Class Instruction

The Linda Lear Center provides a unique active learning opportunity for students to handle rare books, archival material, and cultural heritage items. The Center encourages the use of primary source instruction to promote critical thinking and research skills, historical empathy, and primary source literacy. 

The staff at the Lear Center works collaboratively with instructors to: 

  • Map and develop instruction sessions that meet the goals of the course. 
  • Find and curate appropriate materials from the Lear Center’s collections to engage students in the research process and critical thinking of the topics, time periods, or formats.
  • Guide students through the process of conducting archival research, including how to request materials, how to handle fragile and rare materials, using archival finding aids, and different search strategies. 
  • Design activities that are course-specific and active sessions for students to practice primary source analysis.

Schedule a Visit 

Faculty who wish to use the collections during the semester should contact Lear Center staff to collaborate and plan. Please provide Lear Center staff with at least two weeks' advance notice when arranging a class session in the Center. In your request, please include the following information: 

  • Preferred visit date(s) and time of class
  • Syllabus or relevant assignment guidelines
  • How many students are enrolled in the course
  • Goals and learning objectives you wish to achieve

Examples of Instructional Sessions

By using the collections, students will learn the basic skills necessary for researching primary source materials. We have collections in many areas, with particular strengths in:

  • English, American, children's & early modern European literature
  • American history and history of printing
  • Environmental studies
  • Women's Studies
  • Book Arts and illustration
  • History and Architecture of Connecticut College and New London

GSIS 215: Feminist Theory 1840 - 1980

A librarian from the center provided a brief introduction to what archives and primary sources are, services the Linda Lear center provides, and an overview of the Pam Mendelsohn Collection of Instructive Books for Women. After the introduction, students were broken up into groups to examine two to three books from the collection before reconvening as a group to discuss their findings. 

HIS 317: Borders, Empires, & Immigration

Through embedded instruction, the students engaged in archival research at the Lear Center by exploring the Wyles Family Western Reserve Collection and connecting themes from the course to the collection. Students transcribed and examined a collection of letters and the students' work culminated in the digital project Beyond the Archives.

BOT 245: Archaeobotany of Mesoamerica

A librarian from the center and a research and instruction librarian visited the classroom and presented a definition of primary sources in the hard sciences, provided examples of primary sources in botany and archaeology, and examined search strategies for finding primary and secondary sources online. In addition, the librarians’ showed students how to use RefWorks and how to keep their research organized. 

FYS109G: Everyone’s a Curator

Through embedded instruction, students worked with a librarian from the Center to plan, curate, and build an exhibition by the end of the semester. The students visited the center multiple times to participate in guided explorations of the collections and discussed which materials would be picked and how they would be displayed. By the end of the course, the students' exhibition, Becoming a Camel, was exhibited in the Shain Library.