Open Access Archives in the Music Classroom; Examining Primary Sources and Information Privilege

The Performing Arts Librarian at Chapman University incorporated open access archives into his Music Information Literacy course in order to accomplish several learning objectives: a) introduce students to recognizing the importance of primary sources; b) interact with open access archival resources; and c) create an opportunity to discuss information privilege. This discussion takes inspiration from the “Information Has Value” frame from the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, specifically related to the knowledge practice to “recognize issues of access or lack of access to information sources” and the disposition to “examine their own information privilege.” In class, students discover digital archives such as universities’ institutional repositories and open access digital collections, digital archives through other organizations (e.g., Library of Congress, Beethoven-Haus), and portals to find these collections, such as Digital Resources for Musicology. Students then complete an assignment outside of class in which they engage with and describe a digital manuscript and piece of correspondence from an open access archive. This poster will provide a method by which music librarians can discover new methods to incorporate primary sources into music information literacy instruction, as well as engage with the ACRL Framework’s concept of analyzing information privilege