Since 2010, the Special Collections & Archives staff has committed resources to building and sustaining a robust archives education program on the Colby campus. We desire to connect our collections with Colby’s curriculum, support innovative teaching and learning, and align our practices with the “archivists as educators” priority in the professional archival field.  Our teaching program embraces active learning and places students at the center of instruction design, with class sessions that foster creative and critical thinking, excitement, and a high degree of student engagement and self-discovery.

We envision Special Collections & Archives as a learning lab, an archival equivalent of a touch tank. Archival class sessions can range from a focused, single class visit to multiple visits scaffolded over an entire semester, where students can actively engage in the archival research process. We strive to design class sessions that emphasize active, hands-on learning, archival literacy, and development of practical and transferable research and project management skills that students can apply to their Colby academic experience and beyond.