History Module Synthesis

            The resources we visited this week have been some of my favorite that I have encountered in the LIS program at Kent thus far. As an undergraduate history major, I have a love for history, and the resources presented here really appealed to my personal interests.

            On that note, I was intrigued by the article, “Historians and Their Information Resources.” I agreed with much that was included in the article, but was surprised when the authors stated that historians tend to avoid e-journals (Dalton & Charnigo 2004, pg. 414). I have extensively used e-journals in historical research throughout my time as an historian, and have been encouraged to do so by my professors. When I posed this quandary to the class, one of my colleagues commented that he thought the authors may have meant e-journals to refer to those periodicals published solely online, with no print edition. That would make more sense, but I still would want to read a more updated article on historians’ use of sources in their research to see if e-resources have gained any traction in the last ten years. I had meant to try and track down such an article on my own, but ended up running out of time this week. If I find anything, I will post it as an attachment to this post.

            Part of the reason I would want to read an update on how historians use e-resources is because there were several presented this week that were quite impressive. The first one I examined was the Library of the Royal Society Centre for the History of Science’s website which contains many impressive print documents magnificently scanned for use online. I perused an anatomy sketchbook from some few hundred years ago, and tried to decipher the handwritten notes from the captain of a sea voyage. These two primary source documents were accessed for free, and were presented at a high enough resolution as to allow for detailed study. The controls of the viewer were a bit clunky, but overall I was impressed with the presentation. I think that digitizing books and displaying them in a format similar to how the Library of the Royal Society Centre for the History of Science exhibits some of their works would allow for public access to works that are too old or too brittle to remain in circulation. Doing so would prove a powerful tool to librarians seeking to connect their patrons with historical resources. This also has implications for the future of preservation. If we are able to virtually recreate a book down to the almost microscopic level, it could provide far more widespread and far longer access to material that is currently falling prey to decay. I work daily with books from the mid-fifteenth century to the mid-eighteenth, and I can say unequivocally that even print material housed in ideal preservation conditions does not last forever. I know that digital media does not either, but creating copies of works that might otherwise molder in obscurity would help prolong access to that information.  

            In examining the LibGuides this week I continued to be impressed by the scope of resources presented. One of my colleagues highlighted Theresa Murdock’s Guide from the University of Washington. I was also impressed with the quality and depth of the guide. I have noticed, too, that the University of Washington consistently creates very good LibGuides. Their guides for both their medical residents and their College of Nursing are also well done and intuitive to use. I explored those two in conjunction with the work I am doing for my practicum. Knowing this about the University of Washington is helpful, because it provides an additional resource I can turn to for help as a librarian. If I am posed a question on a subject I do not know well, it seems that university’s guides could offer another good portal to information.

            I was taken with the Digital Librarian’s History Section for reasons similar to why I liked the Library of the Royal Society Centre’s website. Both resources offer access to good electronic versions of primary sources. I spent some time looking through the Alexander’s Palace Time Machine which contains a myriad of pictures depicting the palace as it stood in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The opulence of the palace is stunning, and so is the quality of the prints that are presented on the website. This type of access to electronic versions of primary sources is something that has not existed for long, and something that would be of great importance to a researching historian. For the first time we, as librarians, have the power to connect historians with primary sources from thousands of miles away, without either of us ever having to leave our office. This has huge implications for both the nature and the quality of research that can be supported for a relatively low cost.

            Finally, I liked looking through the History subReddit. Like Political Science’s sub Reddit last week, it was not populated with good resources for research, but it is certainly an amusing read. I continue to think that Reddit, like Wikipedia, is a good jumping-off point for further study, but should never be used as a source in and of itself. As a librarian, I think that this source could be used as a recommendation for people with interests in specific areas of study, or as a way to keep up on the current state of a particular subject, but I would never recommend it as a good research tool.