The following text is a summary of my poster project for the ARLIS/NA Annual Conference in Boston 2010. See also Grassroots Visual Literacy Poster Handout
Background
In the summer of 2009, our Visual Resources Center was closed due to budgetary shortfalls in the UC system, leaving the UC Irvine Libraries as the sole service point for image based-research on campus. It is within this climate of transition and change that I began building a case for incorporating Visual Literacy objectives into the UC Irvine Libraries outreach mission. I reviewed literature that would help me understand how libraries can adopt and promote Visual Literacy, and also began talking with our Department of Education and Outreach to determine how Visual Literacy education might dovetail with our current Information Literacy outreach goals.
Methodology:
I. Rooting Visual Literacy in Campus Curriculum through the embedded librarian
I administered a survey designed to measure information literacy skills amongst the UC Irvine Libraries’ staff. The survey data informed a plan for developing visual literacy training at the library. By creating visual literacy awareness and skills within the library, the library staff will be equipped to teach and promote visual literacy awareness on campus. A training rubric developed as a result of this initial research. (see powerpoint visual)
II. Find Partners within the Library, and on campus with a similar mission
Visual Literacy is the ability to understand and produce visual images. In my research on the topic, I have found that the UC Irvine Libraries’ current information literacy initiatives lack valuable “visual literacy” components such as how to read, describe, and analyze visual information. During the summer of 2009, I began working with our Department of Education and Outreach and our Second Life Task Force to develop library initiatives that engender visual literacy skills and that dovetail with the current outreach goals of the UC Irvine Libraries.
Currently the Department of Education has formal information literacy discovery tasks embedded within the Humanities Core curriculum at UC Irvine. This pre-existing relationship provides a fertile opportunity for embedding new visual literacy objectives within the curriculum. The department of Education and Outreach is providing guidance regarding how the libraries might complement the existing HumeCore curriculum as well as guidelines for creating, developing, and assessing online tutorials.
The Visual Literacy tutorial group and the Second Life team are looking to enhance our relationship with the humanities core curriculum by creating module tutorials that will be of use to the instruction mission of this undergraduate series that is heavy in image analysis.
We set out on our goal to create visual literacy tools that specifically reflect the research interests at UCI in the Humanities Core curriculum as well as the general humanities curriculum, and the Design Alliance.
III. Determine what current tools are available to teach Visual Literacy Our next step as a team was to create a collaborative bibliography that included the current tools, literature, and resources available to help teach visual literacy.
III. Reaching out via new media
The newly minted Second Life Team team agreed that developing and launching a series of modular interactive online visual literacy tutorials was a needed and worth while endeavor.
The tutorials we are developing are designed to serve the needs of the undergraduate curriculum at UC Irvine. In order to help shoulder the weight of this tremendous task, a small sub-team has been created with a rep. from the dept. of Education and Outreach, a Library Assistant III, and the Research Librarian for Education to help get these tutorials off the ground. We anticipate launching our first module in fall 2010. You can check out our progress by visiting ANTEATER ISLAND’s SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Anteater…and/106/160/23
Additionally, we are creating a visual literacy LibGuide which will be the central point for discovering and using online visual literacy learning objects in addition to the VL tutorials as they are developed. Librarians and faculty will be able to integrate these learning objects into their instruction sessions, lectures, and assignments.
- Learning Objects defined.
- Some the object under development:
- RSS feed
- Page Flake
- Mash-up
- Delicious page of current tools available
- Mind map of image presentation choices
Findings:
The point of my poster is to inspire other librarians to start visual literacy initiatives from the ground up, no matter how large or small their institution.
References:
My Contact Information:
Virginia Allison
Research Librarian for Visual Arts & Dance
University of California, Irvine Libraries
Langson Library Reference 143, Zot 8100
PO Box 19557
Irvine CA 92623-9557
949-824-0360 Phone
v.allison@uci.edu