|
 |
|
Contact UsFor more information about how to contact the OSU Archives, please visit our Location, Hours, & Staff Information page for more about our location and hours. Using MaterialsThe holdings of the University Archives are open to faculty, staff, students, and the public for research. Reference assistance is provided by Archives staff to help determine the materials appropriate for specific research projects. Reference ServicesTo learn more about our how to do research in an archive, visit our Reference Services web page . Archives InstructionTo learn more about our how to use primary sources in the classroom and for course projects, visit our Instruction web page. Finding Primary Sources Outside OSU• This is a service provided by RLG, a non-profit organization of libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions. It is a centralized index to archival collections located throughout the world and is a valuable resource for locating records in other archives. • WorldCat is a global network of libraries that unite their collections in one master catalog. It is a union catalog of over 49 million records representing books, journals, dissertations, audio-visual materials, and manuscripts in repositories worldwide. • There are lots of primary source materials in libraries around the country; this catalog holds a growing number of more than 6,000 links to online finding aids. Included in their genealogy search are books, ship passenger lists, historical society records, archival photos, articles on research techniques, family histories, and digital image collections. National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) • The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections is a print and online catalog of manuscript collections held in US repositories. The Library of Congress provides a Web interface for searching archival and manuscript cataloging in OCLC WorldCat. This service is provided free-of-charge. National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States (NIDS) • By bringing together thousands of finding aids from libraries and archives across the United States and reproducing them on microfiche with a unified index, NIDS gives users unparalleled access to federal, state, academic and other documentary sources. In allowing researchers to examine actual finding aids, NIDS goes further than either NUCMC or RLIN which offer collection-level descriptions, but do not contain detailed listings of the contents of collections. This service is fee-based. • This is a current directory of over 5,500 repositories and more than 161,000 collections of primary source material across the United States . NUCMUC & NIDS were folded into this database. • Using ArchivesUSA, researchers are able to read descriptions of a repository's holdings to determine whether a collection contains material useful to their work as well as find the information they need to contact the repository directly. Repository records provide detailed information including phone and fax numbers, hours of service, materials solicited, email and home page URLs when available. Each collection record links to its corresponding repository record, simplifying the research process. • This service is fee-based. Repositories of Primary Sources • This is a listing of over 5000 websites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources for the research scholar. Includes international archives. • The UNESCO Archives Portal gives access to websites of archival institutions around the world. It is also a gateway to resources related to records and archives management and to international co-operation in this area. The Future• Do a basic Google search: you can find primary sources by using any search engine. • Use the Internet Archive • Look to Flickr: Library of Congress • What can you find on blogs? Here is an example of a blog using primary source materials as a base. • What will wikis mean? How will collaborative tagging, social tagging, or folksonomies shape how you search for items? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy and "Using Wikipedia to Extend Digital Collections" to provoke some thoughts. Contact UsPhone, fax, mail, and e-mail queries are accepted. |
 |
|
