Embedding unique and distinctive collections into the curriculum

Unique and distinctive collections (UDCs) provide library and information professionals with new and exciting opportunities to engage with library users through dynamic hands-on information literacy (IL) sessions using materials such as manuscripts, early printed books, archives and artefacts. This approach to IL instruction is particularly useful in an academic library environment as it enables library practitioners to integrate this material fully into the wider academic curriculum, thereby contributing to the strategic aims of the institution and furthering the development of information-literate graduates. At Maynooth University Library we are actively involved in the integration of UDCs into the curriculum through a multidisciplinary approach that involves the delivery of IL sessions in controlled reading rooms in the library coupled with sessions in classrooms and lecture halls around the university. This approach aims to exploit this material and embed it in the curriculum while also facilitating various learning styles, particularly in terms of active learning. This article will provide an overview of IL activities using UDCs at Maynooth University Library. It will outline the practicalities involved as well as the benefits of this approach to IL in order to assist practitioners working in this area