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Evidence 3 of Competency J

In which I discuss the information-seeking behavior of historians and consequences of that behavior for archives and their collection access tools. Text on this page is relevant excerpt from the Research Methods class, Spring 2007. Below is the link to the full document.

Survey Critique: Primarily history in America:
How U.S. historians search for primary materials
at the dawn of the digital age [PDF]

This document is in iPaper format, which requires ADOBE FLASH PLAYER to view it. Clicking on [PDF] link the document will open in ADOBE ACROBAT READER.

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The data of the survey, discussed in this research, is extremely interesting and shows that it is not always "build it and they will come," especially not for archivists and their web sites. Historians need to cast very wide nets to find their materials, and from their point of view, the Internet is still too sparsely populated with the relevant information to be worth the trouble of searching it. The interesting information is that historians would persist in using outdated sources for the sake of familiarity with a printed form, over more accurate information in a digital form. However, the most surprising information, presented here as well as in ACRL article, about how present historians teach future generations to search for primary material (Tibbo 2003, ACRL), is that many historians are not familiar with basic archivist tools like finding aids, even in printed form. As they do not know how to use them at the first place, they do not teach their students to use them either. Making archival tools available on-line, therefore, does not make much difference. Tibbo’s conclusions are that archivist should embark on an education campaign and let people know what is available – in repositories as well as on-line. She calls for more educational programs that would reach toward the students, faculty, administrators and teach them how to use archives to their best advantage.

However, based on the presented data and findings, I am inclined to question the original design of the tools of the archival profession, regardless of their implementation on the Internet. If your primarily users – historians – do not know how to use already existing tools, then there is more to it than just persistence in “the old ways.” Maybe archivists should use the opportunity of modern technology to develop new tools that would be better tailored to the needs and desires of its potential users?

References:

Primarily History: Historians and the Search for Primary Sources. Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII). Retrieved on March 5, 2007 from
http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/research/historians/primarily_history.html.

Tibbo, H. R. (2003). How historians locate primary resource materials: Educating and serving the next generation of scholars. ACRL Eleventh National Conference. Retrieved on March 5, 2007 from http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlevents/tibbo.PDF.