Decker Library

Teaching Support

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Teaching Support
We know the library can be a powerful learning tool. Let us help you use it. Take a look at what we value and book a Library Research Instruction session.

About Decker Library's Research Instruction Program

Research Instruction sessions are tailored to the needs of a class or assignment and are held in the Library's classrooms or in your semester classroom. To learn more about how we teach or to see suggestions for class activities and lesson plans, check out our Information Literacy Program. 

Tips for a successful Library Research Instruction session: 

  • Contact the teaching librarian at least one week in advance. The instruction calendar fills up quickly, so request early in the semester (or even before the semester begins). 
  • Work with the librarian to establish learning outcomes for the session. 
  • Make sure students understand their research assignment and have a possible topic in mind before coming to the Library Research Instruction session. 
  • Attend the session - your presence conveys the value you place on developing strong library research skills. Your students will pick up on this. 
  • Actively participate in the session (i.e. interject information, ask questions, encourage students to ask questions, etc.).

Request a Research Instruction Session

We kindly require instruction sessions be requested at least one week in advance.

For best student engagement, please be ready to share your syllabus and connect the visit to a specific assignment with your librarian. 

Please use the links below to schedule an instruction session. You will be taken to our Calendly pages for each type of instruction. 

Please note that we require 48 hours notice to cancel a session for any reason other than illness, emergency situation, or campus closure. 

Workshops

The library also offers tool- and skill-specific workshops on Copyright for artists, Wikipedia, Omeka, Baltimore community history and more described below.

Decker Library's special collections can be included in an overview of Library resources or can form the basis of a session focused on particular subject matter, imagery, techniques, and material culture artifacts of diverse origin. Some examples can be seen on the MICA Digital Library and Decker Library Tumblr. 

This session will address image rights, fair use, and transformative work. The session leader will demonstrate how to find images in databases and websites and discuss Creative Commons licenses, public domain materials, and orphan works.

This workshop will work through best practices for digitization of analog material, born-digital file management, metadata, and organization to help you maintain intellectual control over your personal archive.

This session, geared towards faculty and graduate students, will be focused on how you can use Wikipedia to teach information literacy, open source software, and Creative Commons licensing.

Students will learn the basics of Wikipedia editing, including best practices and key policies. In an active learning session, they will make small edits to live articles in real time. 

In this session, we'll discuss the increasing use of digital technologies in research, publication and scholarship, and teaching We'll look at tools that might be useful for art historians, examples of digital scholarship in art history and discuss how digital engagement might affect methodologies and theoretical inquiries. 

This session will help students navigate through Baltimore's rich history, with a particular focus on primary source collections available at neighboring institutions. We will review the kinds of topics that could be researched, where to conduct certain types of research, and discuss barriers to access. 

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