Incorporating Information Literacy into Music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque (MUS 357): A Required Course for all Music Degrees

Course: Music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque
Faculty: Dr. Timothy J. Roden, Music Department, tjroden@owu.edu
Librarian: Margie Wiers, M.A., M.L.S., Music Librarian, mlwiers@owu.edu

Introduction

This is the second course of the music history sequence that will have an information literacy component. Students in Music 357 will continue to build upon the basic literacy skills acquired in MUS 109. They will begin to develop a research methodology and build a professional level of competency in understanding the research tools and materials of music information that they will use throughout their career. Students will begin self-directed investigation as they make use of the wide variety of library resources.

Nature of the Project

The goal for this second level in a comprehensive information literacy sequence is to prepare students to use music library materials for completing research papers and assignments. [The spring semester course (MUS 358) will reinforce these skills as students work on writing research papers.] Students will learn (1) correct styles of citation as well as principles for including attributions in their writing; (2) how to access information through such bibliographic tools as RILM; (3) various educational materials available on CD-ROM and publisher sites; and (4) survey assorted histories of music. A minimum of five sessions will be required to meet these goals. After each session students will be required to complete two or three significant assignments based on the presentation. The instructor or music librarian will review or grade all assignments.

  1. Citation workshop (this will require a minimum of two sessions): due to its complicated nature, this topic is of particular importance. Students will learn how to use A Manual for Writers by Kate Turabian. Particular attention will be given into examining the rationale behind citation order and punctuation, enabling students to make appropriate choices when faced with references requiring a creative approach to citation. Several assignments will introduce students to increasingly complicated citation techniques. A discussion of when to use citations when writing will be presented as well as how to prepare a bibliography and footnote placement will be covered.

  2. RILM: Students will be introduced to the RILM database. They will learn how it is organized, methods of focusing on a topic, Boolean operators, controlled vocabulary and thesauri searching as opposed to free text searching, the help files, and critical thinking in handling the information retrieved by the search. Assignments will take them through various types of searches.

  3. Electronic resources: Students will be introduced to educational materials available on CD-ROM and publisher sites.

  4. Various histories of music: students will become acquainted with the scope, purpose, and sefulness of various historical studies. This will include collections of primary documents, general surveys (including 18th century histories by Burney and Hawkins, which are now considered primary documents), and specialized period studies. Particular emphasis will be placed on how such materials can be used in research.

Project Timeline

Developing assignments to support Information Literacy sessions will require a substantial amount of time. The instructor and music librarian will meet regularly, probably once a week, during the spring semester to develop the content of the sessions and the assignments.

Faculty Time to Complete the Project

The instructor, with the assistance of the music librarian, will need to construct search assignments that will support and amplify the specific information literacy session as well as have relevance to the pedagogical goals of the course. Developing clear assignments for items 1 and 2 listed above will be particularly time consuming. We would like to develop web-based materials and assignments as much as possible, an area in which the music librarian has a particular expertise, which will also require a substantial amount of preparation. However, this will ultimately reduce the costs for copying as well as facilitate grading. We also plan to evaluate each session at the completion of the last assignment. It will take approximately ten to sixteen hours to develop the assignments for each session, probably more for the session dealing with electronic media, for a total of between fifty to eighty hours. Preparation will commence during Spring Semester and, on the instructor's part, continue throughout the summer.

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