Let's Get Physical: Use of Archives and Special Collections in supporting Undergraduate Illustration students at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) to develop and communicate richer and more varied personal research methodologies

Edinburgh offers the luxury of an unusual wealth of Museums, Archives and Special Collections. As a researcher working with these resources I believe it an important strand to weave into student projects. This has become yet more relevant following a few years where students have been forced to access the majority of research remotely, the value of engaging with physical materials has become even more apparent. Use of Special Collections and Archives has proved invaluable in expanding research methodologies, adding depth to analysis and richness to the sources that feed students’ creative practice.

This paper draws together reflections of staff on the Programme, Curators, Archivists and broader scholarship on the use of Collections in Higher Education pedagogy. In doing this I seek to map out ways of nurturing rich and sophisticated research methodologies when working with Illustration students.

Particular collections are used at ECA to foster distinct skills across the programme. New students are taught how to access collections at the National Library of Scotland (NLS) and root themselves in the history of illustration. Later staff partner with curators at the University Centre for Heritage Collections to design projects using materials as a stimulus for ideas. These field trips enable students to see alternative ways to organize, curate and communicate complex bodies of work.

In the final year students use the ECA Archive to reflect on the concept of an ‘archive’. Establishing their own personal research methodology, students consider what research is, and where activities fit within a framework such as that modelled by Gannon and Fauchon; ‘research into illustration’, ‘research through illustration’ and ‘research for illustration’ (2021). In reflecting on how students actually learn to undertake research, this paper considers how effectively this pathway model guides students to explore, question and value a broader variety of materials in much more depth.