The awards reception for the 2nd Annual Library Prize for Undergraduate Research will be held in Paley Library’s Lecture Hall at 4:30p.m. on Friday, April 28th. The winning students will be present to receive their awards, accompanied by their sponsoring professors. Refreshments and hors d’oeuvres will be served. Everyone is invited. Direct questions to Gretchen Sneff at 215-204-4724 or gretchen.sneff@temple.edu –Derik A Badman
Educators face the challenge of helping students master a set of abilities collectively termed “Information Literacy” by the library profession – see ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, Information Literacy Defined. The push to promote information literacy within libraries is part of a larger educational reform movement that sees the need for new ways of reaching students and assessing student learning. The ultimate goal is to help students become effective users of information in any format and place.
In brief, information literate persons are able to “recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information” (ibid.). Note that “locate” is only one small part of this definition. Information literacy involves so much more than instructing students on how to access a book in the Diamond catalog, or showing them how to search theHistorical Abstracts. Rather, true Information Literacy involves an entire set of critical thinking skills that can only be developed over time and through direct engagement with the academic curriculum. It involves practice and lots of hands-on work.
Librarians see the need for information literacy more keenly than most, since we interact informally with students every day at the reference desk. Librarians, in other words, experience first-hand the inability of many students to evaluate and contextualize the increasingly massive amounts of data now available online, in print, and in other formats. Roy Rosenzweig, historian at George Mason University, recently wrote that “for many students, the abundance of primary sources can be more puzzling and disorienting than liberating and enlightening” (“Digital Archives Are a Gift,” Chronicle of Higher Education, June 24, 2005). He goes on to say that students often see large amounts of primary sources as “transparent reflections of a historical ‘reality’; not, as a historian would, as imperfect refractions” of a specific place and time (ibid.). Prior to about 1990, students were forced to consult a prescribed set of resources assigned to them by the professor (or suggested by a librarian). Today this is often no longer the case, and regardless of how many times faculty and librarians insist students not use random hits generated by Google, many just aren’t “getting it”. Thus, as Rosenzweig says, “we have done much better at democratizing access to resources than at providing the kind of instruction that would give meaning to those resources” (ibid.).
Classroom discussion and activities around these (and other) themes and outcomes promote information literacy:
1) The importance of seeking out background information to help contextualize a topic;
2) The difference between primary vs. secondary sources in history and other disciplines;
3) Popular vs. scholarly publications, and why the difference is important;
4) The appropriate use of different types of information media, such as books, journals, and online resources; and
5) Evaluation of information resources to assess appropriateness for college-level work.
Again, none of this will likely “stick” with students unless such discussions and activities take place in the classroom and are integrated directly into the curriculum. If you are a Temple faculty member in history who wishes to work more closely with the library on ways to further integrate these ideas into the classroom, I would certainly welcome hearing from you. Instructors in other disciplines should feel free to contact their own librarian subject specialist. Typically, the best opportunity for collaboration between instructor and librarian is “at the point of need,” or at that point when a student needs information for a specific research paper or project.
A big thank you to the many capstone (and other) instructors who have already worked hard to develop information literacy skills in their students. For a great deal more on this subject, including additional outcomes and specific assignment suggestions, please visit Integrating Information Literacy into Temple Courses.
For information, research, cultural enhancement, classroom enrichment, and study and research, Temple University Libraries are pleased to announce the addition of Music Index to our electronic resources. Indexing over 775 journals in music, Music Index provides the gateway to a vast amount of information in music. The Ebsco Interface is an easy-to-use and familiar format for searching for information. Full-text links to articles in JSTOR are supplied. This online version of Music Index covers journals from 1976 to the present, and is updated quarterly. Music Index provides indexing to a wide array of periodicals and subjects. International in scope, Music Index includes periodicals from over 40 countries in 22 languages. Every aspect of music is covered. There is indexing to classical music, composers, and performers. But, there is also indexing for book reviews, obituaries, new periodicals, and the music industry. In addition, Music Index is a fine resource for finding information in music education, music therapy, ethnomusicology, and jazz. For help using this service, questions, and/or feedback, contact Anne Harlow.
Temple Libraries on March 23 acquired Early American Newspapers, Series I (1690-1876), a third major component of the Archive of Americana. “In 1690, Benjamin Harris published Publick Occurrences, the first newspaper in America. The British colonial governor immediately suppressed it, and only one issue was ever published. However, beginning with the Boston News-Letter in 1704, the early American newspaper industry thrived, experiencing particularly strong growth following technological advances in the 19th century. Early American newspapers, published often by small-town printers, documented the daily life of hundreds of diverse American communities, supported different political parties and recorded both majority and minority views” (Readex). “Early American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876 offers fully searchable, cover-to-cover reproductions of more than one million pages from more than 650 historical American newspapers, focusing on titles published in the 18th century” (Readex). EAN, Series 1, is based on Clarence Brigham’s famous History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820. —David C. Murray
The submissions deadline for the Library Prize for Undergraduate Research comes on Friday April 7 at 5pm. Application packets should be taken to the office of the Vice Provost for Libraries, Paley Library, mezzanine level, room 136. For more information, e-mail libprize@temple.edu or visit the Library Prize website.
Manuscript catalogs connect advanced history researchers with important primary documents housed in obscure and not-so-obscure collections all over the country. Generations of scholars have turned to the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) to track down collections critical to historical research.
ArchiveGrid is a new database from the Research Libraries Group (RLG) that also allows researchers to locate relevant manuscript collections. “Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives have contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to ArchiveGrid. Researchers searching ArchiveGrid can learn about the many items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange a visit to examine materials, and order copies” (ArchiveGrid). RLG is providing free access to ArchiveGrid through May 31, 2006. After this date ArchiveGrid will remain free if RLG receives additional funding to continue the project. If funds are not found, ArchiveGrid will be made available to institutions as a subscription.
All records in the NUCMC catalog are said to be available in ArchiveGrid. Given that ArchiveGrid is a brand new resource, researchers should consult both databases for the sake of completeness. Graduate students and senior scholars should cross-check online search results against the print version of NUCMC.
Postscript: History researchers might also wish to consult Ready, Net, Go!, an index/guide to archival research on the web created by the Special Collections Division of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University.
Information sessions on the Library Prize for Undergraduate Research will be held on the following dates in Paley Library’s Room 130.
TUES. MARCH 14, 2006 4PM-5PM
WED. MARCH 15, 2006 1230PM-130PM
MON. MARCH 27, 2006 1200PM-100PM
Members of the Prize committee will be on hand to answer questions.
The Libraries are pleased to announce the acquisition of Pennsylvania County Histories to 1900. This database provides full-text access to PA county histories written during the late 19th Century. Philadelphia, Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties all receive extensive coverage. Researchers will appreciate the inclusion of beautiful period maps, illustrations, and portraits of individuals. The histories are our main source of information about important local citizens, some of whom received little or no coverage in the regional and national press of the day.
Observes Temple historian Greg Urwin, “Nineteenth century county histories customarily listed the names of all the men who enlisted in volunteer units, and often gave their service records. These books also often contained brief biographies of prominent locals (usually men) and descriptions of prominent businesses.”
For more on the history of Philadelphia and surrounding counties, check out the following titles in the Diamond catalog:
Berks County (Pa.) — History
Bucks County (Pa.) — History
Chester County (Pa.) — History
Delaware County (Pa.) — History
Montgomery County (Pa.) — History
Philadelphia County (Pa.) — History
Instructors usually experience frustration when students turn first to Google and other non-vetted sources of information for papers and research projects. Most history professors, for example, would greatly prefer that students not cite anelementary school project on Abraham Lincoln. (Yes, such things have been known to happen.) Let’s face it: The vast majority of web sites indexed by Google are inappropriate for college-level research. And yet the benefits offered by digital information sources are undeniable. What to do about this dilemma?
Typically, concerned instructors require students to use a prescribed set of sources vetted by them (or by a librarian). Another solution well worth considering, and one that allows for greater student autonomy, is to use a directory of scholarly web sites. Services such as the Internet Public Library, Librarian’s Index to the Internet, WWW Virtual Library, INFOMINE, Internet Scout Project, Argus Clearinghouse, Digital Librarian, BUBL Information Service (U.K.) and others, diligently strive to separate the Internet wheat from the chaff. INFOMINE — whose tag line is “Scholarly Internet Resource Collections” — will be most useful to academic researchers.
“INFOMINE is a virtual library of Internet resources relevant to faculty, students, and research staff at the university level. It contains useful Internet resources such as databases, electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, mailing lists, online library card catalogs, articles, directories of researchers, and many other types of information” (Infomine Welcome).
Conceptually it helps to think of directories as library catalogs for web sites rather than print books and journals. Thus, INFOMINE is to scholarly web sites what the Diamond catalog is to Temple’s print holdings. INFOMINE permits access to its records through title, author/publisher, subject (Library of Congress Subject Headings, or LCSH), assigned keyword, description/abstract, and a “full-text” search. What is more, INFOMINE allows users to browse through an alphabetical listing of all titles, authors, LCSH headings, and keywords used in the database! It can be said without exaggeration that INFOMINE’s search and retrieval capabilities are easily on par with those of most modern library catalogs, such asDiamond.
In sum, human-powered directories of the type discussed above provide a respite from the dubious results often obtained through software-based search engines such as Google. The various web directories (or catalogs) do suffer from a lack of standardization in the way metadata is searched and presented; novice researchers might find it difficult to quickly switch from one service to another. Students who make the effort will nonetheless discover the benefits of incorporating directories into their research repertoire. Professors, meanwhile, will just be happy that students are using appropriate sources while simultaneously developing their information literacy skills.
Researchers often ask me how to access history theses and dissertations. The tips in this post will help anyone easily find dissertations produced by history graduate students at Temple and other institutions. For works created under the auspices of Temple’s History Department, use the Diamond catalog. A complete, chronological list of the nearly 300 Temple history dissertations cataloged since 1973 (newest to oldest) can be viewed by clicking here. To search within this list, perform a keyword search in Diamond as follows (copy/paste into Diamond):
s:”History — Temple University Theses.” AND [change to keyword of choice]
Sample Searches:
s:”History — Temple University Theses.” AND military
s:”History — Temple University Theses.” AND war
s:”History — Temple University Theses.” AND women
s:”History — Temple University Theses.” AND mexico
Note that in a Diamond keyword search, “s:” tells the computer to return only those records that match a specific subject heading, in this case “History — Temple University Theses”. This particular search will also include dissertations created under the auspices of the Art History Department (i.e. Art — History — Temple University Theses).
“Digital Dissertations is the definitive guide to more than 2 million doctoral dissertations and master’s theses. Digital Dissertations help you identify more than 90 percent of the doctoral dissertations accepted each year in North America. The database also covers thousands of dissertations and theses from around the globe. Each dissertation published since July 1980 includes a 350-word abstract written by the author. Master’s theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts. Bibliographic citations are available for dissertations dating from 1861, and more than 55,000 new citations are added to the database every year” (UMI/Proquest).
Thousands of Digital Dissertation entries include 24-page previews of the full dissertation. Temple dissertations published since the early 1990s can be downloaded, for free, and in their entirety. The best way to find Temple history theses and dissertations in Digital Dissertations is to use the Browse feature. Choose Social Sciences and then scroll to the heading, History. Choose from General History, Ancient, Medieval, African, Middle East, Latin American, United States, etc. Narrow further by choosing “School” from the drop-down menu on the next page. In the adjacent text box enter “Temple University”.