17:610:540 Information Resources in the Humanities
David Carr, Instructor

Course Syllabus and Overview

I. Catalog Description.

An overview of the information structure of the humanities. Attention given to the generation and dissemination of knowledge in the humanities over time, as well as to principal modern information tools, research centers and agencies. Sources will be reviewed from the point of view of the search techniques of the various disciplines, and consideration will be given to interdisciplinary research tools.

II. Pre- and/or Co-Requisites.

The pre-requisite for this course is 17:610:531 Basic Information Sources. It is assumed that all students are thoroughly familiar with basic tools and approaches, and are experienced in using electronic tools.

III. Course Objectives

This course will explore knowledge transmission in the humanities and popular culture, and it will examine the roles of information professionals, reference tools and cultural institutions in that process.

IV. Organization of the Course

Information and communication in the humanities
Philosophy, myth, religion and the history of ideas Language and literature
Fine, applied, decorative arts, architecture, art history
Music, dance, theater, performing arts
Film, radio, and television
Museums and other informing cultural institutions
Humanities in American life
Electronic tools and the humanities
Other topics to be discovered.

V. Texts, Tasks, Evaluation, Conduct of the Class, Final Exam

Four Texts

1. Blazek, Ronald and Elizabeth Aversa. The Humanities: A Selective Guide to Information Sources. 4th ed. Englewood, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 1994. ISBN 1-56308-168-7 [paperback]

2. The Graywolf Annual Five: Multi-Cultural Literacy, ed. by Rick Simonson and Scott Walker. St. Paul, Minnesota: Graywolf Press, 1988. ISBN 1-55597-114-8 (P.O. Box 75006, St. Paul, MN 55179)

3. Information Needs in the Humanities: An Assessment. Stanford, CA: The Research Libraries Group, 1988.

4. [Optional] Electronic Information Needs in the Humanities, ed. by Mark Stover, Library Trends (Spring 1992).

A number of recent books are listed in a supplementary bibliography. I encourage all students in this course to be familiar with positions in the recent debates about American curricula, political correctness, and the so-called Òculture wars. The current debate about the role of government in the arts and humanities ought to draw your attention also. These topics may be pursued as projects for the course.

A course packet will also be required, and additional readings are likely to be announced. Please note that the latest style manuals of the Modern Language Association and the University of Chicago are to be used in documenting written work for this course. The latest edition of Mary-Claire van Leunen's A Handbook for Scholars is also accepted.

Five Assumptions

Library education should nurture the independent capability of the learner; these experiences should contribute to the composing of a new professional life.

A thoughtful student can make appropriate, skill-expanding choices among useful and challenging tasks; making the choice is part of the learning.

Mature critical thinking and design skills come through various and sometimes unexpected experiences.

Bibliographic inquiry, especially under the constraints of the classroom, is always unfinished; truly important work always remains dynamically open, ready for new data or reinterpretations. If bibliography is an art as well as a skill, students should be prepared to develop their work as artists do, over time and with the critical suggestions of others.

Two Field Visits

During the course of the term I expect that students will carry out at least two independent field visits, and write about them.

One field visit must be to a major museum exhibition in New York or Philadelphia,or to a cultural performance of some kind (music, opera, drama) perhaps in a local setting. The writing to follow from this experience should offer an information profile of the occasion. What has been given to the audience? What might have been given?. What information ideas would you offer, if asked?

The other field visit must be to the Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center or the Pierpont Morgan Library (both in Manhattan), or to the Rosenbach Museum (in Philadelphia), or to the Institute for Jazz Studies (at Rutgers University in Newark), or to another library devoted to cultural information. The writing to follow from this experience should address the entire setting: What is going on here? What information is available? What does the current exhibition contain and suggest?

Three Projects

No paper topics will be assigned for this course. Instead, students will plan different bibliographic inquiries following different forms. I encourage students to keep all of their work, finished and unfinished in a portfolio to be turned in at the end of the course. I expect to be kept informed of progress on your work. Conferences and tutorials are available at any time during the course, by e-mail.

A Portfolio Defined

A portfolio is, literally, an expansive folder, notebook or other portable container to be maintained by each student exclusively for displaying and documenting the products of this course. These products will reflect and embody your experiences, discoveries, and insights, as they are derived from your exploration of information resources in the humanities. Students are expected to contribute to their portfolios steadily, at least once each week; projects and other inquiries into the humanities tools will

In addition to your original bibliographic inquiries, the portfolio may contain journals with commentaries and personal observations on bibliographic problems, records of your field visits to museums and libraries, or pieces of a commonplace book about the humanities. Many different kinds of things may find their ways into portfolios, in finished forms or not. Each will be a unique collection. My interest is in having you document as many different influences and ideas as you can.

The portfolio, and your experiences in filling it, will be useful during symposia. Think of the portfolio as a changing record of how you work in the course and how the course works on you. And think of it as a collection of detailed evidence of the growth that I need to see as your instructor.

Three Written Tasks

I expect students to prepare three pieces of work during the term:

a collaborative project,
a major individual project,
and an unfinished project.

The collaborative project should represent significant contributions by two to four members of the class. It should be 25 to 40 pages in length (depending on the number of contributors). It will be due during our second class meeting in March.

The major individual project should be the work of one person. It should be at least twenty pages in length, with no upper limit. It will be due during our third class in April.

The unfinished project will be a plan for further inquiry Ñ an idea that you think will keep your interest over time and will lead you on after this class ends. You may not know the topic of this unfinished project until we are well into the course, but you are encouraged to think about it now. This will be due during our last class meeting.

Each of these papers should undertake a significant bibliographic issue and may follow one of the forms of inquiry suggested below.

Several Suggestions

Following are several suggestions designed to inspire projects for the portfolio. These are a handful of ways to think about independent inquiry in the literatures of the humanities. They may be expanded, revised, recombined or ignored in favor of your own more original ideas.

I Thematic Studies Across Disciplines. Using a large theme (Romanticism, War, Death, Primitive Art, Childhood, the Fool, Sex, the Folktale, Tragedy, Faust ...) trace its influence and presence in several Humanities literatures. What are its main appearances over time? Who have been its main commentators? Do critical works, historical works and artistic works another? Bring your search up to 1995. What bibliographic problems does your inquiry reveal? How does the discourse change over time? (See the Dictionary of the History of Ideas for further inspiration.) An Evolving Bibliography. Start with one idea and see where it leads. Then take those leads a little further and see where they lead. Then take those leads even further and see where they take you. In other words, meander through the citations, allusions and influences you discover by chance, making whatever connections you can make and changing directions as often as you wish. After a few weeks of pursuit, stop searching and look for patterns.

A Group of Humanists and their Resonances / Dissonances. What resonances or dissonances might we overhear if we shared (or drove) a taxi with Charles Ives, Robert Motherwell, and Ralph Waldo Emerson on their way to the New York Public Library? (What might each one look for in the card catalog once they arrived?) Take any group of three or more eminent persons Ñ you may freely cross centuries, disciplines, continents, languages Ñ and provide a brief bibliographic guide to their intersections and collisions.

Humanities and Adjacent Areas of Knowledge or Practice. Take any humanities discipline and explore its connections or abrasions with an adjacent non-humanities discipline. For example: Psychology + Painting. Computer Science or Physics + Music. Physiology + Dance or Musicianship. Medicine + Philosophy. Politics + Language or Cultural Issues and the Arts. Education + Poetry (or Music, or Painting). How do these contiguities take form? How does each discipline show the effects of the juxtaposition

Censorship and Political Correctness. Explore the literature of this topic in any form or depth you select. You may wish to begin with the NEA controversies of recent years but censorship has a long history and I encourage you to explore it in its contemporary forms. You may also wish to explore the library community's responses regarding these issues. (See the supplementary readings list.)

Electronic Humanities Tools. With the assistance of the Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities, explore the uses of electronic tools in this discipline. You may wish to prepare a systematic survey and evaluation of the most important electronic tools whether databases, CD-ROMs, bulletin boards, etc. useful for humanities inquiry. Or you may develop another project about electronic tools and scholarly interests.

Bibliographic Instruction in a Humanities Discipline. During the course of this term, we will look in detail at a number of reference tools and issues characteristic of specific disciplines. If you already have some expertise (such as previous graduate study) in a subject matter covered by this course and wish to prepare a bibliographic instruction experience (for example, at the Laurie Music Library or the Art Library) for the entire class, you may request an opportunity to do so as a project for the course

Explorations of Museums and Special Libraries Beyond Rutgers. If you have considered a career in special librarianship in humanities fields, or if you have an interest in future museum work, several explorations in the cultural institutions of New York, Philadelphia and beyond are likely ways to fulfill one of the projects for this course. A plan, a series of questions, and a literature review of museum librarianship (and museum information systems) will begin this project. Letters of introduction to musuems.

Bibliographic Tools and Resources for Study of a NationÕs Humanistic Traditions. What are the best reference works, journals, monographs, research centers, cultural institutions, major humanities organizations, and other humanities resources of a country other than the US, Canada, or the British Isles? What should an annotated information profile of this nationÕs Òhumanities structures look like?

The Evolution of a Rutgers University Faculty Scholar. Using the catalog of the UniversityÕs Graduate School, select any full or associate professor listed in the Humanities disciplines and search this personÕs scholarly work over time. Sample the work the scholar has done. What can you observe about its evolution? What bibliographic evidences do you find in the work? Prepare a bibliographic profile including publications, scholarly undertakings, major intellectual influences for this scholar. (an Alternative You Suggest ? These prospective approaches to the literature of the Humanities can be combined or revised in several ways. Feel free to develop an alternative approach as you contemplate your most interesting questions.

Portfolio Assistance and Advice.
Ask for this at any time during the term. At the beginning of February, I will ask you to submit a tentative plan for the two larger projects of this course. Students should also be prepared to offer brief oral or written commentaries on the progress of their work, and its contributions to their bibliographic expertise, at any time during the course.

Evaluation

When folios are reviewed, the following questions will lead the evaluation: How clearly has a valid bibliographic problem been identified, pursued, and documented? What is the level of challenge evident? How significantly does the product display an expansion of skill or insight? How well does the product reflect logic, thoroughness, imagination, exploration? In what ways has this task made the course a more personal, more exploratory experience? What intellectual risks have been taken?

For purposes of grading, the portfolio must be finished and closed by the last class meeting of the term, and preferably well before. Avoid the dreaded Incomplete.

Written commentaries or oral observations will be given to learners when their work is reviewed, or at other times upon request. Students will be asked to evaluate themselves at the end of the term, when commentaries must be transformed into letter grades.

Opportunities to evaluate and advise the instructor will occur at the mid-point and end of the term. It is assumed that students will offer comments in public or private when they feel the course has not fully lived up to possibilities or expectations.

Notes on the Conduct of the Class

Exploratory Evenings

In order to examine the reference tools of specific disciplines we will frequently move as a group to the library where these tools are collected. (This will take us to other campuses on some occasions.) On these occasions we will operate as a collaborative. We will identify important questions for evaluating reference works, examine particular tools cited in Blazek / Aversa text, and examine journals. Then we will reconvene to share observations.

Symposia

During the term, we will focus as a class on specific questions and experiences. The basic rules are: (1) Everyone prepares to say something; (2) Everyone says something; (3) Everyone listens to everyone else.

Portfolio Assistance and Advice.
Ask for this at any time during the term. At the beginning of February, I will ask you to submit a tentative plan for the two larger projects of this course. Students should also be prepared to offer brief oral or written commentaries on the progress of their work, and its contributions to their bibliographic expertise, at any time during the course.

Evaluation

When folios are reviewed, the following questions will lead the evaluation: How clearly has a valid bibliographic problem been identified, pursued, and documented? What is the level of challenge evident? How significantly does the product display an expansion of skill or insight? How well does the product reflect logic, thoroughness, imagination, exploration? In what ways has this task made the course a more personal, more exploratory experience? What intellectual risks have been taken?

For purposes of grading, the portfolio must be finished and closed by the last class meeting of the term, and preferably well before. Avoid the dreaded Incomplete.

Written commentaries or oral observations will be given to learners when their work is reviewed, or at other times upon request. Students will be asked to evaluate themselves at the end of the term, when commentaries must be transformed into letter grades.

Opportunities to evaluate and advise the instructor will occur at the mid-point and end of the term. It is assumed that students will offer comments in public or private when they feel the course has not fully lived up to possibilities or expectations. Final Writing: The Questions that Follow Us

As the course closes, it is important to consider the continuous parts of our experiences during the term. I like to think of them as the questions Ñ or the unfinished issues Ñ that both follow us and lead us on, into museums, biographies, artworks, performances, new and old books. And so, as part of the final class, each student should prepare a summary of the most interesting questions he or she takes from the course, with a commentary on each question and its future. What lasting questions have you developed?

This final writing will take the place of a final examination.

Workpoint

Where?

That which is not in stone,
not in the wall of stones and earth,
not even in trees,
that which forever trembles a little,
must, then, be in us.

Eugene Guillevic, Selected Poems
Translated by Denise Levertov
New York: New Directions, 1969.