a photo of students researching in the reading room

Class Visits

Instruction at the John Carter Brown Library Collections

The John Carter Brown Library’s instructional program empowers students to think critically and creatively with primary sources through hands-on engagement with our distinctive collection of materials related to the history of the early Americas.

Instruction sessions center primary source literacy, promote material engagement and analysis, and criticality highlight absences and silences in the archival record.

Our staff are excited to partner with faculty to develop experimental, student-centered primary source literacy instruction incorporating materials from our collection and research methodologies into your coursework. In addition to providing guidance on the use of our extensive collection of digitized materials, we can help you to develop meaningful assignments and experiences for your students guided by the RBMS/SAA Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy.

JCB staff can offer

  • On site or virtual workshops on topics that would benefit from a discussion of our historical material.
  • On site or virtual visits with a curator to discuss the JCB’s collections, research strategies, or specific items from the collection.
  • On site or virtual research consultations with your students to help with specific class assignments.

Class workshops, remote or onsite, at the JCB are most productive when the students and instructors are active and engaged in their development. We are happy to work with instructors to devise workshops that highlight our materials and serve the goals of the course with this principle in mind.

Planning an Instruction Session

Please note that we have limited instructional capacity for both staff and space. Campus safety protocols may also prevent us from accommodating all requests for in-person workshops.
On site, we can accommodate in person groups of up to 15 attendees. If you have a larger group, please plan for multiple visits. We can also discuss providing instructional support in other modalities.

Steps to request instructional support:

  1. Use the form below to submit a request for instruction. Please submit your request form at least four weeks before your planned class visit. As a rule, earlier is better, as schedules tend to fill well in advance of each semester.
  2. Once the information you have provided is reviewed, the Public Services Librarian will contact you to confirm our availability and discuss how we might help meet your instructional goals.
  3. The Public Services Librarian will work with you to schedule a consultation with a curator, which can be held in-person or on Zoom, to align on planned learning outcomes, instructional materials, and a lesson plan.
  4. Instruction at the JCB is a collaborative effort, and to this end, faculty must be present during class visits.

Preparing for your visit:

  • Direct students to use the Caspersen Entrance at the back of the John Carter Brown Library. Workshops are held in the JCB instruction room just inside this entrance. Staff will help them enter at the appropriate time.
  • Please instruct students to arrive to class with clean, dry hands.
  • Students will be asked to store their bags and heavy coats outside the classroom.
  • Food and drink are not permitted in the classroom.
  • Students may only use cell phones, laptops, or pencils for notetaking (no pens).
  • You will be asked to provide a list of attendees at the end of the session. We recommend a sign-in sheet. Because we need to know the precise number of students attending, unfortunately we cannot accommodate instruction requests during shopping period.
Request Instructional support

Students in the Reading Room

Did your students see something they liked during their visit? Would you like them to spend more time with our books? Brown students can become readers! They would need to register and make an appointment to call materials. Read up on our Reading Room policies to find out more. Please note that the Reading Room also has limited capacity, so if you assign research visits, allow plenty of time for students to make appointments.

If you have further questions, please contact the Public Services Librarian, Genesis Barrera, who manages instructional support by emailing genesis_barrera@brown.edu.