Beyond the Textbook
We’re Here to Help You Find
Primary Sources
Beyond the Textbook: Equity, Engagement, and Primary Sources in the Classroom was held on October 1, 2022 at LaSalle University. Below are resources that were presented at that conference.
Who? What? How?
WHAT IS PACSCL?
PACSCL – the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries, Inc. – is a group of 35 institutions that collect and make available weird and wonderful collections of rare books, archives, manuscript collections, and photographs that document not only the history of the greater Philadelphia area, but also the history of…everything?
“Everything” isn’t being cheeky. You can find information about women’s history, science, the environment, religion, anthropology, art, medicine, shipbuilding, chemistry, music and more, all within the collections of PACSCL members.
HOW DO I SPEAK TO ONE OF THESE MEMBER INSTITUTIONS?
Here’s where you can find all the member institutions within PACSCL. Contact information is given for each member representative, who you can contact if you want to learn more about their collections:
WHAT CAN PACSCL DO FOR MY STUDENTS?
PACSCL has created amazing resources that offer primary sources on women’s history, the history of medicine, medieval manuscripts, and resistance work in Philadelphia.
In Her Own Right: A Century of Women’s Activism, 1820-1920
Each project differs in how it presents primary sources. Some, like In Her Own Right, offer lesson plans. Others, like For the Health of the New Nation, present primary sources without context. All of the primary sources from these projects are free to download and use.
You and your students can also search over 12,000 collections by using the Philadelphia Area Archives search portal.
NEED HELP?
Contact Beth Lander, PACSCL Managing Director at director@pacscl.org. If Beth can’t answer your question, she can find someone who can.
Be a Better Googler
Why does Google exist? According to the Internet, “The main purpose of Google Search is to hunt for text in publicly accessible documents offered by web servers, as opposed to other data, such as images or data contained in databases.” But it’s really an ad agency. 80% of Alphabet’s revenue comes from ads placed on Google.
How does Google work? Google uses a combination of algorithms and numerous ranking factors to deliver webpages ranked by relevance on its search engine results pages (SERPs).
Here are some tips for you and your students to help bend Google to your will – and to help eliminate superfluous content:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11jVEmHvSJTjNxJ2OG1MMLBJZnUNUNFZ98jH-0JeHHkM/edit?usp=sharing
Subject-Based Primary Source Sites
There are dozens of sites online where you and your students can find primary sources by subject, type of access, and creator. Here’s a sampling:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rZCdI611OOOaoYdkgvQagMMGJclTz1K9A_yBxKVejy0/edit?usp=sharing
Here are some terms you should be familiar with:
Aggregator: “A website or program that collects related items of content and displays them or links to them.” A very good example of an aggregator is the Digital Public Library of America.
Catalog: Catalogs are sets of records to documents that share a location. A public library catalog is a prime example.
Index: An index is a set of records to documents that share some other attribute. ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) is a great example of an index.
Library Catalog Search Strategies
Searching a library catalog can be much like using a search engine. However, most libraries offer filters, things you can click on to limit your search by the name of an author, a subject, etc.
To learn more about library catalogs, go to: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18kWBm1PmzyZstDXQcbw0Zpa2Cnz99n1A/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116466057065671333548&rtpof=true&sd=true