Dear all,
This is a very useful discussion indeed. We regularly give presentations to MA students (usually studying History or English). It's not quite about actually *using* the material in research, but I thought you may be interested to see an example of a web-based interactive tutorial about understanding and locating primary sources which I gave to a group of MA History students a couple of years ago (hence, some parts may be a bit out of date now). The tutorial was actually given in a computer room, with all the students able to work through it, click the links, do the quizzes and activities, and key in their own relevant search terms into the various websites, gateways etc., such as the NRA, Archives Hub et al. It remained available on the web for them to refer to at any time, as long as they could remember the web address, which is http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/toolkits/play_3836
A similar version, without the interactive quizzes, is available to all on our public website, as 'Using Archives': http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/usingarchives/introduction.aspx
Kathryn Summerwill
Assistant Archivist (Digital Access)
Manuscripts and Special Collections
The University of Nottingham
King's Meadow Campus
Lenton Lane
Nottingham
NG7 2NR
Working days: Tuesday morning, Wednesday, Thursday
Tel: 0115 8468650
email: [log in to unmask]
Manuscripts web pages: www.nottingham.ac.uk/mss
Manuscripts blog: http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscripts
________________________________________
From: Archivists, conservators and records managers. [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Jane Stevenson [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 06 February 2013 10:08
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: MA Students using archives for the first time: where to begin!
Hi all (me again!),
I gave a short talk to MA students yesterday about strategies for searching for archives. I talked about what archives are, tips for using archives, visiting reading rooms, using the various aggregators, etc etc.
However, in the hands-on what struck me is that they were asking me what to actually do with the archives. That is, how do they use them in their research. They seemed a bit overwhelmed with these huge descriptions they were finding and didn't know how to start thinking about ways to bring the archives into their dissertations.
I wondered if anyone knows of any advice out there that I can either point students to, or maybe utilities in order to create a few pages on the Hub about 'first steps in using archives for your dissertation'.
There are some great educational resources on TNA's Education pages, but they are more focussed on exercises using archives, and present exercises that are already worked out, they are not so much aimed at students at an MA level and how they work with the kinds of evidence that archives provide (although I might have missed something here - please let me know).
cheers,
Jane.
Jane Stevenson
The Archives Hub
Mimas, The University of Manchester
Devonshire House, Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9QH
email:[log in to unmask]
tel: 0161 275 6055
website: archiveshub.ac.uk
blog: archiveshub.ac.uk/blog
twitter: twitter.com/archiveshub
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