Joel Sherlock
The Utility of an Online Bibliography by Joel Sherlock
I just completed a blog/website about the White Rose, a German Nazi-Resistance group that existed from 1942 to 1943 led by Hans and Sophie Scholl. They began a leaflet campaign denouncing the Nazis and the Holocaust, and calling upon Germans to rise up and fight against Hitler. Hans and Sophie were caught distributing leaflets at the University of Munich on February 18, 1943
and were executed four days later along with the co-conspirator Christoph Probst. The other three members of their group were executed shortly thereafter. After the war, their memory was carried on by their father, and other friends and members of the White Rose distribution network that survived the war.
While I was researching this topic, I noticed two things: first, there were a lot of websites dedicated to the White Rose that were far better than what I could possibly create; and second (and more importantly), there lacked a solid bibliography of White Rose resources in English. Knowing that the Scholl’s Gestapo interrogation interviews had been translated into English, I looked for them at the Western University library but to no avail. I emailed the History librarian suggesting that the library purchase that item. She responded back to me very quickly saying that she had struggled to find White Rose primary sources and would purchase them right away. I thought that was interesting since I had had a similar experience in my senior year of my undergrad at BYU with the History librarian.
My next question was, “How do two librarians at highly reputable universities not know about these very important resources?” My first thought was that maybe the publishing company didn’t market their materials very well. Second, it’s likely that they don’t have agreement with the two major academic book distributors–YBP and Coutts–to market their materials.
In these days where librarians don’t have time to seek out new materials, they are at the mercy of collection development tools that marketers create for them like selection software, search engines and recommendations (see “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought”) that websites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble create, and flyers and catalogues. Though these are solid tools, they do not represent a comprehensive inventory of what is available on a given topic. As a result, students and researchers are affected because their library has bought, to a degree, an imbalanced and biased collection. What do we do to resolve this issue? How can librarians make available a balanced collection without straining their other responsibilities?
My proposal is to bring back the bibliography. Before the internet age librarians would purchase bibliographies for their libraries so that researchers would know what was available for their research topic. The bibliography has since been replaced by library open public Access catalogues (OPACs), Google searches (including Books and Scholar), and the other tools I mentioned above. I would propose that rather than publishing these items in print again, these bibliographies be made available online through blogging sites like Word Press or Blogger, or using Wiki tech software. This way they can be easily added to, and users can contribute resources that they have found that the bibliography’s creator might have missed. I am also proposing that amateurs get involved with this kind of work. If you think you are somewhat of an expert on a topic, I would suggest you start compiling a list of sources relevant to your favourite research topic and make them available online for both librarians and researchers to use.
So this is what I have created. I know it’s not particularly graphically appealing, but the information is there, and I think it’s alright. If you go to the Bibliography and Webography sections, you’ll find lists of resources on The White Rose, both primary and secondary. I’m particularly pleased with the quantity of resources that I have. I do realize though it is still a work in progress, and the next step will be to annotate the Bibliography and Webography to make them more useful and informative to researchers.
I am tired of the commercialization of library collection development. I am tired of publishers and distributors telling librarians what to buy and shielding librarians from what they actually need. I am tired of library administrators pressuring librarians to adapt to their “system” and abandon the old ways of collection development. Let’s allow librarians to take collection development back, and give them a say in what they will acquire, and ensure that the library collection will rise to be the best and balanced research collection available.
If you would like to read more of Joel Sherlock’s work, visit his personal blog here!
Reflecting on Historical Building Tours by Joel Sherlock
As I’ve been working on my digital doors open project on Huron University College I’ve been reflecting on the usefulness of historical tours as a means of teaching history to the general public. Don’t get me wrong, I love building tours, and I’ve been to a few significant buildings in my life like Windsor Castle, Westminster Abbey, Salt Lake Temple, Empire State Building, and El Cabildo.
As I was searching through primary sources for old images of Huron College (yearbooks, photograph collections, etc.), I realized that there were relatively few clear, quality images of rooms in the college. Frustrated, I thought to myself “Why? Why weren’t there good images of the spaces in this building.” It was important to me because I wanted to kind of do a “then and now” comparison of the rooms. I realized there weren’t any good pictures because there is nothing inherently historically significant about rooms or buildings themselves. Buildings are transformed by events and relationships. What I did see in these primary source documents were lots of pictures of intramural teams, dances, clubs, dramatic productions, and random and impromptu social gatherings. In a nutshell, it’s the tradition and spirit of the institution that makes a building historical, not the building itself, hence the lack of images for my project.
As an institution, Huron College has been around since 1863; however, the current building in which the College is housed only opened in 1951. So it’s interesting that Huron was designated an Ontario historic site in 1963, even though the building was just 12 years-old at the time.
Another thing I’ve realized is that. when we do a building tour, we typically go from room to room, with a brief description of the historical significance of the room, and its architectural features. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it presents an incomplete history of the structure. What we don’t talk about is the interaction between rooms and how they function together to create events and significant moments. For example, when planning the Huron Ball–an annual semi-formal dance–certainly the whole thing was not planned and executed in the Great Hall of the College, where it used to be held. I’m sure a planning committee was formed, meetings occurred in various offices, classrooms, or dorm rooms, before the Huron Ball happened. What I’m suggesting is that we talk more about the relationships between the rooms to get a better sense of the building’s function.
So, how do we convey these relationships between spaces in the college or any other historic building? My suggestion is that we take a significant person who was affiliated with the building and center it around him/her. For example, suppose we’re putting on a tour of the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa, what if we put on a tour called “A Day in the Life of Pierre Trudeau“, and took visitors through Parliament as if they were Trudeau through his daily routine during a significant moment during his Prime Ministry like the October Crisis in Québec in 1970 or the Patriation of the Constitution in 1982. With this kind of approach to building tours, I think the historical significance of the building would impact people more deeply, and leave them with a greater appreciation for the history of the building.
You can read more of Joel Sherlock’s blogs on his personal blog site at http://jsherlo3.wordpress.com/.
Western HGSA 