Chloe Smith gave a 15 minute lightning talk at ARCLIB 2023 conference on ‘Object based learning in HE libraries: a dissertation partly inspired by a lightning talk on OBL at ARCLIB 2022‘. That talk by Morwenna Peters was in turn inspired by a talk at ARCLIB’s 2021 online conference by Billie Coxhead. It is great to see how ideas are shared and evolve amongst our members!
Chloe started her MA dissertation on how other university librarians have incorporated OBL in their teaching, and what they have learned. At Birmingham City University there are lots of international students, coming from eighty countries. Students can bring their own experiences, values and culture to interpret objects.
Chloe discussed her ongoing dissertation for her MA, looking at how other university librarians have incorporated OBL in their teaching, and what they have learned. This covered the techniques in use, potential benefits and challenges for teaching, with a consideration of best practices. Some of the emerging themes were: ‘unknowing’ and ‘serendipity’.
There appears to be a wider range of applications of OBL in museums, HE, etc. and it can be used to incorporate various themes around wellbeing, decolonisation and much more. The variety of objects that can be used is very diverse too e.g. maps, tapestries, art works, jewellery, or objects from special collections.
New suggestions resulting from this conference are, look at materials libraries and their use, consider asking people to bring in their own cultural stuff as a method of engagement and research Community of Inquiry (COI) as a pedagogical tool to back up her statements.
Report by Karen Richardson | University of Greenwich
Photograph of a delegate’s sketchnotes from select lightning talks.
Chloe beings her presentation.
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