Free online symposium, Friday, April 28, 10am to 12pm

As part of a Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) program grant awarded to the University Libraries, librarians have been partnering with UArizona disciplinary faculty to create teaching materials that engage students with digitized primary sources from the Library of Congress. Using primary sources – the “raw materials of history” – can enhance student learning and provide “aha” moments of discovery.

The event is sponsored by University Libraries, at which librarians and faculty partners will discuss the benefits and challenges of teaching with primary sources and the impact on student learning. Students will also share their experiences in learning with primary sources. The symposium will feature a preview of the University Libraries’ TPS portal where the co-created teaching materials will be publicly available.

Matthew Mugmon, Associate Professor in the Fred Fox School of Music, and a participant in the Libraries’ TPS project, is co-hosting the symposium as a Center for University Education Scholarship (CUES) Distinguished Fellow for his project, The Roots of Knowledge: Enhancing Undergraduate Teaching and Learning Through Work with Primary Sources. “I’ve observed that students who are just becoming acquainted with a discipline can find interesting primary sources and generate thoughtful questions and insights about them,” Mugmon said. “It’s exciting to see what students at beginning and advanced levels come up with — particularly how they can use primary sources to shape knowledge.”

Librarian Mary Feeney, director of the grant project, said University Libraries’ TPS project received a second year of funding from the Library of Congress. “During the first year of the grant, we collaborated with an amazing multidisciplinary group of faculty members,” Feeney said, “And we’re happy to be working with additional faculty partners in the Department of History, the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, the interdisciplinary Honors College, and the Department of French and Italian Studies.”

The courses include undergraduate students, graduate students, and the general education curriculum.

More info, registration

Please visit the linked event page (below) for more information and to register to attend the symposium.

2022-2023 project team

University Libraries faculty members

Lisa Duncan, Assistant Librarian & Archivist, Unit Lead for Collections Management, Special Collections

Mary Feeney, TPS Project Director, News Research Librarian and Liaison Librarian, School of Journalism and Departments of History and Gender & Women’s Studies

Leslie Sult, General Education Curricular Support Librarian and Liaison Librarian for College of Education

Niamh Wallace, Liaison Librarian for the Schools of Anthropology, Government & Public Policy, and Middle Eastern & North African Studies

University of Arizona faculty members

Fabian Alfie, Professor of Italian, Department of French and Italian Studies

Victor Braitberg, Associate Professor of Practice, W.A. Franke Honors College

Julia Clancy-Smith, Regent's Professor of History, School of Middle Eastern & North African Studies

Ute Lotz-Heumann, Professor, Department of History and Director, Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies