Lab February 13

History 203L

Dimensions of History Lab

5:00 - 7:50 W (Lab)

CAS 128

Spring Semester, 2008

Roger Williams University

Michael R. H. Swanson Ph. D.

Office: CAS 110, Ext. 3230

Hrs: M. F. 1:00-2:00

T, 11:00-12:30, W 2:00-3:00

E-mail: History 203L@msn.com

Research Miscellany

This week's lab completes our three-part series on internet research. I know that this has felt a little like boot camp to some of you. But I trust you'll find it useful as you proceed to more sophisticated historical research. It has become habitual to divide the lab into two parts, the first being an exposition and discussion of some of the things on the week's menu, and the second being an opportunity for individual coaching as needed. So far, I've left it up to you to determine when and if you need coaching. Soon, perhaps even this week, I'll start to identify people that I think can benefit from some extra tender loving care. I will base this on what I observe in terms of projects like the Commonplace books and the MURL links page, or the techniques and tools I'm going to introduce tonight.

To Prepare Yourselves.

If you haven't done so already, download and install the Firefox browser, either the Regular Edition, Firefox 2.0

The Special Campus Edition

The Campus edition bundles together some useful add-ons, including the ability to play music while surfing. People can choose to add the same extensions to the regular edition. So if you already have the regular edition on your computer, It will probably be simpler to add those add-ons.

If you already have Firefox installed, you will want to add these extensions to it's capabilities.

I don't know who invents the names for these things--perhaps the same people who invented Exxon. Zotero is a brand new research tool which allows you to take, save, and oragnize notes on the documents you find online...including documents in restricted archives like J-Stor or Lexis Nexus.

You may also want to download

Cooliris allows one to preview a diffferent web page without clicking through to it.

The three other add-ons below are semi-useful, and more than semi-fun, which is why I include them as options. Do use Zotero and Cooliris with Firefox. The use of Piclens and Stumbleupon is optional (though I've become a stumbleupon addice, myself.

Piclens Creates full-sized images of pictures linked to certain websites, including the Google Image Search..

Stumble Upon is easy to use but hard to describe. It provides a browsing experience based on a set of parameters a user establishes, then takes the uses to a different website every time the user clicks the stumbleupon button. Persons are allowed to lrank the results like/dislike, and to send the links on to friends.

Finally, del.icio.us

Reviewed in The Web Pitch, del.icio.us ,,, in a world of millions of websites, bookmarking useful ones soon becomes difficult to manage. Sites such as Delicious help to solve this problem by ‘tagging’ your favourite sites. This allows for easier retrieval at a later date. Delicious also allows you to share your links with others, say your fellow team members.

If you have difficulty or are uncomfortable adding these programs to your maching. Send me an e-mail

If you are successful in adding these programs and feel like a knight in shining armor (Jeanne d'Acre was also a knight, or at least wore armor) by helping someone else, Send me an e-mail.

On-line Documents and Materials

There are too many of these to mention. Let me just cite four as examples.

The Annotated Bibliography Project

The titles of the ones above are pretty self-explanatory, save Carrie, which is a hub linking to a number of specialized colections, inluding Amdocs, Eurodoc, and Eurasian Docs. There are TWO Making of Americas. The upper resides at the University of Michigan. The lower one resides at Cornell University.

I'm going to hold off introducing you to the Data Bases accessible through the Roger Williams University Library. I may mention them once you get into the London Project. IF you need them further, there are librarians available to help you at the Learning Commons.

Along with the London Web Paper Project and the Commonplace Book, The Annotated Bibliography Project constitutes a major part of the laboratory grade for Dimensions of History. Here's a reminder of it:

4.Bibliography Project.

Each student will be assigned a random course from among

History 101, 102, 201, and 202. In addition, they will choose

one other history or American Studies Course from the

Roger Williams University Catalog..Faculty must approve the

course chosen.

Students will create an annotated bibliography of web

resources appropriate for those particular courses, using a

number of Web Portals:

The Librarian’s Guide to the Internet

ii.

The Internet Scout Report

iii.

Research Buzz

iv.

The Open Directory Project

Library-Based Data Bases such as J-Stor and

Lexis-Nexus.

Detailed Procedures.

Subscribe to the newsetter of the Librarian's Intetnet Index

Subscribe to The Internet Scout Report

Subscribe to the Infomine Newsletter (Choose the appropriate reports)

Each of the above will send you a weekly e-mail newsletter with a variety of useful websites in them. But all will not relate to your courses. Visit the ones that do seem to relate to your courses, Bookmark them to MURL (making separate folders in the public area for each course), and annotate them.

As your time allows, go back to the data bases on these websites, as well as the Open Directory Project, and search for appropriate websites to add to the list.

The project runs from this week until the end of the semester, and will be evaluated on the thoroughness of the inclusions and the quality of the annotations.

London Survey

How are you coming with Rutherfurd's London?