Blog Post #2
For our second blog assignment, we were asked to locate online databases and to evaluate them on several criteria. We are to look at what types of sources were available on these sites as well as how easy they are to use.
I decided to look at two sites because the first site I will be discussing is not a traditional database with links to primary sources. As a public historian, I often find myself needing information that does not fall under primary or secondary resources. Sometimes I need a contact number of a museum curator or an address to a site. With that in mind, I found the site of the Victorian Preservation Association of Santa Clara Valley. (http://www.vpa.org/index.html) This site provides a great deal of information about their members’ homes as well as providing a community forum for people involved in preservation. The portion of their site that drew me in was their House Museum list. It is a state by state list of several house museums, complete with contact info, dates, and times, and addresses. The viewer can then click a link to go to that house museum’s own website. The list is not complete but it is helpful. I would love to find a complete list just like this. I know that a government site probably has one, but I am impressed that some amateur preservationists complied this much information. The site also contains a contact list for contractors and suppliers for historic preservation construction. Having a database with a more complete list of this sort of information would be invaluable for me. While it may not be a traditional database, this site is helpful and provides a template for something that I would love to one day create.
As for the more traditional primary source database, I found the Medieval and Renaissance Material Culture links page. (http://larsdatter.com/sitemap.htm) I chose this site because, as I mentioned before, I am always impressed to see someone with a passion for a subject create a useful webpage. To think that someone’s hobby could be so useful to scholars is very encouraging. This site provides links to articles, photo’s, diagrams, and recreations of almost every aspect of Medieval and Renaissance material culture. For example, if you are researching sailors of this era, simply click that link. Next you will find a list of available resources. There is contemporary artwork, manuscripts discussing sailors, and links to sites discussing life on a ship at the time. This site is easy to navigate and very user friendly. The site is not very attractive and is text heavy, but it fits into the utility of the site. The fact that it is a links page can cause a problem with dead links but I never found any. I personally do not study this topic but I can see it being useful for those who do.
For our second blog assignment, we were asked to locate online databases and to evaluate them on several criteria. We are to look at what types of sources were available on these sites as well as how easy they are to use.
I decided to look at two sites because the first site I will be discussing is not a traditional database with links to primary sources. As a public historian, I often find myself needing information that does not fall under primary or secondary resources. Sometimes I need a contact number of a museum curator or an address to a site. With that in mind, I found the site of the Victorian Preservation Association of Santa Clara Valley. (http://www.vpa.org/index.html) This site provides a great deal of information about their members’ homes as well as providing a community forum for people involved in preservation. The portion of their site that drew me in was their House Museum list. It is a state by state list of several house museums, complete with contact info, dates, and times, and addresses. The viewer can then click a link to go to that house museum’s own website. The list is not complete but it is helpful. I would love to find a complete list just like this. I know that a government site probably has one, but I am impressed that some amateur preservationists complied this much information. The site also contains a contact list for contractors and suppliers for historic preservation construction. Having a database with a more complete list of this sort of information would be invaluable for me. While it may not be a traditional database, this site is helpful and provides a template for something that I would love to one day create.
As for the more traditional primary source database, I found the Medieval and Renaissance Material Culture links page. (http://larsdatter.com/sitemap.htm) I chose this site because, as I mentioned before, I am always impressed to see someone with a passion for a subject create a useful webpage. To think that someone’s hobby could be so useful to scholars is very encouraging. This site provides links to articles, photo’s, diagrams, and recreations of almost every aspect of Medieval and Renaissance material culture. For example, if you are researching sailors of this era, simply click that link. Next you will find a list of available resources. There is contemporary artwork, manuscripts discussing sailors, and links to sites discussing life on a ship at the time. This site is easy to navigate and very user friendly. The site is not very attractive and is text heavy, but it fits into the utility of the site. The fact that it is a links page can cause a problem with dead links but I never found any. I personally do not study this topic but I can see it being useful for those who do.
RSS Feed