RESOURCE: Teaching with Digital Primary Sources: Literacies, Finding and Evaluating, Citing, Ethics, and Existing Models

Brianna Gormly (Franklin & Marshall College), Maura Seale (University of Michigan), Hannah Alpert-Abrams (University of Texas), Andi Gustavson (University of Texas), Angie Kemp (University of Mary Washington), Thea Lindquist (University of Colorado Boulder), and Alexis Logsdon (University of Minnesota) have released a whitepaper entitled “Teaching with Digital Primary Sources: Literacies, Finding and Evaluating, Citing, Ethics, and Existing Models“ on #DLFteach, the Digital Library Federation (DLF) Digital Library Pedagogy Working Group.

From the introduction:

This white paper seeks to think through the limitations and affordances of teaching, researching, and otherwise working specifically with digital primary sources as defined above. Multiple scholars have argued that digital primary sources are distinct from physical primary sources in myriad ways. Databases perhaps embody a new form of textuality, associated with a new way of reading, which Alan Bilansky terms “digital textuality.”[5] Similarly, Ryan Cordell suggests that digital primary source collections be understood as “assemblages of new editions, subsidiary editions, and impressions of their historical sources.”[6] They are not just surrogates for analog primary sources, but as Paul Fyfe suggests, something new and distinctive.[7] The practice of searching, by which most digital primary sources are discovered, is connected to this new medium.[8] Although there is no consensus around how digital primary sources represent a distinct medium, there is growing agreement that they are distinct from analog versions of primary sources…

This work builds on the Environmental Scan and Literature Review produced by the previous iteration of the Teaching with Digital Primary Sources Subgroup. It begins with an overview of the various literacies that factor into working with digital primary sources and then considers other issues in finding, evaluating, and citing digital primary sources, emphasizing ethical use. The white paper concludes with existing models of teaching with digital primary sources.