Archives, Research, Resources

This week we will be discussing two major topics. The first is the issue of online research. Obviously, many students use resources and search tools that are not always terribly effective. But it's worth thinking specifically about (1) how they search and (2) how Google works. Having a better understanding of student research practices may help you to craft more effective assignments. Meanwhile understanding Google's research algorithm may help you in conducting some of your own research.

Second, I'd like you to explore a few valuable, but often underused, resources that offer free access to a wide range of movies, TV shows, pictures, audio recordings, and other public domain artifacts. For your blog post, you should explore one of these resources and discuss some of the videos, images, or other tools that might be of value to you in either your teaching or your writing/research.

First, the Internet Archive may be familiar from my podcasts, but you might also find it valuable for its massive collection of public domain movies. These range from news shows, local TV broadcasting, and sports television to propaganda movies and other government films. These might include artifacts like films teaching farmers how to prepare for nuclear war (!) or educational films: this one is about the sun and starred Lionel Barrymore and Eddie Albert and was directed by Frank Capra.

Flickr is a free-to-use photography site where you can post photographs, or in some cases, borrow them for educational or other uses. Be sure to check the license to make sure they are free to use. Most images are licensed for limited use through Creative Commons, an online resource that allows the creator of a work to stipulate how he or she would like their work to be used.

The Getty Museum has a number of resources about art that might be of use, including lesson plans for K-12 classrooms.

Finally, the Library of Congress has a wide range of historical materials, including recordings of oral histories narrated by ex-slaves, as well as a wide range of early films, including many of the earliest films produced by Thomas Edison. But I also enjoy their collection of Coca-Cola ads.

For the blog post, you should discuss in detail what you find in one or more of these archives and how you might use it in your work. If possible, you should try to embed at least two images or videos. You should also link to an appropriate page on the archive you choose to discuss.