Author’s Note
Rachel Shane, the Gary B. Knapp Endowed Chair of Arts Administration at the University of Kentucky, and Joe French, the department’s instructional designer, first wrote to me about the idea for a “micro course” on PhD-level library research in early 2020 as the department was preparing to welcome their first ever cohort of doctoral students into the department’s then- newly approved PhD degree in Arts Administration. To help their students prepare for doctoral study, they had the idea to develop short, online, noncredit courses for incoming students to take in the summer before their degree coursework began, including one on research and information literacy, utilizing the fine arts library resources to conduct research as online students, which they invited me to develop.
I had worked with PhD students in the arts as a librarian at a graduate research institution for many years before I came to work at UK, and I was thrilled for a chance to explore the theories and practicalities of conducting academic library research with more students/colleagues working in the arts. Joe and I developed the first iteration of “Doctoral Library Research & Information Literacy” in Google Docs and Canvas, and at the time of this writing in 2025, I have now presented its modules and activities to five incredible cohorts of doctoral students in Arts Administration at UK. It has been my absolute privilege to learn from each student who has engaged with the course, several of whom have become friends, colleagues, or even closer friends and colleagues, and the first of whom I’ve seen earn their PhDs.
After five years of presenting this micro-course through Canvas, I’m excited to have an opportunity to pull the materials together and present them in this stand-alone textbook form, freely available and open to all. It is my hope that future PhD cohorts, including the sixth group who will begin in 2025, or past students who are now teaching their own graduate courses in arts administration research, or others who are teaching and learning in this growing field, will enjoy the chance to share these activities in any shape or format that’s helpful.
Like many academic libraries, the University of Kentucky Libraries has been working diligently to make open educational resources (OERs), including open access textbooks such as this one, as widely available to students, instructors, authors, and researchers as possible. I’m eager to add the work we’ve been doing collectively together in Arts Administration on doctoral-level library research to the rich collection of OERs and open access texts that are available to researchers today.
