HIST 300: Types of Resources

1. HIST 300: Types of Resources Natalie Burclaff Langsdale Library nburclaff@ubalt.edu 410-837-5072

2. Today: Types of Resources • Web resources • Evaluation basics • Information Cycle • Types of periodicals • Primary vs. secondary sources

3. Web Resources

4. History Websites by Type • Collections of primary sources • Reports of papers and projects • “Webliographies” (lists of websites) • Collections of documents and activities • Blogs or personal reflections • Listservs and discussion forums • Reference websites

5. Search Engines: Types (1) • Big general ones: • Google, Bing • Yahoo.com • Ask.com • Bing • Gigablast • List of others from DMOZ • And from Wikipedia

6. Compare Results! http://www.bing-vs-google.com/

7. Search Engines: Types (2) • Metasearch Engines • Search multiple search engines at once • Dogpile • Yippy (was Clusty) • Surfwax • List of others from DMOZ

8. Invisible Web (a.k.a. Deep Web) • “Surface web”: Google, Yahoo, etc • 500+ times larger than surface web • Images & other non-text files • Local content (page generated only when you request it) • Fee-based sites (e.g., library databases) • Most information is free

9. Invisible Web Search Engines • Internet Archive: • http://www.archive.org/ • Librarian’s Index to the Internet: • http://lii.org • List of Others from an article

10. Academic Search Engines • Search invisible Web • Focus on academic information • Examples: • Directory of Open Access Journals • Google Scholar • OAIster

11. Evaluating Resources

12. Evaluating Resources: the 5 W’s • Who is the author of the web site? • What are their credentials (expertise)? • When was the information published or written? • Where was the information published? • Why was the page created?

13. Evaluating Web Resources • Langsdale Tutorial: • Web Evaluation • Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Evaluating Criteria

14. Virginia Tech Massacre April 16, 2007 Information Cycle

15. Minutes/Hours after the event What information sources are available? What do they tell us?

16. Minutes/Hours after the event

17. Day after the event • What information sources are available? • What do they tell us?

18. Day after the event

19. Weeks after the event • What information sources are available? • What do they tell us?

20. Weeks after the event

21. Months after the event • What information sources are available? • What do they tell us?

22. Months after the event

23. Years after the event • What information sources are available? • What do they tell us?

24. Years after the event

26. Article Sources: Types of Periodicals

27. Publishing Who decides what gets published? Peers Editors Individuals Who do you trust?

28. Peer-Review

29. Scholarly vs. Popular Peer-reviewed Written by experts Original research (scientific method) Cite their sources (with references) Longer, lots of text Published monthly, quarterly, annually, available by subscriptions only Editors Written by reports Topics for a wide audience No standard citation method Lots of pictures, ads Published daily, weekly, monthly and available in public locations

30. …And in between Trade magazines Intellectual publications

31. Types of Periodicals • Popular: written for general audience; written at a high-school level or lower • Professional/Trade: written for fellow practitioners; uses specific vocabulary (jargon) • Scholarly: written by and for experts on a topic; scholars and researchers; writing is very technical

32. Primary vs. Secondary Sources

33. Primary Sources Original accounts or records of historical events • Diaries, journals, speeches, interviews, letters • Memoirs and autobiographies • Original documents (e.g. family Bible records) • Photographs, documentaries, sound recordings • Newspaper articles written at the time describing the particular event

34. Secondary Sources Written later and/or provide historical analysis. Based on the primary sources • Articles by people not at the event based on others’ accounts • Textbooks • Reference sources • Books and articles analyzing the historical context of the event

35. Primary vs. Secondary • Photos, letters, and other original documents are considered primary even if they are reproduced in a book or other source (they are still artifacts) • When in doubt, ASK!

36. Primary or Secondary? Dr. Nix witnesses a fire and gives an interview about it in the Baltimore Sun Primary, eyewitness account (fire) Reporter writes a book about Baltimore fires that mentions Dr. Nix Secondary (fire, Dr. Nix) Dr. Nix writes a book about Baltimore fires Primary (Dr. Nix’s account) or Secondary (fire, Baltimore)