When Life Sciences Librarian Hope Lappen held a literature review workshop last year, she noticed a trend. Humanities students joined the virtual session and asked quite a few of the same questions. She relayed the information to the Humanities & Social Sciences group, and Librarian for the Fine Arts Giana Ricci and Librarian for Middle Eastern, Islamic, and Jewish Studies Guy Burak took action and created the Digital Humanities Workshop Series dedicated to meeting these students’ specific research needs. After the first session’s completion, the subject librarians saw an increase in requests for one-on-one meetings, with students calling the virtual sessions instrumental to their research process.
“Giana opened my eyes to conducting research online,” said first-year graduate student Renata Romain. Renata is specializing in documentary film production and said the workshop series helped her organize how she approached her thesis research on the intersection of art and truth. “I feel more aware and mindful of what sources I can access for information. Since I want to create films that have social impact and explore the Black diaspora in Panama, I know I will need to interact with different forms of research.”
Renata found the Finding Visual Resources workshop particularly insightful. Attendees were provided guidance on determining essential information, image and video databases available at the NYU Libraries, and resources to help with copyright and citations.
“We’re in the golden era of documentary films,” she said. “They are becoming more cinematic and less didactic. I had already done a lot of research, but working with Giana helped me break down my research process to stay organized and apply the research I had already completed. It feels good to know that the librarians are there to help.”
The workshop series is scheduled again for fall 2021. Stay in the loop about upcoming NYU Libraries events and programming by signing up for our LibLink newsletter or find a complete list of upcoming workshops and library classes on our LibCal webpage.
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