In the last few years, computers have become important resource guides for students and academics. In libraries throughout the world they are used as databases that catalog library holdings and contain data on CD-ROM to help researchers locate information. Increasingly, the Internet and the World Wide Web are used as research tools to locate bibliographic information for scholars beyond their college campuses. However debates have emerged among librarians, achivists, and academics about the relationship of the Internet and library. To what degree should libraries and archives put their information on the Web? If all the information is on the Net, then why do we need libraries? For many people in this group, nothing less than the future of knowledge is at stake. In this class we will emerse ourselves in this debate by creating a course webpage that provides information about the histories of slavery, emancipation, and African Americans in Early America. We will merge traditional bibliographic resources like published documentary sources with information we can access from the computer frontier. Students will work in groups, creating a web page that discusses a couple of published books of documentary sources, and describes a couple of libriaries or archives that can be accessed from the Net, whose holdings correspond with the issues in this course. While one of the purposes of this assignment is to think about innovative approaches to historical research, another purpose is to inspire ideas about what is history, who writes history, and who has access to historical information.
Students will work together in groups to create a WWW page that examines historical sources and collections in the context of one of the themes of the course. The project must be completed by November 18. On the first day, students will choose a theme upon which they would like to explore, although no more than three students can work together. Class time on Fridays will be devoted to working on the project. The Macintosh computer lab in Barnes Science Center will be reserved for two hours. The first Friday, November 1, is a mandatory session introducing students to Netscape, WWW Search Engines and steps necessary to create group web sites. Future Fridays (November 8 and 15th) the class will meet in the computer lab and Caroline Tolbert (Social Sciences Technology Specialist) will be avaiable for consulting. If you are confident of your technical abilities in construcing the web site, you may also use this time to conduct research in the library. You can choose one of the following topics for your project:
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Abolitionism |
African Americans and the American Revolution |
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The African Diaspora |
Gender and Slavery |
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Comparative Colonial Slavery |
Slavery in the Antebellum South |
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Slavery in New England and the Middle Colonies |
Slavery and American Politics in the Early Republic |
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Slavery in the Chesapeake and Lowcountry Colonies |
African Americans and the American Civil War |
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Slave Resistance in Colonial British America |
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This assignment involves examining published documented sources available in the Tutt Library and connecting them to the chosesn theme. Students will also explore the Internet to find archives and research libraries that have collections that would help them or other people interested in further exploring their particular theme. They will then attach a web link to their web page so people can access the library or archive to find out more information. For an example of what your Websight should look like, please see the page I designed: African Americans in the Colonial and United States Military.
What is an archive? An archive is similar to a library and specializes in storing and preserving original manuscripts and rare books. Many archives collect specific materials that relate to a subject or region. For example, the Clements Library at the University of Michigan specializes in Early American and Military history. They have collections of military correspondence of British and American officers for the American Revolution and other military conflicts. To see the role African Americans played in these wars, one could feasibly go through their correspondences, lists of privates, or supply inventories. Finding archives or research libraries on the web will require some time browsing the Internet--hunting and pecking just as one would in a Library. Using the search engines like "Excite" and "Magellan" is very similar to using the Computer Catalog in Tutt.
What are documentary source collections? They are published collections of historical documents that someone has gathered, usually collected around a particular theme. These collections are often extremely helpful for teachers and students writing research papers who cannot readily travel to the archives or libraries. For example, Herbert Aptheker's Documentary History of the Negro People In the United States is an excellent source of historical material about various aspects of black life in Colonial America and the United States. The following are some possible sources to help students begin their project:
These are just a few Documentary Collections published. Students may want to see me about others that pertain to their topic.
If you have any further questions about this assignment, please feel free to contact me at bruiz@cc.colorado.edu