic (i.e. common in the library and archive professions) document assignments  

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