La disputa con el hegelianismo

In this category art student learners are conceived as a very particular kind or type of student learner and substantively ‗different‘ to other learners. They are characterised and described in relation to their specific discipline and their particular course of study and as such they are recognised as a diverse but distinct set of library users. The practical and visual nature of the courses these students undertake continues to be acknowledged. The perceptions expressed in this category focus on student difference and disciplinary particularity, for example:

‗I suppose where art and design student practice probably differs from other academic practice is that it‘s really based on yourself, you know, it is your own practice, and it‘s about how you feel‘ (Tabitha).

I think they are very different, they are a very different…they like to think of things as objects and just get inspiration from the moment really, rather than looking forward. So they are quite different …and the material they use is very

varied because the kind of projects they take on can go right across the spectrum of subject areas as well, not just the art areas‘ (Diana).

This category of description includes a number of references to student difficulty as well as difference. The relationship between the perceived problems these students exhibit and the underlying reasons for these problems is framed in terms of what these librarians believe constitutes ‗traditional‘ academic study and what comprises study in art and design. The implication is that art student learners are not traditional learners and therefore they find traditional academic practices problematic and difficult. Art student learners are ‗otherised‘ in this category and compared to other students, sometimes unfavourably.

‗I think mainly they struggle more with traditional things. And I know a lot of, maybe there‘s more dyslexic students here, than certainly I had noticed at XXX so things like even finding a book on the shelves, some of them find it difficult‘ (Carol).

‗…some people…maybe their minds work along more traditional, almost like ‗academicy‘ lines, so maybe they can sift through information and see their way through it, and for various reasons they are just a little bit more focused. I think we get an awful lot that aren‘t…for various reasons …they will just flounder around not really knowing…it‘s almost like it‘s just too much information for them to sift their way through‘ (Jess).

‗I was very aware after that point that there is a big gap between students who are on kind of more vocational practical degrees, in the kind of research and knowledge and that sort of thing, than there are for students who kind of have that background in kind of text based subjects anyway‘ (Ron).

The narratives provide an indication of the participants‘ beliefs about what a discipline is and what it ‗should‘ be. Art as a subject appears to be perceived by the participants as perhaps lower in status or value than other more traditional academic disciplines. Consistent opinions are expressed that text-based information is

associated with traditional forms of academic study. In this category the curriculum of art and design is assumed to require less academic writing and research than other disciplines and is therefore in some way ‗less‘ academic than other subjects. Some unconscious value judgments and undeclared bias appear to be represented in these

perceptions i.e. that some subjects are more academic and are therefore ‗better‘ than others.

Research has shown that approaches to teaching are affected by both discipline and teaching context (Lindblom-Ylänne et al. 2006). This would indicate that both the discipline of art and design and the context of the activity within the academic art library are relevant to understanding the approach to learning described in this category. The librarians perceive the student learners as working to and within the particular parameters and requirements of the discipline of art and design. The librarians‘ tacit beliefs and assumptions about hard/soft/pure disciplines (Biglan, 1973) may perhaps underpin some of the value-laden statements about ‗strong‘ academic students and ‗weak‘ non-academic students and their approaches to learning. These tacit assumptions may mirror research by Schommer (1990) into student‘s beliefs about knowledge and learning and could indicate that librarians who have a strong belief in the rigour and prestige of hard or pure academic disciplines and hold fast to the continuity of professional principles and processes related to information management and art library practice, may perceive soft disciplines as being problematic and may have difficulty with tentative student questions and answers. This approach also perhaps resonates with research into librarian identity which suggests a lack of confidence amongst the profession and also a lack of belief in their own self-efficacy and in the skills and knowledge encompassed by the discipline of librarianship both as a subject of study and a professional practice.

The perception of art student learners as ‗particular‘ because of the particularity of the curriculum in art and design, underpinned by particular notions of what constitutes a discipline and a lack of detailed knowledge about creative arts curricula, may

combine to inhibit partnership working with students to co-produce a more effective learning environment.

‗…it‘s not text based, which makes a big difference, and I think that‘s part of the problem, that they are not learning in a text-based way, so they are not searching in a traditionally academic way, and so we have a problem as librarians, and also a lot of the library architecture, both the physical and the electronic, is very text based, so for instance in the electronic library, you know, the search bar…the information retrieval tool, it doesn‘t work very well on non text-based databases‘ (Leah).

‗I think fine art students get very worried about academic research and writing, some of them…I mean with architecture students they, I suppose perhaps because they are more gearing towards team-working in an architectural practice or something…they seem to be confident generally about, but perhaps that‘s the nature of their discipline, and it is more disciplined in that, you know it‘s a ‗disciplined‘ discipline, whereas fine art is, well, it‘s slightly alien I suppose, to me in a way‘ (Ruby).

The librarians‘ utterances demonstrate some awareness that art libraries may be predicated on traditional academic approaches to research and resource discovery. They appeared to believe that the emphasis on text as the primary form of information delivery in art libraries may not fully meet the needs of art student learners. In this category, art and design is viewed as a very ‗particular‘ discipline with a ‗particular‘ pedagogy. Therefore, it seems to be assumed that arts students must also be a very particular type of learner. They are perceived as thinking and working differently to other learners and described as unconventional and inventive.

‗…my students, I think, make connections in a different way, it‘s quite hard to put into words, they are much more visual but I think they perhaps also see things more kind of, mind-map style. But I also think, since the time that I started this I‘ve kind of learnt to be a bit more like that myself‘ (Gina).

‗…their take on user education is very different, it‘s much broader in fact … the other thing I find is that they are very broad about where they take things from, it‘s not like in an academic thing where you are just looking at journals‘ (Leah). This variation of perception assumes that many students will be dyslexic and most are expected to be experiential and visual learners, but the framing of these notions in the librarians‘ descriptions appears to be increasingly positive and empathetic. It is recognised that students with specific learning differences may have developed compensating or mitigating strategies and there are references to what these librarians may do to develop their teaching in order to take a more arts student-aligned

approach. Arts students are understood to exhibit a preference for serendipitous information discovery but this is deemed to be a positive and appropriate approach, rather than an indication of completely random and therefore ‗disorganised‘ and chaotic information seeking behaviour. Art student learners are described as curious, seeking inspiration and learning in an interactive, discursive, dialogic way. This view

would appear to align well with the project-centred and discovery-based learning approaches encouraged by art and design curricula.

‗I think they are sort of more visual, they like visual learning and active learning or creative things that are very interactive and I think that‘s

something where we can develop our teaching and our resources quite a bit, so that‘s something I‘m hoping I can help with as well‘ (Amy).

‗…you will have a, you know, a number of students out there who, because of their dyslexia, will be trying, maybe, and failing to use the library, or trying to learn in a completely different way, using the various, you know, sort of compensations they‘ve learnt to do when obviously faced with large pieces of text or whatever‘ (Jess).

These learners are described as being ‗messy‘ and more ‗free‘ than other students in the way that they discover information. They are viewed as collectors of information and resources and described as ‗magpies‘ who are into everything, seeking inspiration and interested in every possible subject area. As a result they want and need a

‗browsing‘ approach to information retrieval. Again, although this is not typical of library use in other subject domains, there is a more positive acceptance of the particularity of these creative arts learners. It would appear that some librarians are more willing to accept art student ‗difference‘ because the discipline they are engaged with is also perceived as different.

‗Pulling the books off the shelves and making a mess, which is fine. That‘s one way of learning…but with the art students the importance of being able to browse, and that sort of serendipity of finding material, is a really important part of how they process information, get inspiration, and learn new things. So I think that‘s probably quite key‘ (Rachel).

‗I think there‘s an awful lot of serendipity, there‘s a lot of wandering about, looking for things, picking things out and coming up with things in a much less structured way than other student disciplines I‘ve worked with in the past. I think there‘s a lot more group discussion and group interaction‘ (Arnold).

‗I think they tend to want to…browse the shelves in the areas they are interested in, rather than just sort of taking one book from the catalogue and going with it‘ (Cate).

This category reflects the utterances of librarians who demonstrate some awareness of the disciplinary context and acknowledge that this may incline these students to informal and individualised approaches to the development of their own practice. There is increasing understanding evidenced in the narratives that the library with its rules and regimes may not be orientated towards these learners in a way that enables them to interact easily and successfully with library services and resources.

‗…it‘s very much more individual, individualised…..and less formalised, and it feels quite informal‘ (Arnold).

‗I think maybe for arts students, I mean it‘s difficult, you know, I can just compare with the Education students, but they are probably people who are a bit more individualist, or you know, the main thing of their course is really to go towards what they want to do in their practice, and maybe these big sessions are not suited to them‘ (Carol).

Serendipitous browsing and unplanned information retrieval strategies are more likely to be seen as positive and reasonable information-seeking practice in this category as compared to descriptions related to problematic and practitioner learners. There would appear to be some acceptance that individualised browsing behaviour is

appropriate and will occur to a greater or lesser degree depending on the actual course of study. There is acknowledgment that art students need inspiration and therefore may not know exactly what they are looking for until they see it and that structured and systematic approaches will not necessarily be appropriate to their individual needs.

‗I support…Film students…they are a little bit more directed towards specific books, so they are perhaps a little bit more like traditional students…but I think they tend to want to, quite often still want to browse the shelves in the areas they are interested in, rather than just sort of taking one book from the catalogue and going with it‘ (Cate).

‗…they browse around a lot, they are not kind of systematic I would say, they rely more on serendipity, and there are certain things they don‘t instantly think of, they don‘t kind of take a thorough approach to it, so you won‘t find them thinking through different kinds of spellings and different kinds of synonyms and things like that. It‘s not the instant way that they think. They go and

rummage about and hope to find what they want, but also they are not always looking for something specific, they are quite often looking for inspiration rather than a piece of information‘ (Gina).

‗There‘s an element of serendipity, which I think creative people tend to enjoy. Um…which possibly relates to the fact that sometimes they‘ll come in and they won‘t have a specific information need to frame, they don‘t really know what they are looking for, they are just going to look around a bit and see what inspires them‘ (Sara).

This approach is perceived as creative and inspirational and related to the particular requirements of learning in the arts.

‗Some courses, I suppose, archetypically fashion, are very image-hungry, and so they are using the library, hence the endless shelving, they are just using books to quickly look through lots of images, so they can literally kind of get through a lot of print based images in their research‘ (Jill).

‗Fashion students, they just sort of come in and devour the magazines, they just want to see pictures of things, and they don‘t really care what they are looking at, they just copy things for inspiration, and they learn like that, because it‘s more about stumbling upon things and about getting sort of inspiration, and then they might worry about writing the essay about it afterwards. But they are just there to absorb and just sort of be creative, which is why it‘s more chaotic, the way they research‘ (Susan).

The variation in perception which describes creative arts student learners as

‗particular‘ is illustrative of recognition by some library staff that the discipline and curricula of art and design encourages particular learning approaches. There is acknowledgment by these staff that although these may be different to other learning approaches they are a necessary and appropriate feature of the discipline itself and therefore they are not in or of themselves ‗wrong‘ or problematic. The expanding awareness in this category is of the pedagogy, culture and communities fostered by practice-based and practice-led creative courses and associated student learning approaches.

‗It is a culture of kind of gathering stuff, they do still definitely do that, and also yes, they find the number where they need to be in the library, then they browse within that section‘ (Tabitha).

‗Being art and design it could be absolutely anything you could possibly imagine, which I think you don‘t see as much, obviously, in the universities where they are Humanities, Arts and Sciences, I think our students present you with a far, far more wide ranging list of queries, because they are into

everything, you know, every subject known‘ (Jess).

An increasingly subtle, nuanced and holistic attitude towards these student learners is developed through the three categories of variation already described. Whilst there is a pervasive thread weaving through the librarians‘ utterances which frequently alludes to student and disciplinary difference, a more diverse and complex understanding of art and design as a discipline emerges which is developed further in the final category. The variation in perception which demonstrates an understanding of art students as proficient learners signifies a more complex experience and an expanded awareness of both the students and the disciplinary context.