Library Follow-up Assignment Due February 27
This is a draft of the library assignment. Please look it over and provide suggestions. I really want it to reinforce our short session by having you DO, rather than LISTEN. But I do not want it to be busy work; so find a way to take ownership of it.
This assignment aims to reinforce the CSWR training by transforming you into active information-seekers. My idea is that having you follow leads Ann provided all the way to their “primary” forms. If you are able to combine the exercise with a personal agenda for this class or another, all the better. If you have no particular interest in the CSWR collections, you might ask a classmate if you can serve as research assistant. I know that Paul and Loyola are permanently interested in the Southwest; I’m not sure how permanent Valerie’s interest is—she can tell you. And I don’t know about others—so speak up please. Conversely, if you have in mind a project (in or outside this class) that lends itself to online archival research and would like to enlist a research assistant, let us know. No pressure to be or have an assistant—you can just explore randomly on your own if you wish.
It’s due February 27—which gives you a couple of weeks to think about what you want to accomplish before you begin.
Two activities corresponding to our two training venues:
Activity 1: CWSR work.
Look over the white handout and your notes to remind yourself of how to browse or search on line. If you’ve lost your handout, let me know—it’s critical to the exercise.
The above mostly are finding aids of one sort or another—telling you what’s available and where but not offering digitized content.
--Locate in advance a box of stuff or vertical file or other article for examination.
--You can walk into the Anderson Reading Room during their hours—no appointment necessary. Store your stuff and take your laptop or notebook into the room.
--Try to get acquainted with whatever librarian is on duty, esp. if you have an ongoing project.
--Make your request. It takes a little time for them to retrieve materials, so spend that time poking around in the open cases—lots of reference materials pertaining to the SW.
Your notes:
--Note call numbers of the materials—for future reference.
--List genres of materials in the box (e.g., letters, bills, diary, sermon, photo) and media (typed, copy, original, kind of paper).
--Choose a couple of documents to examine closely—your call. Note date, authorship, other features. Summarize content of one document.
Note: Use good judgment in not turning this exercise into a busy work assignment. If you prefer to browse more boxes rather than summarize something you’re not interested in, you should do so. I do want you to try your hand at translating something into usable form.
Activity 2: Online Digital Archives
Recall that Ann lead us through the UNM Library databases to collections of digitized materials that may or may not be available via other pathways. I think it’s worthwhile learning to take good advantage of our local resources and so recommend using her techniques: WorldCat, Database Advisor, newspapers and journals online. (At the bottom of the white handout, she’s provided URLs that are NOT UNM-based—and that’s fine too.)
The goal is to get all the way to a primary source and to actually read it. Bacon gives us tons of leads: in text, in the endnotes, in the bibliography. So does Logan. Choose something that interested you that’s perhaps not readily available—for example, anonymous letters attributed to Jacobs in the New York Daily Tribune in 1853, for example (p. 167 Bacon). Or you could choose to read through all of an issue of, say, Liberator.
Your notes:
How did you get to the end of the trail? (You may have to retrace your steps and this is worthwhile.)
Did you find what you wanted or settle for something else instead? (Remember Ann’s counsel that this too—the serendipitous find—may prove more valuable in the long run.)
Read it; What does it say?