Historians and the Search for Primary Source Materials
Historians’ Survey
Your email address:
N.B. This information does not form part of our survey or analysis, it is only requested so we can check off responses from our sample.
A. Professional Information
1. Dean or Head of Dept Personnel or Chaired Prof. Professor Senior Lecturer Principal Lecturer Lecturer (permanent) Lecturer (fixed-term) Other (please specify) Other:
2. Female Male
3. Number of years teaching history at a college or university:
4. Number of years teaching history at your current institution:
5. Primary courses you teach:
6. Primary area(s) of research:
B. Research
Nature of Research
Please provide the following information for your current or last research project in which you needed to locate primary source materials (i.e., you did not start the project knowing where all/most of the relevant materials were located from the outset)
1. Topic of research:
2. Chronological period:
3. Start date of Research:
End date of Research:
4. Main archives, special collections and repositories used in this research:
C. Primary Sources.
Primary Document Types
D. Searching for Primary Materials
1. Print Search: In your print searches, did you…(Check all that apply).
a. Follow leads (footnotes, bibliographies, textual references) that I found in books and articles.
b. Search printed bibliographies (e.g., topical bibliography related to my subject, event or personality).
c. Consult published documentary editions. (e.g., Select Documents of English Constitutional History, 1307-1485)
d. Search published finding aids of specific archival collections. (e.g., A Guide To Dean Of Guild Court Records)
e. Search repository guides/indexes (e.g., Directory of Corporate Archives).
f. Search newspaper files
g. Use national, regional, or local government documents (e.g., census files, government statistics, parliamentary papers and reports etc.) to locate other primary source material?
h. Search the National Register of Archives (NRA).
2. Online Search: In your online searches, did you…
a. Search your institution’s online library catalog (in the library or remotely) to find locally held archival materials.
b. Search the online catalogs from other institutions through the Web to find materials in their archives and manuscript repositories.
c. Search national bibliographic databases such as BIDS, BLPC or COPAC.
d. Go directly to the websites of repositories that you believed might hold relevant primary materials and searched these sites for online finding aids.
e. Search the Web using a search engine such as Alta Vista or Lycos to locate relevant finding aids and collections.
f. Search the ARCHON gateway at the Historic Manuscripts Commission
3. Visits: In your visits, did you…
a. Visit an archival/manuscript repository/special collection to use its in-house (printed) finding aids to locate relevant materials within the collection.
b. Visit an archival/manuscript repository/special collection to use its in-house (electronic) finding aids to locate relevant materials within the collection.
c. Visit an archival/manuscript repository/special collection to obtain assistance from an archivist/curator to locate materials at that institution or at other repositories.
4. Telephone: In your telephone contacts, did you…
a. Ask for remote assistance to locate relevant materials.
b. Request a copy of a finding aid(s).
c. Request a copy of primary materials.
5. Writing: In your written correspondence, did you…
6. E-mail:
7. Informal: In your informal searching, did you…
a. Ask colleagues.
b. Follow serendipitous leads (e.g., not from expected sources such as colleagues in topical area).
c. Browse library stacks.
8. Research Assistance:
a. Use an archive/repository/special collections member of staff to locate primary source material.
b. Use in-house research assistance to locate primary source material.
c. Use a free-lance/external research assistant to locate primary source material.
d. Ask a reference librarian (not an archivist/special collections librarian) for search assistance.
9. Are there other means you used to find primary source materials not listed above? If so, please describe:
10. Please indicate how you went about finding these sources (check all that apply):
Primary Document
Print Search
Online Search
Visit
Phone
Write
Email
Informal
Research Assistance
Unpublished Material
Published Material
Government Material
Electronic Material
Other Analogue Material
Artifacts and Objects
Other Material
11. I have used Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aids online
Yes No Not Sure
12. How could archives and other cultural heritage repositories better serve your information needs?
E. Teaching
1. When teaching graduate students to do historical research, either in classroom presentations/discussions or mentoring situations such as being a thesis or dissertation advisor, how often do you mention the following specific strategies for finding archival materials? If you indirectly recommend some of these strategies by telling students to see a reference librarian to learn what tools the library has, but do not specifically mention the various databases and approaches by name, check “never” for the specific items.
a. Follow leads (footnotes, bibliographies, textual references) found in books and articles.
Situation
Always
Frequently
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
Teaching
Mentoring
b. Look for and search printed bibliographies (e.g., topical bibliography related to my subject or event or personality).
c. Consult published documentary editions.
d. Search published finding aids for specific archival collections. (e.g., A Guide To Dean Of Guild Court Records)
e. Search printed repository guides/indexes (e.g., Directory of Corporate Archives)
f. Search newspaper files.
g. Use national, regional, or local government documents (e.g., census files, government statistics, parliamentary papers and reports, etc.)
i. Search their institution’s online library catalog to find locally held archival materials.
j. Search the online catalogs from other institutions through the Web to find materials in their archives and manuscript repositories.
k. Search national bibliographic databases such as BIDS, BLPC or COPAC.
l. Go directly to the websites of repositories that they believe might hold relevant materials and searched these sites for online finding aids.
m. Search the Web using a search engine such as Alta Vista or Lycos to locate relevant finding aids and collections.
n. Search the ARCHON gateway at the Historic Manuscripts Commission.
o. Visit an archival/manuscript repository/special collection to use its in-house (printed) finding aids to locate relevant materials within the collection.
p. Visit an archival/manuscript repository/special collection to use its in-house (electronic) finding aids to locate relevant materials within the collection.
q. Visit an archival/manuscript repository to obtain assistance from an archivist to locate materials at that institution or at other repositories.
r. Contact (call, mail, email, fax, etc.) a repository and asked for remote assistance to locate relevant materials.
s. Contact (call, mail, email, fax, etc.) a repository and have them send a copy of finding aids or primary materials.
t. Contact (call, mail, email, fax, etc.) a repository and have them send a copy of finding aids or primary materials.
u. Ask colleagues.
v. Follow serendipitous leads (e.g., not from expected sources such as colleagues in topical area).
w. Browse the library stacks.
x. Use a free-lance/external research assistant to locate primary source material.
y. Ask a reference librarian for search assistance.
2. Is there anything else you would like to share regarding finding primary resource materials?
Thank you for your participation. Your input will help the archival community better serve a wide variety of researchers and is greatly appreciated.
Again, your participation and responses are entirely confidential. If you have questions about the content of this survey I can be reached at 0141 330 3843 or at I.Anderson@hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk
Dr. Ian G. Anderson
Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) University of Glasgow