Undergraduate Competency for History Students

Dana Hamlin

The History Section of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of the American Library Association, recently announced that the association's Board of Directors approved a set of information literacy guidelines and competencies for undergraduate history students. A project more than four years in the making, these guidelines were developed by a committee of reference and instruction librarians, the majority of whom are subject specialists in history.

One of the members of the committee writes in an email sent to various history- and library-related listservs: "it is [the committee's] hope that the Guidelines will be used by librarians, archivists, and teaching faculty to guide teaching and learning throughout the undergraduate curriculum." Indeed, the introduction to the guidelines states that the document is intended to "provide a framework for faculty and librarians to assess [students' historical research] skills" and to "aid faculty in designing research methods classes, assignments, and projects," among other goals.

As someone who is part of the library/archives world and who has never taught history, I'm really curious about what the readers of this blog think about these guidelines. Are they helpful? Does a set of guidelines like this already exist in the teaching sector? Do you think this document has the potential to aid collaboration between history faculty and librarians?