Academic literature on the topic 'Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Library'

The Fleet Library at Rhode Island School of Design is a successful reinvention of the art library through the adaptive re-use of an historic bank building in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. In addition to reviewing how the library's goals were met during its first decade, the most significant change, the transformation of the slide library into a material resource centre and the growth of a community of such collections and related initiatives, will be described.

For six months between July and December 1997 Wilson Smith, a Faculty Librarian at Edinburgh College of Art, acted as Reader Services Librarian in the library of Rhode Island School of Design, Providence RI. Here he gives his impressions of the School and its ambience, and describes the library and its collections, along with the work he undertook there. An Appendix gives details of some of the other art libraries he visited in the United States.

With a detailed but not site-specific building program, the librarians at Rhode Island School of Design made the case for a new library three times the size of the existing facility. The site became specific with the donation of an early 20th-century grand banking hall. This paper addresses the role of the librarian in the design and construction process and includes an analysis of the way the new library meets the program objectives. In the early 1990’s after several early attempts to resolve the library’s space constraint at Rhode Island School of Design, the librarian was given a useful bit of advice: Stop trying to find the space. You must focus first on the program. What is it that you really need?

Artists’ books have been collected at the Fleet Library at Rhode Island School of Design for over 40 years. They include early multiples, conceptual books, fine press books, livres d’artistes, unique books, limited edition handmade books, books as sculptural objects, artists’ archives and ephemera. With between three and eight classes and individual appointments each week, artists’ books have become important teaching tools, fostering creativity among students, faculty and outside researchers. How do they speak to the creative process on so many levels? What is it that makes these resources so compelling?

Material Order is an academic consortium of material sample collections for art, architecture, and design disciplines. Founded by the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and Fleet Library at Rhode Island School of Design and since comprising several more institutions in the US, it provides a community-based approach to management and open access utilizing and developing standards and best practices. Now in its twelfth year and reaching a level of maturation, Material Order offers research and pedagogical value to current and potential members and the larger design communities.

Throughout the year, research and instruction librarians at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) instruct students in ways to use the library for studio-based research. At the end of each semester, librarians attend studio critiques for these classes to see the finished work and participate in the critique. These visits are opportunities to look for and reflect upon the presence of research and the impact of concepts taught during library research workshops on the finished presentations and artworks. The coordinator of graduate library instruction created a qualitative tool to assess the evidence of student learning within the studio critique. Its use is cultivating a culture of art and design research within the library and throughout campus by fostering reflection and discussion about the value of qualitative assessment.

AbstractMuseum educators and graduate students at Brown University’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology and the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, along with the RISD Museum at the Rhode Island School of Design, are entering their eighth year of partnering with sixth-grade social studies teachers in Providence Public Schools in a five-session classroom and museumbased archaeology program called Think Like an Archaeologist. This experiential program uses the study of archaeological methods to address state and national social studies standards and bridges social studies content with the literacy standards of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) that aim at moving students toward twenty-first-century skill building. Students not only understand the science behind the content in their textbooks but also learn how to use museum objects and archaeological artifacts as primary resources. Students also learn to “read” artifacts, express their ideas in spoken and written language as historians, and use academic vocabulary as required by CCSS while thinking like archaeologists. Through teacher feedback and student evaluations, we know this program to be a successful example of the benefits of teaching archaeological skills in middle school curricula—so much so that it has now been re-created at additional schools in other regions.

Purpose This paper aims to describe the Rosarium Project, a digital humanities project being undertaken at the Phillips Memorial Library + Commons of Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island. The project focuses on a collection of English language non-fiction writings about the genus Rosa. The collection will comprise books, pamphlets, catalogs and articles from popular magazines, scholarly journals and newspapers written on the rose published before 1923. The source material is being encoded using the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Consortium’s P5 guidelines and the extensible markup language (XML) editor software <oXygen/>. Design/methodology/approach This paper outlines the Rosarium Project and describes its workflow. This paper demonstrates how to create TEI-encoded files for digital curation using the XML editing software <oXygen/> and the TEI Archiving Publishing and Access Service (TAPAS) Project. The paper provides information on the purpose, scope, audience and phases of the project. It also identifies the resources – hardware, software and membership – needed for undertaking such a project. Findings This paper shows how straightforward it is to encode transcriptions of primary sources using the TEI and XML editing software and to make the resulting digital resources available on the Web. Originality/value This paper presents a case study of how a research project transitioned from traditional printed bibliography to a web-accessible resource by capitalizing on the tools in the TEI toolkit using specialized XML editing software. The details of the project can be a guide for librarians and researchers contemplating digitally curating primary resources and making them available on the Web.

Abstract Objective – Collaboration and working in teams are key aspects of all types of librarianship, but library and information studies (LIS) students often perceive teamwork and group work negatively. LIS schools have a responsibility to prepare graduates with the skills and experiences to be successful working in teams in the field. Through a grant from the university office of assessment, the assessment committee at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Library and Information Studies explored their department’s programmatic approach to teaching teamwork in the MLIS curriculum. Methods – This research followed a multi-method design including content analysis of syllabi, secondary analysis of student evaluation of teaching (SET) data, and interviews with alumni. Syllabi were analyzed for all semesters from fall 2010 to spring 2016 (n = 210), with 81 syllabi further analyzed for details about their team assignments. Some data was missing from the dataset of SETs purchased from the vendor, resulting in a dataset of 39 courses with SET data available. Interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of alumni about their experiences with teamwork in the LIS program and their view of how well the LIS curriculum prepared them for teamwork in their careers (n = 22). Results – Findings indicate that, although alumni remembered teamwork happening too often, it was required in just over one-third of courses in the sample period (fall 2010 to spring 2016), and teamwork accounted for about one-fifth of assignments in each of these courses. Alumni reported mostly positive experiences with teamwork, reflecting that teamwork assignments are necessary for the MLIS program because teamwork is a critical skill for librarianship. Three themes emerged from the findings: alumni perceived teamwork to be important for librarians and therefore for the MLIS program, despite this perception there is also a perception that the program has teamwork in too many courses, and questions remain about whether faculty perceive teaching teamwork as important and how to teach teamwork skills in the MLIS curriculum. Conclusions – Librarians need to be able to collaborate internally and externally, but assigning team projects does not guarantee students will develop the teamwork skills they need. An LIS program should be proactive in teaching skills in scheduling, time management, personal accountability, and peer evaluation to prepare students to be effective collaborators in their careers.