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This article investigates the challenges humanities scholars face in locating primary sources, such as archives, museums, and special libraries. It discusses how traditional methods of information-seeking, as outlined by Duff and Johnson, have evolved with technology. The findings of Meho and Tibbo highlight new activities like accessing and networking. Despite advancements, many scholars still prefer print materials, signaling a need for better organization of collections in libraries. The study concludes that while technology offers digital access to resources, humanities research still relies on traditional methods.
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Humanities Scholars Technology andthe search for Primary Sources
Where are they found? • Archives • Museums • Special Libraries Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Seeking Primary Sources • Sources may be difficult to find, • May be located far away, requiring travel, • May be improperly stored, and • Information may not be well organized.
How do humanities scholars seek? • Duff and Johnson (2002) wrote about historians in archives: • 4 types of activities emerge: • Orienting themselves to archives, finding aids, sources and collections. • Seeking known material. • Building contextual knowledge • Identifying relevant material.
Still seeking… • Meho and Tibbo revisited Ellis’ work in 2003, to see if emerging technology would impact his 6 activities. • They found 4 new activities: accessing, verifying, networking, and information management. • They propose a new model of information seeking behavior, combining these 10 activities into 4 stages: searching, accessing, processing, and ending.
Does Technology change this? • Wendy Shaw in 2001 observed that technology use among English scholars was limited to word processing and email. • Marcia Bates (2001) concluded that new technology wasn’t as prevalent among humanities scholars. • As recently as 2008, Tahir, Mahmood, and Shafique found that arts and humanities teachers still preferred print books and articles over electronic resources.
What does this mean for libraries? • We still need better classification within collections, but…. • Museums, archives, special collections all continue to include more primary source material in electronic format. • Digitized editions of print material are more readily available. • High-resolution images of artifacts are available on museum websites.
Bibliography • Anderson, Ian G. (2004). Are You Being Served? Historians and the Search for Primary Sources. Archivaria, 58, pp. 81-128. • Bates, Marcia J. (2001). Information Needs and Seeking of Scholars and Artists in Relation to Multimedia Materials. http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/bates/scholars.html • Duff, W. M & Johnson, C. A. (2002). Accidentally Found on Purpose: Information Seeking Behavior of Historians in Archives. The Library Quarterly, Vol. 72:4, pp.472-496. • Meho, Lokman I. & Tibbo, Helen R. (2003). Modeling the Information-Seeking Behavior of Social Scientists: Ellis’s Study Revisited. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 54:6, pp. 570-587
Bibliography continued • Shaw, Wendy (2001) The use of the Internet by academics in the discipline of English literature: a quantitative and qualitative approach. Information Research Vol 6:2. http://informationr.net/ir/6-2/ws8.html • Tahir M., Mahmood K., & Shafique F. (2008). Information Needs and Information-Seeking Behaviors of Arts and Humanities Teachers: A Survey of the University of Punjab. Library Philosophy and Practice. Published on the web at: http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/tahir-mahmood-shafique.htm • Tibbo, Helen R. (2002). Primarily History: Historians and the Search for Primary Source Materials. International Conference on Digital Libraries, 2002, pp. 1-10.
