Primary Source? "It makes me sneeze."

BlogU at Inside Higher Education has an interesting post on helping students (and professors) define "primary source." The post "FUNQs: Won’t Ask, Won’t Tell" describes the scenarios with students:

First, there is silence and a close examination of fingernails and keypads. Then a brave soul or two will dig deep and recite a version of the memorized definition. But when I ask them to elaborate or provide an example of a primary source in the context of their course, I am apt to hear such assertions as that a primary source is (a) what they are supposed to read first, (b) the most important piece of their research, (c) the item they should list at the top of their bibliography, and (d) the earliest treatment of their topic. My favorite response of all time came from a class smart aleck who announced, “I’m not sure what a primary source is, but I figure it must be one if it makes me sneeze.” Lunacy or profundity, do you think?

Be sure to read the comments, too.

The World Digital Library

The World Digital Library is a compendium of some 1,200 high-resolution digitized files that allows users to zoom in on ancient documents and archival photographs. The Library has a sophisticated search tool that allows users to browse by keywords, time period, place, type of item and the institution which contributed it. Descriptions of all materials are in seven languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish), though the documents, books and other components appear in their original languages. The World Digital Library is another resource for students with its mix of primary sources.

The World Digital Library:

....will make available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials. The objectives of the World Digital Library are to promote international and inter-cultural understanding and awareness, provide resources to educators, expand non-English and non-Western content on the Internet, and to contribute to scholarly research.

US institutions include the National Archives and Records Administration and the Library of Congress. Other WDL project partners include cultural institutions from Brazil, China, Egypt, Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia and many other countries.

All Sides to the Debate

ProCon.org is a an independent, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity. It provides pros and cons on diverse controversial topics with facts and quotations from thousands of experts. The sites are free and contain no advertising. Its mission:

Promoting critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan primarily pro-con format. 

The site currently has 20 topics including Big Three Auto, Sexual Orientation, the Death Penalty, Drinking Milk, and more on business, politics, health, science, sports, and more. 

World Resources, Worldwide Access

Certainly one of the most remarkable and useful results of digitization and the Internet is the access we now have to amazing resources from around the world. ALA Direct, an email newsletter sent to members of the American Library Association, points out this resource:

The European Library offers free access to the resources of the 48 national libraries of Europe in 20 languages. Currently, the European Library gives access to 150 million items across Europe. The amount of referenced digital collections is constantly increasing. The library provides a vast virtual collection of material from all disciplines and offers visitors simple access to European cultural resources. The European Library is a noncommercial organization available to anyone around the world seeking books, maps, photographs, music, videos, and other materials. Participating institutions are all members of the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL), a foundation aiming at increasing and reinforcing the role of national libraries in Europe.

The library became available in November, but massive interest--to the tune of 10 million hits an hour--caused it to crash on its first day of operation. It re-opened a month later with quadrupled server capacity. It seems people really want access to all types of libraries and their vast resources.

Resource for Readers

The Children's Series Binder wiki

seeks to create a comprehensive listing of series books for children to help librarians, teachers, parents, and kids find the chronological and publication order of series books.

Children's Series Binder is organized by series title and genre, and the entire wiki is searchable by keyword. Series titles are listed in alphabetical order in the Table of Contents. You can also browse the Category Link List, which is a list of all the genres, authors, and categories of books in the Children's Series Binder. This could be a useful link from a library media center page.

Everyone is welcome as a contributor; email the wiki owner for user ID and password. seriesbinder@gmail.com

rant/This is an aside, but ... The Series Binder is created by the Webster Public Library Children's staff. Where is Webster, you ask? Well, it took me five clicks deeper and deeper into the site and it could have been more if I hadn't gotten lucky to find it is Webster NY. I think every Web site should have at least its city and state on the front page.

Even if you assume only your neighbors and other locals are using your library/school/business/institution/other Web site, it is vital to put your location on the front page! How else will they know that this is the Webster Public Library they are looking for? It's the World Wide Web, after all--people find your site from all over the Web and world. I can't tell you the number of times I have looked at a newspaper or TV Web site and it is identified only as the Springfield Gazette or KSRE with no other identification. I can name a half a dozen Springfields without trying very hard. So, when students or you are putting content on the Web, tell us where you are. Make it a best practice. /end of rant

Now, Magazines

Google announced that is has added magazines to Google Book Search. Here is an Official Google Blog post about the new feature. I couldn't find a list of the "ever-growing" number of magazines being added. Results will be tagged with "magazine." One interesting feature--a Google map with pinpoints to the locations mentioned in the magazine issue you are viewing. This adds to the other special collections like Patents, Life magazine photo archive, and News Archive.

Wikipedia Scholarship

MIT's Technology Review has an interesting article on Wikipedia Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth: Why the online encyclopedia's epistemology should worry those who care about traditional notions of accuracy.

The author has an interesting perspective on Wikipedia and its standards for truth and accuracy and the question of how do you know what to question on Wikipedia and what to believe.

...Wikipedia's standard for inclusion has become its de facto standard for truth, and since Wikipedia is the most widely read online reference on the planet, it's the standard of truth that most people are implicitly using when they type a search term into Google or Yahoo. On Wikipedia, truth is received truth: the consensus view of a subject.

That standard is simple: something is true if it was published in a newspaper article, a magazine or journal, or a book published by a university press--or if it appeared on Dr. Who.

Worth reading and thinking about in light of reliable resources and student research.

I had to look up epistemology.