It has certainly been a long few months! The project went into hibernation during COVID as the University reduced on site operations and we were unable to hold the workshop or continue our focus groups or data collection (especially given that many of the groups we are especially interested in hearing from are vulnerable).

We are now emerging from that hibernation – the ILT have kindly given us an extension to the end of the year. Now I just have to sort out the budgets so we can get more data collection in. The workshop has been turned into an online event on the 4th of December – we have a plan! And the online nature lets us get a wider participation. So, here is hoping this will be a little later but an even better end to the project.

It’s been a busy week – and I’m (Dan) taking over the blog for the week as we prepare for the networking event and post to reflect our progress.

The conference/workshop day is coming together well – we’ve got some really interesting people wanting to contribute from the Library Archive Museum practitioner side as well as from educators. There is also a good mix of different types of collection – which is great as one thing our survey of existing studies has shown once more is that there are not huge amounts done specifically on any one area, with the largest being examinations of collections around sexuality. So being able to collate together the best practice identified from these will be a huge help, and especially important in an environment where one of the big discussion points is decolonising the curriculum.

We have our evaluation forms done and signed off and will be using them with our modules to get back data from in-class users. We will also be using the forms, along with recording and transcription of discussion, to gather information from the focus groups, which are now all booked in and ready. Paul and Rachel are busy at work preparing the small taster sessions that form part of that, and creating a NILE example.

We are looking forward to engaging with the other projects at the networking event using teaching boxes created in previous projects with ILT, and trying to get other researchers to come up with questions, concerns and comments about teaching with this material which we can include or address within the report and guide.

— Dan

First of all, we would like to welcome everyone to this blog which will report back on and document the 2019/20 ILT funded innovation project examining how teaching using Radical Collections can impact upon BAME and other targeted groups, developing best practice and identifying both problems and opportunities in this form of pedagogy. This blog will primarily be updated by our Research Assistant, Siobhan Hyland, but will also feature content from our Project Lead, Daniel Jones, and our academic team members, Dr Paul Jackson and Dr Rachel Moss.

The idea for the project comes from several avenues. It builds firstly on previous work done by Dr Jackson, Daniel Jones and Siobhan Hyland, as well as former assistant Billy Mann, examining methods of using Radical Collections as ways to engage students with their learning and improve engagement, and therefore attainment. Previous projects also looked at the skills gaps that emerged from that which might hold students back from engaging with these enhancing activities. Since this work was carried out we have seen an increase in interest in this field with the University of London hosting a conference in 2018 on the impact Radical Collections can have on BAME engagement with archives and library studies, and the subjects that use them.

Discussing this with our new colleague, Dr Moss, we realised that there was an opportunity here to study these theories using the University’s position as an innovator in this area, but to take it further and consider whether there was truly an enhancing engagement effect to existing students, but also consider how it might be used with the wider community to commemorate and tell these histories. We also felt it was important to consider the potential negative impact that this material can have – it can be offensive to those not targeted by these groups, so could be more than that to people who engage and where that impact might resonate with personal experiences. it is assumed that these personal linkages deepens engagement, but does it raise safeguarding concerns, how should those be handled, and does it risk a trauma that potentially acts as a barrier to engagement and needs careful framing? We will, in this project, examine all of these things and hopefully mitigation that might need to be put in place, and create a best practice guide.