“The Forms of Things Unknown:” Insights from a Librarian-designed Shakespeare Course

A Shakespeare and Film course taught by a librarian at Miami University was designed as a test bed for new models for supporting multimodal research and artistic creativity in academic libraries. This interactive panel conversation by makerspace, special collections, and subject liaison librarians will share practical insights about how librarians worked across administrative units to support a course that challenged students to critically examine the foundations of racial, social, and gender injustice in the English Renaissance, and where students were given exceptional flexibility regarding the forms of creative and scholarly work they were able to complete for credit. This panel will describe and discuss with attendees several innovative practices linked to the course and student creativity (the practice of imagining “the forms of things unknown,” as Shakespeare put it). One discussion will concern a pair of co-designed teaching sessions provided by the Miami Libraries’ Makerspace and Special Collections, in which many of the objects featured in our special collections session were selected to inspire creative maker projects, helping students to consider possible creative projects while also learning about Elizabethan print culture. Additional course-related innovative practices will also be described, such as the course’s use of library-provided controlled digital lending of licenses for software such as Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro and the acquisition of audio-visual equipment specially for the course. Also discussed will be the practice of using permission forms to allow instructors to “think like librarians,” by beginning to curate collections of student work for sharing with future students or even the broader public, in accordance with preferences and permissions of student creators. In keeping with this practice, some examples of student work from the course may be shared. Finally, although this session will emphasize the sharing and discussion of specific innovative practices, the speakers will also reflect on two larger themes: ways that course content and activities were designed to sustain inclusive discussions of equity and justice in connection with Shakespeare and film, and ways that libraries and librarians can create bridges between traditional service units with a goal of inspiring, supporting and distributing student and faculty information creativity and promoting academic success.