Fan their flames: a collaborative model for information delivery to Indigenous students at the Victorian College of the Arts Library, University of Melbourne

Michelle Evans, University of Melbourne
Georgina Binns, University of Melbourne

Abstract

In 2006, a new postgraduate course in Indigenous Arts Management was offered by the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development, in association with the School of Production at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), Melbourne. This Graduate Certificate course aims to provide applied education in the area of Indigenous Arts Management and to facilitate empowerment and self-determination amongst Indigenous artists and community leaders who seek to manage, market and protect Indigenous arts product in local, national and international contexts.

This paper will examine the collaborative model used to provide library orientation, information literacy training, information services and collection building services to the specific cohort of students enrolled in this course and their teaching staff. Staff of the Lenton Parr Library at the VCA, and the Wilin Centre developed specific programs to assist students in accessing information requirements for their units. Students are sought and drawn from all over Australia, including remote areas, arriving with different educational achievements and information literacy levels as a result. Students generally require individual assistance, as well as encouragement in participative learning, at the same time developing their professional networks. It is this mix of requirements and differences that have inspired a more holistic program for this cohort of students. Issues to be examined include intensive delivery of information literacy using multiple teaching styles, remote resource access requirements, electronic resources, collection development and relationship building. These will be presented alongside an overview of the course and the generic skills students are expected to develop, as well as how these are aligned to their information needs while completing the course and beyond, to assist in life long learning.