The History Librarian

There is an article in the current (Feb. 2006) issue of AHA Perspectives that discusses the relationship between information literacy and student use of primary sources. Where Will They Find History? The Challenges of Information Literacy Instruction by Lynn D. Lampert “recapitulates and expands upon” remarks made at an ALA 2005 annual meeting session devoted to the question of information literacy among undergraduate students taking history courses. Lurking in the background of Lampert’s argument is the information literacy trope of the undergraduate information seeker: woefully unequipped to navigate library collections (both virtual and physical) and will only use Google/the Internet to do research.

The main argument of the article is that primary sources are important, but students are not using them. Lampert claims on p. 23 that “very few history majors actually work with unpublished or published primary source materials until their senior year of undergraduate studies or graduate school.” I’m not so sure about this, and Lampert does not provide supporting evidence for this assertion: what about all of those accursed readers so many history undergrads slog through? And from which students are so often forced to write essays?

Anyway, her point is that students aren’t using primary sources to write papers – they don’t acquire primary source literacy. Lampert touts programs (like the one at her own institution) that “provides students and future teachers with greater exposure to primary source materials and practical examples of how historical research is conducted” (p. 24). Which makes sense and reiterates what seems to be/should be the focus of undergrad history instruction – the importance of primary sources for understanding the past (while at the same time teaching that all-important point of historical literacy: primary sources can’t always be taken at face value). Of course, if students aren’t incorporating primary sources into their papers, it may be because professors aren’t making them. Which Lampert addresses by calling for collaboration between historians and librarians to create assignments that focus on primary-document literacy as well as reaffirm the importance of the library (as “the laboratories of historians” – she’s quoting an earlier Perspectives article).

This is all fine stuff, though the article ends with the specter that haunts librarianship: Google (our metonym for the popularity of Internet search engines). Lampert here employs the information literacy trope mentioned above, leading to a formulation rooted in a metaphysics of presence that always bugs me: “Until we show them contrary evidence – through demonstrations based on both print and digitized collections that our universities have secured access to through library collection development efforts – they will continue to rely on the inferior tools and resources that have hitherto offered them ’success’ in locating and using ‘relevant’ resources in the past” (p. 25). First off, freely available online resources like American Memory or History Matters kick ass on a lot of resources acquired through traditional library collection development efforts (though American Memory is of course a digital version of library resources, but still); I won’t even get into open access. By denying the usefulness of freely available resources, Lampert undermines her cause: the point is to make sure students know about good resources wherever they may be. Actually, no – the point is to get students interested in history and to get students working with historical materials wherever they might be (or at least, that’s the point of some of Lampert’s article). Secondly, waving library resources at students because the truth will free them from the demon Internet is silly. I thought the idea was collaboration in creating assignments that encourage use of primary sources? So encourage teaching faculty to create assignments based around the resources the library has. Or appreciate that there is a lot of very useful primary material available online and encourage students to use it. Yes, there are situations in which only library resources will work; there are also situations in which freely available Internet resources will work. Let’s not act as if librarians are civilized and students are savages simply because students use the Internet.

I’ve set up a page of links on my History research guide: Research Guidelines or Writing Guides (or go to http://www.library.gsu.edu/research/hist and look under “Helpful Info” for the link to “Research Guidelines and Writing Guides”). The last link is to a page created by the ACRL Instruction Section that provides links to readings on the topic; in particular, note the first article from AHA Perspectives (“Best Practices“), but all look useful. If you have further suggestions, please leave a comment.

This is a week late, mostly because I’ve been sick and also swamped with instruction this semester. Anyway, I attended my first ALA meeting, spending three days in San Antonio, Texas (a place I’d never been to before). San Antonio is a nice enough place – I enjoyed walking to and from my hotel via the Riverwalk – but a hard place for vegetarian who doesn’t eat dairy. Food wasn’t all bad though, and I had some fantastic guacamole.

The Midwinter meetings started off as a disappointment for me (I won’t fully name names, but will say that AAMES needs to have people show up at its meetings or else cease existence), but I ended up having a lot of fun. I was surprised at how much fun I had, as I am usually very uncomfortable around strangers and am not much given to networking. I even learned a lot in the vendor area, finding some print sets of primary sources that will be useful for my library’s collections.

Most important for me, as a History Librarian, was the meeting in which a bunch of librarians discussed research competencies for history undergrads and grad students. I think this will be a useful project, especially with many universities requiring departments to measure learning outcomes/assess teaching (beyond the course evals). The trick is to balance what the historical profession sees as its professional standards with the academic library world standards for information literacy; or maybe downplay library standards in favor of professional standards. Which leads one in the direction of the “Rochester Model” – that is, Stanley Wilder’s contention that librarians should view students as disciplinary apprentices rather than generic “information seekers.” I have to admit that I’m sympathetic to this model, but I would be since I’m a subject librarian.

So for the next few weeks, look to this space for thoughts on research competencies for history students as I try to think through different issues and work toward a draft of some sort. If there are any readers out there interested in the topic, I invite you to play along.