Justine Cotton

Two librarians in Brock’s James A. Gibson Library have written a new book about fostering students’ research skills with a mix of traditional and digital resources.

David Sharron, head of Special Collections and Archives, and Justine Cotton, communications and liaison librarian, have written Engaging Students with Archival and Digital Resources. The book makes the case for the importance of engaging University students with both primary records and digital material.

The book is based on their experiences in creating, promoting and delivering workshops to University students. It offers practical examples and detailed information on developing lesson plans, working with faculty, marketing techniques and reaching out to a growing population of technically savvy students.

David Sharron

“In today’s information society, students and non-students expect information to be at their fingertips,” Sharron said. “We want to convey to students that there’s a lot of great material that’s not digitized, and may never be digitized. But using a mixture of digital and non-digital material may strengthen your work and give you opportunities you didn’t know existed.”

Engaging Students with Archival and Digital Resources was released by Neal-Schuman Publishers on Aug. 31. The book is geared to archivists, academic librarians and faculty looking to engage students in the primary research process, as well as library and archival students.