Farming with Dynamite: Using the Web to Teach Archival Research Skills Joanne Archer, Ann Hanlon,...

Farming with Dynamite: Using the Web to Teach Archival Research

Skills

Joanne Archer, Ann Hanlon, Jennie LevineJoanne Archer, Ann Hanlon, Jennie Levine

Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives ConferenceMid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference

November 2, 2007November 2, 2007

Dynamiting a stump out of field. Irwinville Farms, Georgia. FSA/OWI (American Memory)

Farming with Dynamite

• Increase yields in previously unproductive soil

• Required careful technique – it’s dynamite after all

Farming with Dynamite

• Creates advantages that weren’t there before, but still requires skill and know-how

• It’s the techniques, not the tools, that matter most (though the tools certainly increase the effectiveness of the techniques)

TNT

• Techniques Not Tools

So again:

• It’s the techniques, not the tools, that matter most

The Questions

• Does the web make searching for primary sources easier?

• Do they understand what they have found when they find it?

• How can we help them?

Outline

• Context and methodology of the study

• Analysis of results– Interpreting primary sources– Library vs. Archival Research

• Applying our conclusions to practice– Tools– Instruction

Where we started

• Reorganization of Special Collections web pages

• Combining accumulated “tips” into an online guide

Where we started

What’s been done• The question of Primary Source Literacy

Elizabeth Yakel, “Listening to Users” Archival Issues 26:2 (2002)

Susan Hamburger, “How Researchers Search for Manuscript and Archival Collections.” Journal of Archival Organization 2:1/2 (2005)

Elizabeth Yakel and Deborah A. Torres, “AI: Archival Intelligence and User Expertise," American Archivist 66 (Spring/Summer 2003) Elizabeth Yakel, “Information Literacy for primary sources: creating a new paradigm for archival research education.” OCLC Systems & Services 20: 2 (2004)

Shan Sutton and Lorrie Knight, “Beyond the Reading Room: Integrating Primary and Secondary Sources into Library Instruction.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 32:3 (2006)

What’s been done

• The impact of the internet on archival research

• “….how many people find a site, search around, and then leave frustrated, perplexed by the archival jargon, lost in the architecture of the site, and stymied by endless links through various surrogates.” (Yakel)

Our User Study: Methodology

Age: 19-32(average 23)

15 women6 men



15 women6 men

“Studying college students’ Internet habits

can yield insight into future online trends.”

(Pew Internet and American Life study, 2002)



15 women6 men


95%95% have used primary sources

52%52% have visited a special collections repository


• Questionnaires and Research-based Tasks

• Observation of website navigation

• Digital audio and video recording

• Coding using AtlasTI

• Anonymity of participants

Outline




Analysis of Results Students could:

• Define the difference between primary and secondary sources

• Use the library catalog and selected databases• Use subject browsing• Pick up on new terminology and tools when

shown how to use them

Analysis of Results

Students could not:

• Recognize the continuum between primary and secondary sources

• Start their search for primary sources• Effectively utilize tools they were already

familiar with to locate primary sources• Locate other tools• Understand archival description and access

Interpreting Primary Sources

• Primary source and Secondary source are not absolute categories

Biography of Lincoln by Carl Sandburg

Lincoln Scholar

Secondary Source

Sandburg Scholar

Primary Source


“…My main goal would be to actually find the materials, as opposed to learn about what a primary source is. Because I already know what a primary source is at this point in my life . . . But then, for me, if I was looking for something I would want to skip to finding materials.”

Grace, Senior, Dept of Govt and Politics


“…My main goal would be to actually find the materials, as opposed to learn about what a primary source is. Because I already know what a primary source is at this point in my life . . . But then, for me, if I was looking for something I would want to skip to finding materials.”

Grace, Senior, Dept of Govt and Politics

Students believe that primary sources are a predefined body

of material

Library vs. Archival Research

• Students know how to do library research

The Next Step is to:

UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN

LIBRARY and ARCHIVAL RESEARCH


Key differences:

• Terminology

• How to locate material


Terminology

Special CollectionsMemorabilia

Ephemera

Finding aids

Scope

Linear Feet

Processed/Unprocessed


• Jacob: Find a finding aid. Find a finding aid....Ok. I’m a little unclear about what that means.

• Interviewer: What a finding aid is?

• Jacob: Yeah.

Librarians vs. Archivists

vs.


• 85%85% began on the library website

• 57%57% of those searches produced relevant results


Problems Locating Primary Sources• Overcomplication of research

• Lack of knowledge about how to use familiar tools to find primary sources

• Unawareness of other tools that might be more effective.


Students ignore• Footnote tracing

• Narrowing a research topic

• Topic exploration

• Talking to experts


Tracing Footnotes


Old Tools: New Techniques

• Browsing worked

• Problematic search terms


• Use formats to limit

• Limit by location

• Limit by date

• Use specialized subject terms such as History--Sources

• Using subject heading linking to find more “like” materials


The Librarian Effect?


“I don’t even know, can you use Research Port to find primary sources, I don’t even

know if that’s possible.”

“Madeline,” Senior, Government and Politics Major

Library vs. Archival ResearchPrimary Source Literacy

• Develop a better understanding of the definition of primary sources

• Become familiar with specialized terminology and jargon

• Understand what tools are available and how to use them to locate primary sources

Outline




Barriers to Research: Tools


“Helping users navigate and utilize finding aids definitely requires more support than online systems currently provide, and the development of virtual reference services directly tied to EAD systems is needed.”

-Elizabeth Yakel


Finding Aid Confusion:

• Terminology (finding aid, series, scope and content, linear feet)

• Difficult to search within finding aids

• Expectations of what is available online

• Archival provenance and arrangement


?

Tools: Finding Aids

“Kind of an index or an outline, summary of the different documents that are available.” – “Kaylee,” Sophomore, Dept. of Government and Politics

Tools: Finding Aids

• Limiting results

Tools: Finding Aids

Tools: The Internet

• The Internet has changed how we interact with our researchers– Increased in-person usage

Researchers/Historical Manuscripts Unit

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

2003 2004 2005 2006

By Year

Tota

l R

esea

rcher

s

Tools: The Internet

• 2005– ArchivesUM went “live”– Increase in instruction to History Department

Researchers by Internet and In-Person Contact

0

20

40

60

By Year

Res

earc

her

s

Internet Contact

In-Person Contact

Internet Contact 41 45 41 39

In-PersonContact

29 34 43 47

2003 2004 2005 2006

Tools: The Internet

• The rush to digitize the written record is one of a number of critical moments in the long saga of our drive to accumulate, store, and retrieve information efficiently. It will result not in the infotopia that the prophets conjure up but in one in a long series of new information ecologies, all of them challenging, in which readers, writers, and producers of text have learned to survive.

- Anthony Grafton, The New Yorker, October 30, 2007

Outline




Applying Conclusions to Practice

• What is the best way of addressing the gaps in student knowledge about how to do primary source research?


• The web guide should: More clearly address the key components of primary source literacy– How to formulate a research question – Defining and interpreting primary sources– How searching for archival resources differs

from searching for library resources


• Anticipated changes to web tutorial– Reduce text and increase visual cues– Create a more guided, interactive tutorial– Create classroom-ready PDF handouts


• Instruction Works!– Close to 100% of incoming freshman at the

University of Maryland receive Library instruction

– Face-to-face interaction sticks with students

“...because a librarian talked to my class and showed us how to use this.”


• What does instruction look like?– Melting pot of techniques

• Demonstrates the research continuum• Approachability• Excitement

– Give reasons to return to the web guide after we leave the classroom


• Bring the reading room to the students• Web guide as something they can refer back to

University of Maryland, University Archives, 1923 University of Maryland, University Archives, 1923 PromProm

Conclusions

Our next steps:

• More outreach

• Redesigning website

• Modify tools (online finding aids, catalog) when possible

Conclusions

Our next steps:

How to reach users we will never be

able to reach through library instruction…

THE END

Farming with Dynamite: Using the Web to Teach Archival Research Skills Joanne Archer, Ann Hanlon,...

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