This we.
So, are, um.
Writing sources that were created that, um, from the evidence that have been gathered from primary sources.
Books by pages.
Um, but sometimes it is hard to distinguish something from a secondary source from a primary source.
That's where we come in as librarians try to help our students figure out the difference. So I'm going to pause and say that I, I sent to Kate
A handout that is available to all of you, so most of what I'm talking about today, the Web site addresses, and the databases are on that handout. So you don't need to necessarily write down every URL that I'm that I'm showing you right now you can just go to the handout.
So, I like to start with what I call the big Bruno, you know, the, the, the big database, um, the best database today that I know of.
For primary sources, and that is the digital public library of America.
The digital public library for America has about.
Um, 50 partners.
And that is digital repository's from all over the country that contribute their sources to the.
Um, and as you can see from this side, they have almost 50Million discreet.
Primary sources, digital objects, um, in this database, it's, it's, it's it's an amazing resource.
For for primary sources, and what I love about about the, um, L. A. is that, um, well, like, for instance, here, right here I did, um, I did a search for the, for Florence Griswold. And, um, what I love about is that, you know, you're getting sources all over the country.
Anybody who put in a source and tagged in Florence resolved you've seen from their collection. It's, it's really extraordinary but also, what I love about the is that they.
They, it's a, it's, it's a database that that knows its audience. It knows to, um.
Provide the primary sources in groupings that can be used for scholarship. So, for instance, they had exhibitions.
Um, and you see some of the topics, progressive, progressive error, America, uh, uh, booming bots industries at settled Montana. You know, just just, they have dozens of these.
Um, themes that are, um, that have gathered resources.
All throughout the, and contextualize it, you know, give it, give a content, give it descriptions to help with a source on, on those themes. Really a great source for, for students who are doing, like, history, day projects or or any kind of, um, social science project.
They also have primary source sets.
Which, like, the exhibitions are groupings of, um.
Um, the documents on themes, um.
Uh, it's in a different format, I think, from, um.
Um, from the, uh, exhibitions.
So, again, a really great resource, um, I also want to mention the Connecticut digital archive, which is, is, um, it's only say, UConn. I'm really not going to talk much about it because you do get a, you are getting to talk from who is the head of the.
Um, this is from the old version, right? We'll be talking about the updated brand new, wonderful, new. Um, so, uh, to say, you know, the are resources from.
Historical and, uh, total heritage institutions in Connecticut.
The Connecticut State library, uh, does have many of these sources are in the, but they do have, um, another set of digital, uh, content, um, uh, available, um, you know, from the state library and, and in their archives.
And you see if it's great topics, aerial photos of Connecticut, um, documents of Connecticut, a really strong resource, um, certainly for any student who is doing a topic on Connecticut history.
Teach it see, Connecticut teach it.
Is a project of connected humanities and these are activities.
They use resources from the, and from, um, um, it's called kinetic Encyclopaedia. I think I think I might have that wrong, but, um.
And and these activities on themes, and they're divided into sources for that are appropriate for grades, you know, elementary, middle school, high school grades. Um, but they're just a great resource for teachers.
To find primary sources, um, and of course, contextualize given given the content, you know, given the, the descriptions, um, on many different descriptions that.
Um, so studies is commonly used in Connecticut schools.
The National Archives is, you know, again.
That's an extraordinary resource for online content for digital resources, digital primary sources, especially.
That speech is a source where you can search by this by keyword, but also they teach has, um, activities and also you can do your searching under under, um, time periods in American history and.
Course all the documents are from the natural archives and, uh, and therefore, you know, this as federal documents, copyrights done if you, you know, the, the usage. Absolutely absolutely. Free and fair and airfare that can be used, however, however, needed. Um, but the great thing about.
How about duck seat is that when you call up any 1 item, it gives you the full citation.
Which is so important for high school students? Uh, I'm sorry for high school and middle school, elementary school students.
Um, when they're siding when they need to site the item and, um, improve that, they got it from a legitimate, um.
Database, so, um.
Also with the National archives, um.
They do have a page on finding permit sources for teachers and students and again, this is in the handout. You don't need to write it down. Um, but this is another, you know, another way to kind of navigate, um, databases and and and financial archives resources.
Um, newspapers of Connecticut is in the, and, um.
It's a project, I believe the state library to gather historical newspapers from all over the state. Really extraordinary sources that you can find right? In the we'll talk more about it.
Library of Congress is also a very strong source for, for primary sources.
And in particular, you know, their newspapers, you can find in chronicling.
America newspapers from all over the country, and I know that they now have a source where, where they have thematic groupings of the newspapers. Um.
That's where that where it is. Oh, no. So if the library of Congress, they have a whole page.
Um, access to videos and films. Patty trust.
Uh, is a, um, has publications and documents and video and, um, you know, that's that's another source for, um, I see more, um.
I mean, historical materials, but also more more. Um, I don't items that are our, um, um, more recent more recently published.
Be into the archive, um.
Documents formats, you know, um, uh, maybe the formats of of, um, of historical documents.
And, and also I like to go to Google books a lot. I find I'm always surprised when I can find on Google books. And in particular source that I use often, when I have students coming to the archives.
For, um, to conduct their research life magazines, or a great historical resource. Now, we hear it UConn archives.
We have, um, fiscal copies of, like, magazines. So I like to I'd like to go to Google books to use their index.
To plug in the topics that I have to search for the history day projects but, um, of course, the light magazines are available online through Google books and they're really some extraordinary resource.
Um, Avalon, the Avalon project is what's created by Yale University, and it is legal documents.
From all time periods I don't I don't know if you can really see it's so small, but, you know, all all through all through, you know, from ancient history to the present legal documents.
Um, um, the thing is, they are transcribed documents, which is helpful, but of course, you know, a lot of time students want, um.
The the physical document, um, to be able to fill in their project or whatever, but the transcripts are certainly are certainly helpful, but at the Avalon Avalon contract, if incredible government and legal and legal documents.
Um, genetic okay now, now, you know, we've seen the databases come in during that time. Oh, that's done um, legal documents. Uh, putting me, uh, we've seen how how to find these databases. Um, uh, but also.
There are sources is sort of like Connecticut archives on line on how to find what is in.
The states, um, archives, uh, um.
Through I think it's, um, what's your connective State University there archives staff coordinates this project to gather the finding AIDS or guides to the collections? Um.
From institutions, so if your student is looking for information about Connecticut topic, not even, it doesn't even have to be Connecticut topic because, because, you know, all the, all of all of these archives have sources that are.
And beyond Connecticut, like, let's say, yeah, and you're looking for Florence, Chris, while you plenty in Florence, and in Connecticut archives online, and you can find out what institutions in the state have sources. And then if the student disable, they can make a visit to that archives.
Um, and of course, I'm doing a seamless plug.
For the, uh, finding needs for my own institution for the UConn archives.
Um, we have a very handy.
Uh, search, database, collection, management system that tells you, um, you know, that by keyword searching or by searching for, um.
For a certain collection, you can find the details in each collection, and we now have a system where, um.
From this from our collection management system, you can order copies.
Directly from this system, it will bring you to new, a new reference service that we have, where you can.
Register with that with with the service.
Um, and from our collection management system, you can pick items that you want us to scan for you and we send and we send these materials electronically. So that's a great resource for students. If they can't come to the archives. We do have a way for them to.
You physically see items I mean, the items might still might be in the digital repository. And if they are, we'll, we'll let, you know, but if, but, you know, frankly, what we have in the digital repository is a very small percentage of what we have in the actual archives. So there is a way to order copies through this system.
And, and finally, I, uh, I always get questions from teachers and from, um, and from librarians about copyright, you know, there's such a concern about students using copyright. Um, this is a good resource.
For, uh, um, what.
Young people well, young students need to know about using sources from, from repositories. So.
I, um, again, this is on the handout, so I'm going to stop sharing my screen.
I'm at the end of my talk, I'm going to stop sharing my screen. Uh, this is the handout, because I can't see the chat right now. So if there is any, um, if there are any questions in the chat, I'm gonna stop sharing my screen. So, I can.
So, I can see the the check. Okay.
Oh, I don't see if if anyone has any questions I, I did, I did.
If you finished a little early, but I'm, I'm open for questions.
And maybe maybe Greg could talk about the.
If any if, um, if the question comes in for that, and we can talk about basketball.
But you can teams go into the sweet 16.
You can't if no, 1 has any questions, I'm gonna throw it back to, you.
Oh, Laura where should someone start.
So, great I.
If you're just beginning, when I go to the when I go to a library catalog, like, what would you suggest.
Uh, would you type a Google search or.
Well, um, okay, thank you, Greg, that's it. That's a great question. Um, I would say, you know, if, uh, if for any student who is starting there, their project, they need to go to the secondary sources. 1st.
They need to get when you approach arguable sources, you need to know what you're looking for.
Meaning, you know, if you're a topic on World War 2, if you don't.
No, even the dates when World War 2 occurred, or you don't know the, the, um, the combatants during the war. I mean, you have to have.
Some minimum background before you even start looking for.
Primary sources, because it's only with that secondary source background does primary source research.
Makes sense. So, um, and then after that, you know, I like, for instance, when I'm, uh, when I'm working with, uh, history students, you know, I am doing searching in UConn archives.
For their topics, and then when the workshops come in, I had their sources ready. So, um.
You know, I'm starting from the sources here at from our collection management system and the, but then I'll start branching out to you. Feed the digital public library of America is is the next source I'll go to, but the.
I love the, but the Pro, you know, if I had to say that there are any problems with the is that there's so many sources. There is 50Million sources and and you, and you have to have that.
That specificity, um, uh, on what your topic is, you know, you have to, you have to know the details.
Of what you're looking for, you can't just plug in World War 2. you can't just plug in civil rights. You'll get thousands and thousands of hits. So when you approach a, you really do need to narrow it down. And Nina saying, I have trouble getting faculty to have students go beyond Google.
Yes, let me also tell you, I'm a judge for history day and when we have our meetings with students, you know, when the judges meet with the students to talk about their projects, and we say, where did you find your primary sources?
Ah, so students say, I found it on Google.
And we say, no, no, no, beyond Google, you know how I mean, Google will lead you to the sources, but where where it's still believing leading you to, is it verified? Is it an Edu or a, you know, our Gov source? Is it or is it.
You know, how do you how do you prove the validity.
1 way to prove the validity of your primary primary source is to make sure that it is.
A resource from a verifiable.
Research institution like the National Archives so from the library of Congress.
And you do that by knowing the website that you're finding it from, um, you know, usually Edu, or POV Gov sources or the most reliable. But if you're finding a resource.
That's, um, com.
You have to make sure that that that's a real resource, you know, I mean, we all know there's, you know, the fake news and the fake resources doctrine photographs.
Uh, available online, you have to make sure that you're going to.
Uh, a database that, um.
Is that has valid resources so, Sarah is saying, I get teachers to require X number of databases and X number of vetted websites.
Great any risk work resource typically. Pretty good. Okay great. It's saying, or Greece is particularly pretty good since they are nonprofits and Janine says yes, Sarah. I am working with teacher class. Absolutely. Um, yeah motivating.
It's, I mean, you know, I'll be honest with you sometimes when I'm, I'm searching, you know, if a student's topic is something like, well, we're not gonna have sources in the UK archives.
So, sometimes I'll even just literally do a Google search saying primary sources. Com.
And now see what comes up, you know, is it something that I that I can.
You know, some kind of mentioned text that I can print out for the student and and have that as source that they're looking at when they, when they come to the archive, it's it sometimes of stuff. But, you know, I, I, I guess.
You know, uh, it's all all these digital sources are such a blessing.
I mean, you know, 40 years ago.
When I started as a librarian, a 1Million years ago, we, we didn't have these and, and people had to come to the archive, say to fly across the country and come through the archives. Now. Now, um, you know, somebody from California calls me up and says.
I need I need something from your collection. I scan it and send it to them.
They're happy. So, um.
To make it district value, and he says, I feel like I have some difficulty accessing HathiTrust resources through UConn. Is that just me.
I don't know anyone, I don't know, kind of difficult.
With your with your net ID, do you have an.
Yes, I'm sorry I don't know I'm, I'm not the person to answer that question.
And if you send me an email, at least we can start troubleshooting it's just kate.fuller@uconn.edu, and maybe we can figure out what's going on.
Feel free to do that. Yeah, thank you.
Great.
Any other questions any other.
And, and let me just make another page, you know, I do do workshops.
For his 3 day classes I asked for, depending on the size of the group I ask that you give me several weeks. So I can do the legwork. I can do the research on what your students topics are. But, um, I do have several groups coming in to the archives they spend, like.
I have the resources ready. The kids spend an hour with the documents. It's, um, and then they, you can go to the dairy bar again because, you know, it's it's it's a nice day if you can if you can swing that for your students. If if you have a history day program, um, it's a nice day for the kids.
So, thank you, and I'm available for any kind of.
Questions, um, you know, I'm at Laura dot Smith at UConn. I'm always happy to let, you know what we have in our collection here at, uh, in the archives and to help you find sources anywhere online. Thank you.
Thank you so much Laura. This is great. Um, and I'm shocked that we don't have photographs of pink is common in New York.
But they give, um, we.