Teaching Archival Intelligence through an Immersive Class Experience

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies Volume 12 Article 1 2025 Teaching Archival Intelligence through an Immersive Class Experience Dulce Kersting-Lark University of Idaho, Follow this and additional works at: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas Part of the Archival Science Commons Recommended Citation Kersting-Lark, Dulce (2025) "Teaching Archival Intelligence through an Immersive Class Experience," Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies: Vol. 12, Article 1. Available at: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas/vol12/iss1/1 This Case Study is brought to you for free and open access by EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies by an authorized editor of EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. For more information, please contact . Teaching Archival Intelligence through an Immersive Class Experience Cover Page Footnote The author would like to thank her colleague, Dr. Rebecca Scofield, for her inter-departmental collaboration. She would also like to thank fellow librarian, Devin Becker, for his mentorship and willingness to read multiple drafts of this case study. This case study is available in Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas/ vol12/iss1/1 Kersting-Lark: Teaching Archival Intelligence through an Immersive Class Experience TEACHING ARCHIVAL INTELLIGENCE THROUGH AN IMMERSIVE CLASS EXPERIENCE Archivists in academic settings often face barriers to connecting faculty and students with the wealth of unique and rare materials available for enhancing education and research. Limited time on the part of both course instructors and archivists is frequently a problem but so too is a general lack of communication between the two interest groups. An archivist’s role is frequently limited to one-off presentations or responding to student queries regarding specific assignments. This case study offers one institution’s attempt to break down departmental silos. It profiles a unique collaboration between the history department and archival faculty at the University of Idaho, highlighting the need for and benefits of integrating archival expertise into academic programs. The course was initially designed to educate students on the principles of archival theory and arrangement, along with strategies for engaging the public with primary sources. It evolved, however, to more broadly address the fundamentals of handling archival material, navigating archival records, and communicating with archival professionals. Taken together, these skills make up what Elizabeth Yakel and Deborah A. Torres define as “archival intelligence.”1 The case study shares the challenges faced in creating and teaching this new course, including adjusting learning objectives midsemester. It also shares valuable insights and takeaways from this experience, illustrating the role and impact of archivists in an academic setting. Background The University of Idaho Library’s Special Collections and Archives (Spec) department has a decades-long track record of serving the campus community. University of Idaho was founded in 1889 in Moscow through the Morrill Act. It is Idaho’s oldest public institution of higher education and the only land-grant university in the state. Within fifteen years of its founding, the university’s library began collecting unique and rare materials. U of I’s first professionally trained librarian, hired in 1905, was particularly interested in acquiring materials related to the history of the U.S. Northwest. Many of those books and manuscripts were separated from the general circulating collection due to their monetary or informational value. By the 1950s, a distinct unit within the library was established to care for and provide access to archival collections and rare books. Today, the department cares for nearly thirty thousand cubic feet of documents, pictures, maps, and objects covering topics of university, state, and regional interest. There are particularly strong collections related to mining and forestry, local history, university development and activities, and jazz music. The most common forms of collaboration Spec undertakes with other units on campus include providing reference service and acquiring historic university records for archiving. One-off instructions in using physical and digital collections also occur several times each semester. The history department chair’s request to partner on a more intensive instructional partnership, therefore, presented a significant departure from the norm. Elizabeth Yakel and Deborah A. Torres, “AI: Archival Intelligence and User Expertise,” American Archivist 66, no. 1 (2003): 51–78. 1 Published by EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale, 2025 1 Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies, Vol. 12 [2025], Art. 1 For several reasons, the request to provide a graduate-level course in archival practice, taught in the archives and by a member of the library faculty, was well timed for Spec. After a four-year vacancy, the department head position had been filled in early 2022. That hire, combined with the hiring of another staff archivist, meant Spec was fully staffed for the first time in several years. Adding a new responsibility, therefore, seemed reasonable. The incoming department head also had experience teaching credit-bearing courses for the history department. As a public historian working locally, she had served as instructor of record for a lower-level undergraduate course on museum studies and an upper-level course on public history. For these reasons, the chair of the history department had reason to trust that a course could be successfully designed and delivered. Finally, the history department was actively pursuing ways of diversifying its course offerings to incorporate more skills considered marketable outside of academia. Public history, which has been part of some academic programs for fifty years or more, is one area of focus. In particular, a desire to equip doctoral history students with tools for work in industry and the public sector has driven a reconsideration of curriculum. The incoming head of the archives received graduate training in public history, making her well positioned to work with students who shared an interest in the field. Following initial conversations between the head of Spec and the history department chair, leadership within both the library and the College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences (CLASS) agreed to the collaboration. From the perspective of the dean of the library, the proposal meant a significant investment of faculty time. The archives department head is generally expected to devote 35 percent of their time to teaching and advising. Even so, the course was likely to necessitate the delay of other departmental projects. The tradeoff was an opportunity to provide (...truncated)