Library: Incorporating archives into your learning and teaching activities: Archive Skills Sessions

How Hull University Archives staff can help you

Want to create a unique learning experience for your students?

Hull University Archives staff can offer advice, signpost to resources, and provide digitised content from collections at Hull History Centre to assist in the incorporation of archives into learning and teaching development. Further details are outlined on subsequent pages of this guide.

Staff can also deliver hands-on workshops to introduce students to archival research and the resources available at Hull History Centre.

These workshops are tailored to individual courses and modules, and can be incorporated into the existing timetable. Sessions can be run on campus using surrogate copies of archives, but work best when held at Hull History Centre where students can interact with original material.

To date we have worked with colleagues in Geography, History, Politics, English, Drama and Education. We would love to explore how we might work with non-traditional archives users to develop innovative and creative learning and teaching opportunities.

Below are some examples of sessions we have delivered for academic colleagues, within the existing course or module timetable:

Intro to Archives

During this session we introduce students to the basics of archival research.

Using discussions based on original archival material, students explore the following key concepts:

what we mean by archival
how we can use archives
how we describe and find archives

Sources for Studying...

During this session we introduce students to the range of sources held at Hull History Centre, which are of relevance to their current module or course of study.

Using discussions based on original archival material, students explore:

how different types of records can be used to study particular topics
the perspectives and biases evident in these records

Intro to Hull History Centre

During this session, we take students on a tour of Hull History Centre, pointing out the facilities available to them, the types of collections we hold, and explaining how the various finding aids work.

The tour lasts approximately 40 minutes. It can be run in conjunction with our 'Intro to Archives' or 'Sources for Studying...' sessions, provided these sessions are held at Hull History Centre.

Feedback from students and staff

The following comments come from individuals who have taken part in archival skills sessions:

'I didn’t realise there were so many resources at Hull History Centre'

'Reading this [diary] entry really makes me think about the writer’s personal experience, not just the event being described'

'Equating this to my own life, I can see how things have changed'

'Reading this letter, a potential character jumps off the page for me'

'The students got a lot out of this session last year, it inspired so much discussion'

'Several of last year’s students based their coursework on the collections we looked at during the workshop'

'Building archives into part of the module assessment really helped the students develop their analytical skills'

Request a session

Hull University Archives staff are here to support academic colleagues in the delivery of archival skills training.

To request a bespoke session email us for a chat: archives@hull.ac.uk.

Incorporating archives into your learning and teaching activities: Archive Skills Sessions