September 20, 2021
ECU's MLS program participates in UNC summer fellowship grant
The Master of Library Science Program at ECU is participating in a 3-year fellowship program as part of a grant awarded to Wilson Special Collections Library and the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill Libraries (University Libraries) in partnership with the Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Collective.
Dr. Barbara Marson
UNC-Chapel Hill will develop and host the online fellowship program that is geared toward training MLIS students to teach with primary sources. Dr. Barbara Marson, ECU’s MLS program director, is serving on the advisory board to help identify applicants and promote the fellowship to LIS programs in North Carolina.
According to the proposal:
Primary sources can create a rich opportunity for engaging with questions of historical equity. They help us reckon with the past; help correct erroneous beliefs that persist in national, local, and personal narratives; and help us envision our futures. Educators at all levels rely on librarians and archivists to help them and their students understand and contextualize primary sources. The profession needs librarians and archivists trained in how to teach others to analyze and interpret primary source objects.
Wilson Libraries is working with the support of five academic programs within the University of North Carolina System: Appalachian State’s Department of Leadership and Educational Studies, North Carolina Central University’s School of Library and Information Sciences, East Carolina University’s College of Education, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s Department of Library and Information Science.
The goal of the program is to fill the curricular gap in primary source pedagogy in current library and information science graduate programs while building a network of support for new professionals from underrepresented backgrounds in the profession.